Senior Muslim BJP pioneer says political opponents utilize Muslim-Hindu viciousness to target party when it holds power
Friday, November 10, 2023
Nafis Ansari, a school head who is Muslim, was enrolled for this present year by the decision Hindu patriot Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a "Modi Mitr", or companion of Indian State leader Narendra Modi.
The occupant of the focal province of Madhya Pradesh elevates the party to neighbors and family members at occasions like weddings and tea meetings at companions' homes. He talks about how the BJP's government assistance strategies benefit all networks and hypes up India's status as a rising worldwide power under Modi.
Ansari is one of in excess of 25,000 Muslims who are electing to assist Modi with winning a third term in races due by May, BJP authorities said. The party searches for local area pioneers like teachers, business visionaries, pastors and resigned government representatives able to "dispassionately" evaluate Modi, said Jamal Siddiqui, top of the BJP's minorities unit.
Five Modi Mitrs and six BJP authorities answerable for political race procedure were consulted and they said the party desires to utilize its financial record and its arrangements to present religion-rationalist regulations on legacy and orientation freedoms to prevail upon oppressed Muslim electors, including ladies, in 65 key seats.
Particulars of the BJP's Muslim effort technique, for example, the informing it is involving to target citizens in these seats, have not been recently detailed.
The mission is important for a bigger push to charm India's 200 million Muslims, with whom the BJP and Modi have a long and laden history.
Muslims and privileges bunches affirm a few BJP individuals and partners have advanced enemy of Islamic disdain discourse and brutal vigilantism, focused on non-benefits show to different religions with administrative activity, and wrecked Muslim-claimed properties.
Modi denies strict segregation exists in India. Savagery among Muslims and the Hindu greater part is "well established" however just stands out as truly newsworthy now on the grounds that political adversaries use it to focus on the party when it holds power, said senior BJP pioneer Syed Zafar Islam, who is Muslim.
The state head leads in the surveys, however a recently bound together resistance coalition and a new misfortune in a key state political race host left gathering pioneers stressed over an enemy of occupant vote and unfortunate the BJP has expanded help in its Hindu patriot base, experts and resistance pioneers said.
"Until you know us, you will not remember us. Until you remember us, (we) won't become companions," expressed Siddiqui of the party's Muslim effort.
Economy-first and Muslim citizens
The BJP's site expresses that secularism in India has become "minority conciliation ... at the expense of greater part". A few experts say the party has politicized faultlines among Hindus and Muslims so much that Modi's bureau doesn't have a solitary Muslim pastor.
The party irregularly looked for Muslim help in past territorial surveys, however this public mission is the first and generally far reaching of its sort, as per Siddiqui and Hilal Ahmed, a specialist on Muslim governmental issues at the Middle for the Investigation of Creating Social orders, a Delhi-based think tank.
The BJP, which won about 9% of the Muslim vote in the last two national elections, is targeting 16% to 17% next year, said Yasir Jilani, a spokesman for its minority unit.
Two officials said the BJP is targeting 65 seats in the 543-member lower house of parliament, which has a Muslim voting population of at least 30%, roughly double their share of the national population. They shared details of internal party strategy on condition of anonymity.
The BJP currently holds about two dozen seats, according to party officials, who declined to provide specific details on the exact seats being targeted.
Modi Mitr aims to spread the BJP's economic message especially to the "Pasmanda" Muslims, an Urdu term for the marginalized members who form the majority of this religious community.
Ansari, who is Pashmanda, speaks to Muslim friends and neighbors at rallies about new programs such as a monthly allowance of 1,250 rupees ($15) for underprivileged women from BJP-run state agencies and a housing subsidy of 150,000 rupees launched by the central by the government.
"BJP's social programs help everyone, including Muslims," he said.
Ujir Hossain, a Modi Mitr trader in West Bengal, also spreads an economy-centric message when he visits his neighbor Mohammed Qasim's grocery store. Hossain said he was attracted to the BJP because there was a "heaven and earth difference" between Modi's achievements and those of the previous centre-left government.
"Of course Muslims don't like Modi's party, but Hossain Dada tells us that we should at least listen to what the BJP has to offer," Qasim said, using a Bengali honorific for "elder brother".
"The BJP never respected and addressed the concerns of this section of society and instead systematically marginalized them," said KC Venugopal, a senior lawmaker from the opposition Congress party, which held power just before Modi.
Asked about allegations of appeasement of minorities, he said the Congress was not following a divide-and-rule strategy: "Elections should be fought on economic and developmental issues, not on the basis of religion and identity."
BJP leaders such as Islam, the former India head of Deutsche Bank, said the opposition was taking Muslim votes for granted and neglecting their welfare.
"We have a long way to go, the gap is too steep, but it is being overcome," he said.
Among Muslim women, the BJP is pushing its commitment to reform personal laws. Supporters of the plan, including some Muslim women's rights groups, say it will end religious practices regarding the age of marriage, polygamy and inheritance that discriminate against women.
"You can criticize the BJP for a lot of other things, but I don't think anyone except this government is willing to reform personal laws," said Amana Begam Ansari, a Pasmanda writer and political analyst who is not related to Nafis. Ansari.
"Extremists everywhere"
Violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims have become less frequent since the BJP took power, according to government data, but tensions remain high. In government, the BJP often uses coercive powers to try to prevent inter-communal tensions from spilling over into outright violence because of concerns about its message of law and order and India's international reputation, some analysts say.
Many Muslims say they live in fear of Hindu activists fueled by the BJP's cultural nationalism policies, according to community leaders and foreign researchers. Critics see such nationalism as a euphemism for Hindu supremacy.
Opposition leaders and analysts like Ahmed, a political expert, said the BJP is likely to make gains among Muslims next year if it is not faced by the opposition.
The BJP has a dual strategy of "demonising Muslims" for its hardline base and wooing sections of the Muslim population, Ahmed said.
"The demonization of Muslim men will continue, but Muslim women will be shown a soft spot," he said. “Similarly… (there will be) some positivity shown to Pasmandas.
Ghanshyam Tiwari, a spokesman for the opposition Samajwadi Party, which has a large Muslim base, said the BJP's position as the ruling party gives it the ability to craft policies that may win over some Muslims.
"But no matter what the BJP does, it does not change its basic colours, the basic elements which remain anti-Muslim and anti-minority," Tiwari said.
Ansari, a Modi Mitr educationist, said the BJP should check extremist activists who are "ruining" its image but still support the party.
"Extremists are everywhere," he said.
