Muslims and New Manmohan Government

After getting near-absolute majority in the recently held general elections many Congress leaders have spoken arrogantly. They have specially done so in the context of U.P. where they have reaped rich electoral dividends. The Congress arrogance has been directed towards Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal which were equally arrogant before the polls when they had sought to reduce the grand old party to being a marginal player in U.P. and Bihar. If it were just political tit for tat, no one would raise his eyebrows. It would be, however, alarming if the Congress behaviour is the result of a deeply thought out policy. It is alarming because it smacks of what in plain words is called “use and throw policy”. Congress may have a million complaints against the SP, especially its talkative leader, Amar Singh but it must remember that this was also the party which saved Manmohan government during the confidence vote last year.

It is not our case that one or another party is good or bad, nor do we subscribe to the idea that a political party should always act morally ignoring its long-term strategic interests and considerations. We already know that morality has long been banished from Indian politics, hence talking about the non-existent would serve no purpose. What concerns us here is that a political party or formation, which notoriously lacks internal democracy, is usually prone to corruption and dictatorial attitude. In this context, we feel that a coalition government consisting of like-minded parties is good for the complex and diverse Indian society. Such a government naturally develops a working mechanism of checks and balances to keep it focused on the goals for which it has come into being.

India’s most political parties are in the habit of forgetting the electorate after the general elections. More than other groups, Muslims have experienced it time and again. Since 1952 Muslims have consistently been voting for secular parties and formations which have ruled over the country for a major part, and yet they have been ignored by the very people whom they have been voting to power. This explains the reasons for their all round marginalization.

True, the political parties have used Muslims as a vote bank. There is also no denying the fact that they have been victims of “use and throw” policies of the political parties. But this is one side of the coin.

Common people are normally simple-minded and hold some external agencies/factors as being responsible for the problems or tragedies that happen in their lives. Few indulge in self-introspection to find out the weaknesses within which the outside inimical forces might have exploited to bring about tragedies in their lives. This side of the coin is often hidden from the eyes of the common Muslims. This is especially true about the Indian Muslims.

Over the years we have developed a mentality to find out and blame external enemies for all our problems. It is not our case that our external enemies are sitting idle; they are indeed proactive. But surely they succeed in their inimical designs only when our own weaknesses collaborate with them. While it is important to know our external enemies, it is equally essential to discover the enemy within. And the greatest enemy we have among ourselves is our indifference to higher education. It is clear that the new Manmohan government would create many more institutions of higher learning. The fifteen central universities it set up just before the elections are bound to offer thousands of lucrative jobs. Let us introspect how many Muslims have the necessary qualifications to grab them.

Within days the new Manmohan government will be in place. During his last tenure the Prime Minister gave us a sort of official document in the form of Sachar Committee Report which bears testimony to the all round decline and marginalization of the Muslim community. There was a strong case for giving reservations to Muslims on the line the Congress government has done in Andhra Pradesh. The fear of BJP’s hue and cry over the issue prevented the last Manmohan government from doing it. As a result it created some scholarships etc. to help young Muslims pursuing higher education.

As a part of its long-term policy of winning back Muslims to its fold, Congress, or the Manmohan government has created a full-fledged Ministry of Minority Affairs. We hope the new cabinet will have a relatively young and dynamic Minister of Minority Affairs. There is need to devise a practical strategy to quickly bring Muslims in the arena of higher education. The new Minister of Minority Affairs should specifically be tasked for creating avenues and atmosphere for higher education among the Muslims. Over and above all, it is the duty of the Muslim community and its leadership to devise ways to benefit from the new government. Our failure on this front would be our enemy within which we alone can overcome. The advantage we have today is that the Sachar Committee has already identified the problems of the Muslim community. Surely a responsible government should be duty-bound to act positively in this regard. But as Muslims we also owe a responsibility to think or apply our mind to devise strategies for solving our problems. We must prepare proposals and submit to the government for making the Ministry of Minority Affairs more meaningful. One such suggestion may be to empower this Ministry to open and run good schools in minority-dominated areas. Another may be to open branches of Maulana Azad Open Urdu University in Delhi, Srinagar and Lucknow etc. There are some minority-managed institutions, like Jamia Hamdard in Delhi or Shibli College in Azamgarh, which may be offered special packages to be viable and vibrant centres of higher and quality education benefiting both the minority and majority communities.

[May, 2009]