Mamata’s Muslim Gameplan

It was the tip of May 2019. The BJP’s aggressive marketing campaign in opposition to Mamata Banerjee’s appeasement politics bore fruit because the Trinamool Congress (TMC) misplaced 12 seats within the parliamentary election to wind up with a decreased tally of simply 22 of the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies within the state. Hardly had the West Bengal chief minister acquired time to regulate to the brand new actuality of the BJP turning into her chief challenger than a seemingly innocuous query at a post-results press convention on whether or not she’ll attend Iftaar events threw her right into a mood. “I appease Muslims, no?” she mentioned. “I’ll go there a hundred times. Je goru doodh dei tar lathi-o khete hoi (I am willing to be kicked by a cow that gives milk).” Nothing, she made it clear, would cease her from altering her sta­nce in the direction of a group that had fetched her wealthy political dividend. Of the TMC’s 43.3 per cent vote share in 2019, Muslims accounted for 23.3 per cent. Min­orities comprise 30 per cent (roughly 30 million) of Bengal’s inhabitants.However, practically two years later, with the meeting election looming in March-April, Mamata seems uncertain about what until lately see­med an assured vote financial institution. The alternative has turn into equally vexed for the Muslim voter as too many political gamers have thrown their hats within the ring.Among them is Pirzada Abbas Siddiqui, the fourth-generation descendant of Sufi saint Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiqui, who’s commemorated on the standard shrine of Furfura Sharif. The cleric has expressed a need to drift a socio-political platform together with eight different social organisations of Adivasis, Dalits and backward lessons, and contest 44-50 seats from south Bengal within the upcoming meeting election. His organisation, the identify for which he has but to announce, intends to work for the upliftment and empowerment of what he calls “the weaker sections”, of which Muslims represent a big share.Why Mamata ought to fearWhy ought to this fear Mamata? Furfura Sharif, positioned in Hooghly district, controls over 3,000 mosques and several other charitable ins­titutions, instructional institutes, orphanages, madrasas and well being centres. Its writ runs sturdy amongst Muslims within the adjoining Howrah, South and North 24 Parganas districts. These 4 districts in south Bengal have 25 per cent of the state’s Muslims and account for roughly 33 per cent, or 98, of the state’s 294 meeting seats. The TMC gained 11 of the 14 parliamentary seats from these districts in 2019, the minorities having voted for Mamata en bloc.Till lately, it was Abbas’s uncle and the senior pirzada, Twaha Siddiqui, who was the face of Furfura Sharif. Known to be near Mamata, he was shocked to understand that not solely had his nephew charted his personal course but in addition made his place shaky.Ever because the lockdown, Abbas, the 33-year-old scion of Furfura Sharif, has held greater than 60 rallies in South and North 24 Parganas, which account for 65 seats in south Bengal. Each of those gatherings attracted large crowds. The topic of discussions at these rallies varies from faith to politics, however the underlying thread is the deprivation of Muslims, their structural backwardness underneath successive secular regimes, all of whom have provided appeasement however not growth in trade for his or her votes.”Imandar Musalman Bhai,” he addresses his audiences amid large rounds of applause as he flits from one chapter of deprivation to a different. “The direct railway line between Dankuni and Furfura is yet to happen, the only hospital in Furfura is in a shambles, the sanctioned ITI college is still a playground…” While itemizing this litany of neglect, he tells crowds he was not there to be chief minister, as his detractors declare, however to carry accountable the particular person holding the state’s high job.The Abbas-Owaisi bondAbbas’s crowd-pulling abilities and plain-speaking have caught the eye of Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, whose AIMIM (All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen) plans to contest the Bengal election. In a state the place 80 per cent of the Muslims communicate Bengali, Abbas has emerged as Owaisi’s finest wager. The AIMIM chief has already had preliminary talks with Abbas and agreed to contest the ballot underneath his management.There are roughly 102 seats within the state the place the minority vote issues, of which 60 per cent, or 61 seats, are in south Bengal. Mamata was capable of retain most of those meeting segments within the 2019 common election. But with a number of gamers apart from the Congress-Left mix searching for a slice of the minority pie, she is underneath stress.However, greater than the cut up within the minority vote, Abbas’s stand in opposition to the TMC authorities is making Mamata nervous. He’s utilizing onerous information on growth indices, very like the Sachar Committee report in 2009, to tell and educate the Muslims. The Sachar Committee’s revelations on the situation of Bengal’s Muslims underneath Left rule have been thought of instrumental within the minority vote swinging in favour of Mamata, who was then a rising star and a mighty challenger to the Left.”Mamata’s nervousness is understandable,” says Amal Kumar Mukhopadhyay, social scientist and a former professor on the Presidency University. “She fears that Abbas Siddiqui will upset her applecart with hard facts, which she perhaps thought she could camouflage and fictionalise with her appeasement politics.”Careful to not publicly assault Abbas herself, Mamata has reportedly requested Twaha, the senior pirzada, to both rein in his nephew or engineer cracks within the new Abbas-Owaisi consolidation. Twaha has obliged in an announcement declaring, “Politics is no place for a religious leader. If you are into politics, you have to play by the rules of the game. Attacks, foul language, wrong moves, all are part of the game, and using Furfura Sharif as a shield is wrong.”Abbas has retaliated by saying {that a} non secular chief and cleric can present the world the precise route. “What is wrong in having a broader platform to work for the betterment of the poor and weaker sections?” he asks. Imankalyan Lahiri, a professor of worldwide relations at Jadavpur University, finds the concept of floating a broader subaltern non secular platform attention-grabbing. “It is being consciously done to stop the Adivasis and Dalits from seeking refuge in mainstream political parties, which use them only as vote banks. Do you think Dalits feel good about having to host big political leaders in order to get some limelight? For a moment maybe, but what after the limelight has faded and they continue to live in neglect and abject poverty?” asks Lahiri. Even although it could not get traction in its goal group at this stage, the subaltern platform, Lahiri feels, is an efficient initiative to draw consideration.Mamata’s minority cardTactful so far as Abbas is worried, Mamata has deployed the All Bengal Imams Association to woo Muslims again to her fold. Of the 40,000-odd mosques in West Bengal, the affiliation has members in 23,000 mosques. The president of the affiliation, Mohammad Yahiya, has already mentioned faith and politics can not go collectively. “Bengal has a tradition of Hindus and Muslims living together as brothers. Whether Hindus or Muslims, people in Bengal have one identity-of being Bengalis first,” Yahiya has mentioned. Urdu-speaking Muslim organisations from Hyderabad, like Owaisi’s AIMIM, can by no means safe a foothold in Bengal, he provides. Mamata, too, maintains that Owaisi represents solely 6 per cent of the Urdu-speaking Muslims in Bengal and won’t affect the remaining 24 per cent of Bengali Muslims.Mamata can be utilizing her cabinet minister Siddiqullah Chowdhury, who represents the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind and has clout within the Burdwan, Birbhum and East Midnapore districts in south Bengal. Muslims represent 21 and 35 per cent of the inhabitants within the Burdwan and Birbhum districts, respectively. Chowdhury likens the AIMIM to the Muslim League and the BJP to the Hindu Mahasabha of pre-Independence days, which had advocated the two-nat­ion principle that led to India’s Partition. Budding friendship: Asaduddin Owaisi with Pirzada Abbas (in entrance)”To divide minority votes, they have caught hold of a party from Hyderabad. The BJP gives them the money, and they divide the votes. The Bihar election has proved it,” Mamata tells her audiences in rally after rally. Accustomed to allegations of his get together being the BJP’s B-team, Owaisi retorted by way of a tweet: “So far, you’ve only dealt with obedient Mir Jaffers and Sadiqs. You don’t like Muslims who think and speak for themselves. Muslim voters aren’t your jagir.” Owaisi has been working in Bengal over the previous yr and has constructed a substantial base in north Bengal’s Malda, Murshidabad, and North and South Dinajpur districts. In the final election in 2019, the BJP gained three of the seven Lok Sabha seats on this area.However, Mamata is extra measu­crimson in her feedback on Abbas. The assaults, harassment and heckling that Abbas and his followers could have allegedly confronted by the hands of TMC goons and the police have been handed off as political scuffles between Abbas and the BJP.The ruling TMC is clearly rattled. Having opponents for the 30 per cent minority pie, which had been its monopoly for the previous decade, will have an effect on the get together’s vote share. It may even set off aggressive polarisation, which is able to work within the BJP’s favour.These are misgivings that Mamata has reportedly shared inside her shut circle. She will discover it troublesome to interrupt the rabid Hindu polarisation that Owaisi, together with his fiery oratory and air of Muslim assertion, will almost definitely provoke. No quantity of pandering-whether doles for group Durga puja committees, revamping of Hindu pilgrimage websites or allowances to priests-will suffice.Outwardly, although, the TMC rubbi­shes talks of those teams enjoying spoiler for Mamata. TMC minister Firhad Hakim continues to name Owaisi’s get together the BJP’s B-team and slams its position in serving to the BJP-JD(U) alliance type the federal government in Bihar. “He’s coming here as a vote-cutter, hoping to strengthen the BJP’s hands, but this will never happen. Muslims know that he attacks the BJP in public meetings and meets Amit Shah in private,” he says, whereas taking care to spotlight Mamata’s ‘real’ emotions for Muslims.Win-win for BJPIn all this, it’s the BJP that appears to be the quiet gainer. Noor-ur Rahman Barkati, who was sacked because the imam of Tipu Sultan Masjid however retains substantial clout in Kolkata and its adjoining areas, made no bones in regards to the BJP benefitting from the division within the minority vote financial institution. Even Anwar Pasha of the AIMIM, who had joined the TMC, mentioned that his erstwhile get together’s entry in Bengal politics will profit the BJP in the identical method because it did in Bihar.”No matter how hard we try to firm up the religious polarisation narrative for a vertical split on communal lines, we will always end up being 30 per cent vote share behind, with the minorities voting en bloc for whoever has been in power. Now, with more than one player trying to woo the minorities, our job looks easier,” says a senior BJP chief, on situation of anonymity. The BJP is but to say a phrase in opposition to Owaisi. And indifferent although it would seem, the saffron get together can be making an attempt to woo the minority vote in its personal method. In 2019, it secured 4 per cent of the minority vote. Given the opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act, it plans to weave in polarisation throughout the bigger problems with the collapse of regulation and order, rise in crime charges, blatant violation of guidelines and corruption, as Diptiman Sengupta, BJP chief and spokesperson of North Bengal, reveals. “Going through the criminal records and cases of violation of rules will reveal the identity of criminals without us having to say anything in black and white,” he says. “We did the groundwork for polarisation in 2019. People are polarised; now we just need to sit back and watch. By talking incessantly and overtly about religion, Hindus and Muslims, we will put our gain of 20 per cent Left vote share in 2019 at risk.””A shift of a few percentage points in our favour will be a win-win situation,” says BJP nationwide vice-president Mukul Roy. “The BJP has indeed done some good work, especially on triple talaq and various central government schemes for all during the lockdown. This time, we’ll also get Muslim votes because anti-incumbency is high among south Bengal’s Muslims, who were deprived of relief material and compensation after Cyclone Amphan.” The BJP goes into the Bengal meeting ballot with renewed confidence. A cut up within the Muslim vote can solely bode properly for the get together.