What the Bihar polls tell us about BJP, Cong and Owaisi

There are several takeaways from the recent Bihar elections: Despite all the State power and money power, the BJP did not win the largest number of seats; that credit goes to the Tejashwi Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal. Despite being called the ‘Yuvaraj of Jungle Raj’, Yadav seemed to have captured the imagination of the people and almost ran away with victory, but for some grievously wrong calculations of his coalition partner Congress’ strength. Nitish Kumar, the three-term Chief Minister, is back in power, but without mandate, thanks to the strength of the BJP in the alliance.

Congress has become irrelevant in the Hindi heartland states of UP, Bihar and MP (where it had won popular mandate but lost power). The Leftists have made a strong comeback, but most remarkable has been the success of the CPI (M-L), a party that, not long ago, did not believe in parliamentary democracy, but seems to have realised the value of popular mandate acquired through peaceful means. And finally, there is the emergence of Asaduddin Owaisi as a factor of political significance beyond the limits of Hyderabad city.

Much has been written on the implications of the Bihar poll results. But what’s most significant in terms of an emerging trend is the rise of Owaisi as a possible pan-India Muslim leader. Owaisi, a politician from Hyderabad, parachuting into Bihar and contesting in the Muslim majority region of Seemanchal and taking away five seats has been seen by Congress leaders as an important factor for their debacle. An implied argument is that Owaisi was brought into the Bihar electoral scene by the BJP to deprive Congress of Muslim votes. This is a poor excuse for a party that lost 50 other seats where Owaisi made no difference.

The importance of Owaisi is much larger. He could potentially reshape the nature of our politics. Before we examine the larger issue, certain facts first.

The AIMIM began as Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) in 1927 as a party to support the Nizam of Hyderabad in his intent not to accede to the Indian Union in 1947. It aimed to form a Muslim Dominion, with Hyderabad as the capital of ‘South Pakistan’. By 1944, its new leader, Qasim Rizvi, set about organising the Razakars as the ‘storm troopers’ for the Islamist party to fight against annexation by the Indian Union. However, the ‘police action’ ordered by Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel quickly overcame the resistance and Qasim Rizvi was arrested and imprisoned from 1948 to 1957. He was released by the Nehru government on the condition that he would go to Pakistan, where he was granted asylum. Before Rizvi left for Pakistan, he handed over the reins of MIM to Abdul Waheed Owaisi, the grandfather of Asaduddin Owaisi.

The MIM, renamed as AIMIM in 1975, has held the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat since 1984 and at present has two seats (one from Hyderabad and another from Maharashtra). It has a presence in the Legislative Assemblies of Maharashtra (2/288) and Telangana (7/119) and in the Legislative Council in Telangana (2/40). And now, with 5/243 seats in the Bihar Assembly, the party has opened a good account in a state where it failed in the 2019 parliamentary elections. Though the ideology of this party is ‘Islamic nationalism’, it claims to be a ‘secular’ party in its political position. Can a party openly promoting the sectarian interest of a community (whether majority or minority) claim to be secular?

The truth is that the ‘soft-secularism’ of Congress led to the success of ‘hard-Hindutva’ of BJP, and the BJP’s majoritarian politics has now led to the AIMIM trying to aggregate Muslim votes under its banner. Neither Narendra Modi nor Asaduddin Owaisi are flattered by terms such as ‘secular’ and are happy doing what they do, because that gets them votes.

Objectively speaking, in the long run, the aggregation of Muslim votes under one party, should actually work in favour of the BJP, for it helps to weaken the ‘centrist’ parties and narrows down the choice to either a Hindutva party or an Islamist party. And encouraging Owaisi could be part of such a plan. Fortunately, our society has not been so polarised yet, though no efforts have been spared by the ruling party in the last six years.

The more important question is, will Owaisi succeed in becoming a pan-India leader of the Muslims? Is Owaisi the ‘New Jinnah’ for the Muslims of India? Well, one thing can be said with certainty: the Muslims in India do not want another Jinnah, as they are yet to recover from the Partition of 1947. And nobody in their right senses would like to go to Pakistan, not even the Kashmiri youth who are fighting the Indian Army in the Valley.

It must be noted, however, that the Muslim community is neither uniform nor homogenous in its social, cultural and economic conditions and aspirations across the country. A Muslim in Kerala or Karnataka has nothing in common with his co-religionists in UP and Bihar. So, Owaisi could well remain a marginal player. Moreover, Muslims have always found more resonance with the liberal, centrist mainstream parties rather than with Islamic parties. Owaisi might have won five seats in a Muslim majority region of Bihar, but the Mahagathbandhan has 13 Muslim MLAs, 8 from RJD, 4 from Congress and 1 from CPI (M-L). This should clearly inform Owaisi’s politics and his alignment. Despite this, if Owaisi wins a sizeable number of seats in the forthcoming Bengal elections, it will be clear as to who has done all the heavy lifting for him.

Notwithstanding all this, India’s plural and multicultural politics cannot be held hostage to the demands of either Hindutva or Islamic nationalism. Both fail to fulfil the basic minimum promise made by ‘We, the people’ in the Preamble to our Constitution.

(The writer, a former Cabinet Secretariat official, is Visiting Fellow, ORF, New Delhi)