Disruptor or Power Player? How AIMIM challenges India’s secular playbook

By invoking B R Ambedkar, Asaduddin Owaisi seeks to link Muslim marginalisation to wider structures of social oppression, challenging the notion that Muslim politics must remain confined to religious identity alone

Those who write obituaries for political parties often underestimate the resilience of democracy. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi has been the target of such premature assessments. Yet the party has endured sustained and scathing criticism across the ideological spectrum and emerged stronger, proving its detractors wrong.

Attempts by ‘secular’ political parties to undermine Owaisi’s political legacy by projecting the AIMIM as a ‘vote-splitter’ benefiting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) echo an old political playbook. This recalls the 1980 general elections, when Congress leader Indira Gandhi reportedly mobilised Muslim clerics to caution voters against supporting community-based parties, such as the Muslim League, warning that such choices would polarise society and strengthen Hindutva forces such as the Jana Sangh.

A similar mechanism adopted by the Congress and several regional ‘secular’ parties has failed to convince 21st-century Muslim voters. Owaisi’s politics unsettles the familiar logic of ‘vote for us or risk the BJP’, forcing opposition parties to confront their own shortcomings in winning Muslim confidence.

Owaisi’s political journey reached a decisive turning point in 2012, when the AIMIM withdrew support to the Congress government at the Centre and state following the Charminar–Bhagyalaxmi Temple controversy. That rupture marked his point of no return: the party ceased to function as a peripheral ally and, instead, positioned itself as an independent vehicle of Muslim political assertion.

Since 2012, Owaisi has rejected the long-standing patronage model that mobilised Muslim votes without delivering real leadership or institutional power. In its place, he advanced a politics rooted in constitutional rhetoric, direct confrontation, nationalist framing, inclusive development, and an ambition to expand the AIMIM beyond Hyderabad. The party’s transformation is best understood as the result of sustained recalibration driven by historical grievance and contemporary exclusion; a slow burn rather than a flash in the pan.

One of the clearest signals of this shift has been strategic: the transition from the slogan ‘Jai Meem’ to ‘Jai Meem, Jai Bheem’. This move was not rhetorical, but an attempt to situate Muslim political assertion within a broader Dalit–Bahujan framework. By invoking B R Ambedkar, Owaisi seeks to link Muslim marginalisation to wider structures of social oppression, challenging the notion that Muslim politics must remain confined to religious identity alone. Whether this alignment deepens electorally remains uncertain, but it represents a deliberate effort to broaden the AIMIM’s political appeal.

The AIMIM’s approach to candidate selection has further reflected this assertive turn. The decision to field undertrials such as Tahir Hussain and Shifa-ur-Rehman in the 2025 Delhi Assembly polls, highlights Owaisi’s challenge to the systematic criminalisation of Muslim political voices. By turning incarceration and stigma into political questions, the AIMIM positioned itself as a party willing to represent those excluded from mainstream respectability. Notably, the party has also experimented with fielding non-Muslim candidates, particularly from Dalit and OBC backgrounds, weakening the critique that frames the AIMIM as exclusively a Muslim party.

In the recent Bihar polls, the AIMIM converted marginalisation into political narrative, and the result was electorally significant: it emerged as a serious force in the Seemanchal region, translating resentment into representation. Similarly, its recent performance in Maharashtra’s civic elections, which included the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation polls, where it won 126 seats, underscored its growing presence in urban Muslim and Dalit neighbourhoods.

In this context, the party’s name, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, has taken on renewed meaning. Owaisi has increasingly sought to reinterpret ‘Ittehad’ as unity grounded in shared marginalisation, rather than religious exclusivity. Whether the AIMIM can re-imagine itself as a party for the ‘Aalameen’ (for all communities) will depend on its ability to institutionalise this vision beyond rhetoric.

The AIMIM’s emergence and its national viability will face a crucial test in Assam in the coming months, and in Uttar Pradesh in 2027. These arenas marked by deep polarisation, complex caste arithmetic, and entrenched regional parties, pose formidable challenges. These contests will not only shape the AIMIM’s future but also compel the Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) to reassess their strategies: either by rebuilding Muslim confidence through substantive engagement, or by managing the political challenge posed by the AIMIM.

Owaisi’s decision to reject political dependency and pursue independent representation will determine whether this path leads to enduring power or remains a disruptive force. But the die is cast. The AIMIM has reshaped the conversation around Muslim political agency and positioned itself as an unavoidable political force in contemporary Indian politics.

Sayed Rashad Ikmal is an independent researcher on India’s socio-political landscape. X: @rashadikmal.