Why Should Muslims Vote For The BJP?

Sutanu Guru

It is virtually impossible to be familiar with the names of all the 543 Lok Sabha MPs. But every now and then, even the relatively obscure ones do or say something that grabs national headlines and they become notorious in the process. Ramesh Bidhuri, BJP MP from south Delhi since 2014 is one such person who has not only become notorious, but also made it all the more difficult for the BJP to attract votes from the Muslim community.

At one stroke, Bidhuri could possibly have smashed to smithereens the painstaking efforts being made by a core BJP team led by Narendra Modi to convince “Pasmanda” Muslims (who come from traditionally disadvantaged backgrounds) over the last few years that it is worthwhile supporting the BJP during elections. Social media will ensure that virtually every Muslim voter in India who doesn’t even follow politics all that closely will see and hear what Bidhuri did and said.

Frankly, if I were a Muslim and saw the exchange between Bidhuri and Ali, I doubt I would vote for the BJP. On the last day of the special session of Parliament that passed the historic women’s reservation bill, Bidhuri was speaking in the Lok Sabha when the BSP MP Danish Ali kept interrupting him. “In retaliation”, Bidhuri called Ali a pimp, a mullah an extremist (or even terrorist) Muslim and much worse.

Given the din and noise surrounding the women’s reservation bill and India’s diplomatic “war” with Canada, almost all media platforms missed this event. But then this is the age of social media and by the next day, social media platforms were awash with videos of the exchange.

So offensive and horrible were the words used by Bidhuri (and that too inside the new Parliament building when it was conducting its first session) that one of the senior most leaders of the BJP and Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh felt compelled to express regret soon as reports of the event surfaced.

Quite justifiably, there has been all round condemnation of Bidhuri and demands for his expulsion from the Lok Sabha. It seems the BJP president J. P. Nadda has issued a show cause notice to him. Not surprisingly, opposition politicians and parties have been the loudest and fiercest in attacking Bidhuri for his hateful statements. Not surprisingly too, liberals in the media have gone hammer and tongs at Bidhuri and the BJP claiming this is one more instance of the party nurturing a culture of prejudice and hate.

Inevitably, global media outlets will have opinion pieces mourning the death of Indian democracy under an “authoritarian and fascist” Modi. But having seen the deeds and antics of politicians for more than three and half decades, I am not sure if the “moral” outrage is genuine.

Not very long ago, when the Shiv Sena-Congress-NCP alliance was in power in Maharashtra, Sena leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut had publicly described Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut as “haramkhor”.

Not many paragons of liberalism were saying that Raut was being downright misogynistic and hateful. In any case, the liberals have never liked the BJP and party leaders are well aware of that fact. They also know liberals have little influence over voters or electoral politics even though they show case king sized egos and a highly inflated sense of self-importance.

What should worry the BJP, or at least the levelheaded and sensible leaders in the party is the impact the vitriolic statements of Bidhuri will have on the minds of the average Muslim voter. An overwhelming majority of them care about India and are as patriotic as members of any other community.

But the legacy of the 1947 partition has enabled “secular” political parties to feed on their vulnerability and sense of apprehension.

At the same time, the Jan Sangh and then the BJP has been unapologetically “Hindu”. Even in the consecutive historic mandates it has won in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it got less than 10% of the total Muslim vote. But after the 2019 victory, there has been a conscious and strategic effort by the top leadership of the BJP to woo the average Muslim voter.

BJP leaders, spokespersons and media professionals who bat for the BJP consistently point out a few things during debates, events and rallies. The sum and substance of this is that no other leader or government in India has done as much for poor Muslims than Modi and the BJP led NDA government.

Free toilets, medical insurance, zero balance bank accounts, free LPG and electricity connections, pucca houses and Mudra loans are offered as concrete examples of how the Modi government actually practices the Modi mantra of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas”.

Purely from a data point of view, these claims are correct. Indeed tens of millions of poor Muslim families have benefited from these welfare schemes. But then politics and voting is not just based on welfare schemes. Emotions and identity also play a significant role. And it is here that numerous BJP leaders give a free pass to rivals by every now and then making prejudiced and derogatory statements about Muslims.

Modi may offer a tantalising vision of harmony, but if your neighbourhood BJP leader or worker spouts vitriol against Muslims, why should they vote for the party?