[Reader-list] Indian elections: how to woo Muslims to vote for you

[Kshmendra Kaul]

Dear Yousuf
 
It should not be surprising that political parties aggresively woo and try to appease Muslims at the time of elections.
 
For various reasons, the "Collective Muslim Identity" is one which is furthered by Muslims themselves. If Muslims set themselves apart as a group then they will be wooed as a group in a manner that the suitors think will best engage their attention and favour (example Babri and Gujarat). 
 
It is quite likely that given the contours of 1947- partition, special attention needed to be paid to Muslims so as to reassure them of their rightful and equal space in a Secular India. This might have led to the creation of  the first Political Ghettos of Muslims. These getting solidified has both social and political reasons and perhaps even compulsions.
 
When you or anyone else talks about "lack of effective political leader in the community", you automatically are subscribing to and feeding the political ghettoisation of Muslims. 
 
This is not unique to Muslims, the same is done to and done by other 'groups' based on religion, caste etc.
 
The caste based politics amongst Hindus is notorious enough but even the Sikhs have succumbed to it.
 
Posters are unlikely to reflect it but, on the ground, even amongst the Muslims sub-groups are identified and wooed depending (for example) if the Shias are voters in greater numbers or Sunnis.
 
In the case of Muslims however, perhaps due to the most prominent 'other' political contender being the BJP, appealing to 'All Muslims' is the easy path to take for presenting a political party as a 'saviour of Muslims'. 
 
Kshmendra
   

--- On Tue, 5/26/09, Yousuf <ysaeed7 at yahoo.com> wrote:


From: Yousuf <ysaeed7 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Indian elections: how to woo Muslims to vote for you
To: "Tasveer Ghar" <tasveerghar at gmail.com>, "Taha Mehmood" <2tahamehmood at googlemail.com>
Cc: "Sarai reader list" <reader-list at sarai.net>, "Tasveer Ghar group" <tasveerghar at googlegroups.com>
Date: Tuesday, May 26, 2009, 1:06 PM



Dear Taha, Kshmendra and others
Thanks for your comments and questions. This image gallery is really a work-in-progress, and its a tip of the iceberg from what one notices in Urdu press. I have been surveying Urdu newspaper off-and-on and I was surprised to see the quantity and diversity of the election posters. Here are some random comments on your questions:

First of all, this survey is limited to only a handful of Urdu newspapers published from Delhi and UP which cater to some districts of western UP (the region that had the fiercest competition between Mulayam, Mayawati, Congress, BJP). The reach and impact of those papers is yet to be studied, since many of them are temporary publications. I also haven't looked in detail at the Hindi newspapers or the local TV shows (or local graffiti, wall posters) to make a comparison. But the use of Urdu newspapers in this manner does reveal a lot about how they become a via media to cater to a community. Maybe all Muslims in Delhi/UP don't read Urdu, but the news certainly trickles down through these papers. The tone of the ads by all 4 parties sounds like a fish market where each candidate is showing how he/she is better for the Muslims and how the other party has always ditched the community.

Yes the use of religious leaders/clergy (for canvassing) is still an effective tool - mainly because the imams and pir sahebs (from Sufi shrines) do hold an authority over large sections of local population, probably due to a lack of effective political leader in the community. But it is no longer a situation where only one big leader (like the imam Bukhari could hold his sway nationwide). And this may not be a new phenomena - there is a long history of the political impact of religious clergy on the community. But what is worth studying (and also disturbing) is how these ads for Muslims seldom talk about nation-building or nationhood (which you see in the mainstream BJP ads), but only restrict Muslims to their immediate concerns of Babri and Gujarat etc.

Babri mosque and Gujarat pogrom are used ferociously by all parties (except BJP) to woo Muslims in these ads, but I am not sure if the readers/voters are so stupid that they can't see the ludicrousness of how two or more ads on the same newspaper page are using the same agenda to hit at the other party/candidate. Its funny how the newspaper could even sell the adjacent ad space to 3 different parties who are attacking each other.

I haven't come across any example so far of "appeasing" of other communities this way by all parties - although the BJP did use it in a reverse way to attack the Congress in the earlier Delhi elections, by listing out its various evils including the "mushrooming of Batla Houses" in Delhi, if you remember that ad.

More later probably.

Yousuf


--- On Mon, 5/25/09, Taha Mehmood <2tahamehmood at googlemail.com> wrote:

> From: Taha Mehmood <2tahamehmood at googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Indian elections: how to woo Muslims to vote for you
> To: "Tasveer Ghar" <tasveerghar at gmail.com>
> Cc: "Sarai reader list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Date: Monday, May 25, 2009, 4:52 PM
> If we assume that the elections
> posters were intended to appeal to
> Muslims of North India, then a survey of posters throws up
> some
> questions-
> 
> 1. Do all Muslims of North India know how to read Urdu? If
> no, then-
> 2. Why do political parties equate Muslims=Urdu speaking?
> 3. Do all Muslims of North India always think of Gujarat as
> an assault
> on their collective religious identity all the time,
> especially when
> they are about to vote?
> 4. Just like in earlier times, Imam Bukhari's fatwa to vote
> for
> erstwhile Janta dal was assumed to be the ultimate clarion
> call to
> North Indian Muslims, this time too, it appears, as if, the
> stereotype
> of Indian voters who happen to follow Islam, robs them from
> any agency
> to think and act on their own. I wonder why is an appeal
> from
> authority is such a big deal in political communication?
> 5. I wonder if posters issued by political parties to
> appeal to
> followers of other religions like Sikhism, Jainism,
> Buddhism or those
> Indian voters who constitute a strategic vote bank follow a
> similar
> trend?
> 
> Regards
> 
> Taha
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