NEW DELHI, 8 March 2004 — India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) chase of the Muslim voters is looking like the chase by a jilted lover of his long lost beloved. But there has never been a love affair, not even a love-hate relationship between the BJP and the Muslims even going back to its earlier incarnation — the Bharatiya Jan Sangh. In fact the founding fathers of the BJS/BJP thought, and not only thought but wrote, awful things about the Muslims which need not be repeated.

They preached that — particularly after the partition of India in 1947, for which the Muslims were held solely responsible — India was too small for both Hindus and Muslims to live in peaceful coexistence. Either the Muslims had to be forced out or converted to Hinduism. Their slogan is “one country, one people, one culture” — the “culture” being a euphemism for religion.

Thousands of incidents of anti-Muslim violence were incited even when the party was not in power. The Gujarat genocide was staged with full participation of the police under the direction of the BJP government. And today Prime Minister Vajpayee, the great oracle, in his unmatched rhetoric, in all its ambiguity, asks the Muslims to forgive and forget Gujarat. The Vajpayee government claims that, Gujarat apart, it kept the country riot-free for five years or more. This is a lie. Hundreds of anti-Muslim riots have occurred since 1998. So the Muslims are today in a state of religious siege. The sinister and senseless campaign against their religious institutions, the Masjids, the Maktabs and the Madrasas, as dens of Pakistani espionage and training ground for the terrorists (though Home Minister L.K. Advani has not been able to identify and prosecute any imam or ustad), the systematic occupation of Muslim graveyards and prayer grounds, the “conquest” of Muslim shrines and the step-by-step conversion into Hindu temples all show the Sangh Parivar’s implacable hostility to Muslims.

At the time of election, the BJP leaders are offering equal treatment to Muslims. Putting aside their massive under-representation in the Parliament (55 percent) not to speak of state legislatures (up to 100 percent), and even in the Civil Services (75 percent), Vajpayee, Advani and Co. should place before the Muslim community the proportion of Muslims the Vajpayee government has recruited in non-gazetted jobs with various ministries, departments and their attached and subordinate offices, as assistants, clerks, messengers and drivers, police constables and army jawans.

Today the Muslims are more deprived than ever before and the government is simply unconcerned that 1/8 of the national population continues to live a subhuman life in a state of deprivation.

Today, the BJP is anxious to build bridges with the Muslim community. The party secured 23.75 percent of the votes polled in 1999 i.e. less than 15 percent of the total electorate, more or less in line with its performance since 1996. The BJP has realized that in its drive toward a monopoly of power, it had struck a plateau, that to make further progress it had to make a quantum jump. In terms of votes, it had wrung the last drop of juice from the Hindutva ideology. Now it should attract the liberal and secular Hindu voters who are sitting on the fence. It is to make its brand new secular mask credible that the BJP has suddenly discovered the Muslims and is showing concern for their welfare and progress. But once in a majority, the BJP can do what it likes — make India a de jure Hindu state, though the BJP-led NDA government has already made it a de facto Hindu state. So the Muslim community should put a few simple demands to the BJP to prove its love for Muslims and commitment to secularism:

• Will the BJP severe its links with RSS and disown the ideological heritage of Savarkar and Golwalkar?

• Will it let the law take its own course on the Ayodhya question, commit itself to the execution of the final judicial verdict and the implementation of the October, 1994 road map of the Supreme Court? Will the BJP commit itself not to repeal the Religious Places (Special Provisions) Act of 1991 and protect all places of worship as they were on Aug. 15, 1947?

• Will it promise the enactment of a comprehensive law on social violence, in all its forms and manifestations, providing for investigation by a federal agency, prosecution by special courts and payment of uniform compensation for loss of life, honor and property and imposition of collective fine? Will it apply the law retrospectively to all anti-Muslim and anti-Dalit cases since 1999?

• Will it establish primary and secondary schools in adequate numbers in all areas of deprivation, with the mother tongue as the medium of primary instruction and the teaching of the mother tongue as compulsory first language and of the principal language of the state as compulsory second language to all students belonging to linguistic minorities and introduce secular textbooks and non-denominational school culture?

• Will the BJP introduce reservation for Muslims in legislatures (under joint electorate), in public employment including security forces, in higher education, in welfare and development benefits and flow of bank credit, in proportion to their population at the operational levels?

• Will the BJP ensure against state intervention in matters of religion including religion-based family laws and against any tilt in situations of inter-religious conflict?

• Will it guarantee full and unrestricted exercise of freedom of religion under Article 25?

• Will it give its tickets to at least 50 Muslims for the Lok Sabha and get them elected from safe seats?

• Will it commit itself to include at least 10 percent Muslims in the Council of Ministers?

• Will the BJP commit itself to include one Muslim among 10 government nominees in all statutory and non-statutory bodies?

We know that the BJP will not; it cannot.

But 50 years later, the Muslim community knows the difference between flawed democracy and fascism, between flawed secularism and communalism and will say NO, a loud NO to the spider!

— Syed Shahabuddin is a former member of Indian Parliament.