Ever since Narendra Modi won a decisive mandate for his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in general elections in May last year, minorities like Muslims and Christians have been the butt of news headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Though Modi himself has not made a single remark against the minorities, many of his colleagues in the party, Parliament and even in his Cabinet have repeatedly made obnoxious remarks against the minorities — thus creating a perception that the Modi government would be pushing a saffron agenda.
But that doesn’t absolve Modi completely as he has taken no action against his motor-mouth ministers and BJP MPs. As a result not only his colleagues in the party and the government are continuing to shoot off their mouths but even the BJP allies are also getting emboldened in making outlandish remarks.
The latest case seems to be the mother of all irresponsible and provocative statements. A major regional party, Shiv Sena, crossed all limits in attacking India’s secular fabric as it said on Sunday that the voting rights of Muslims should be “revoked” as the community has often been used for “vote bank politics.”
Marathi daily Saamana, Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece, made the following highly provocative remark in its editorial: “If Muslims are only being used… to play politics, they can never develop. Muslims will have no future till they are used for vote bank politics… Balasaheb (Thackeray) had once said voting rights of Muslims should be withdrawn. What he said is right.”
To put things in perspective for those who are not that well versed in Indian politics, Shiv Sena is the ruling BJP’s coalition partner in Maharashtra. Shiv Sena and the BJP had broken their three-decade-old alliance just before campaigning in the Maharashtra assembly polls last year and had contested the polls against each other. But after the elections, the two estranged partners came together after lot of mudslinging against each other and are now sharing power in the most industrialized Indian state.
The BJP promptly condemned the remark and distanced itself from it. But then a BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj, a known serial offender with his acidic tongue, compounded the BJP’s embarrassment the very next day and endorsed the Shiv Sena’s comment by saying that Muslims should indulge in family planning or be “stripped of their voting right.”
Incidentally, Sakshi Maharaj was in the news recently for his remark that all Hindu women should produce at least four children each so that the Hindus stay numerically ahead of the Muslims.
Modi had then taken a dim view of Sakshi Maharaj’s comment and the party had demanded his explanation. Yet, nothing happened to him and he continues to be in the BJP. The Saamana editorial did not stop at its crazy demand of disenfranchising Muslims and targeted the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen, a fundamentalist party, which enjoys pockets of influence in two southern states Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The editorial took potshots at AIMIM leaders Asaduddin Owaisi and his brother Akbaruddin Owaisi and said the Owaisi brothers spew venom to “exploit” the minority community.
The Saamana editorial came at a time when PM Modi is away on a three-nation tour of France, Germany and Canada. He was in France when the editorial was published.
The BJP was quick with its fire-fighting work. The party’s senior spokesperson Madhav Bhandari said: “The Indian Constitution has given every citizen, irrespective of his/ her caste, community or religion, the right to vote. So nobody can deny anyone voting rights in this country. Those who express such views are blatantly violating the Indian Constitution. Strict action should be taken against them for such remarks.”
BJP ministers too condemned the Saamana editorial. Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said minorities, including Muslims, were as much the citizens of India as anybody else and “there can’t be any differentiation on any ground,” adding that "The suggestion to deny such rights to anybody on any grounds is not acceptable to our government."
Minister of State for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi came up with a rather colorful remark on twitter and tweeted: “India is not a jungle of Talibani thinking. It’s a garden of human values, fundamental principles. Polluted air of hatred can’t affect it.”
The latest unprovoked verbal attack on the Muslims has once again rocked the Modi government hard and given yet another opportunity to the opposition parties with a “We told you so” kind of warning to the people of India about the inherent dangers of putting a party like the BJP in power in New Delhi.
Modi is increasingly under pressure to deliver on his electoral promise of bringing back “good days” as his government completes one year in office next month. Right now his biggest political priority should be to rein in his foot-in-mouth ministers, party colleagues as well as allies and take exemplary action against those who cross the red line. But that red line is being crossed too frequently.
