FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK

OBJECTIVE: TO BUILD SECULAR STATE IN MULTI-RELIGIOUS INDIA

STRATEGY: TO DEFEND SECULARISM FROM THE CHARGE OF SAFFRON BRIGADE

TACTICS: TO SUPPORT THE STRONGEST CANDIDATE AGAINST BJP IN EACH CONSTITUENCY

National Context

The Indian people stand today, on the eve of the 11th General Election, at a critical point in their history. The moment of truth has come, the time to harvest what we have sown, knowingly or unknowingly, over the last 5 decades of independence. As a nation-State we appear to have lost the sense of direction. We do not even realize fully what is at stake today. Shall the country survive the collision between the forces of communalism and the forces of secularism? Shall the citadel of democracy fall to the assault by the fascist forces? Shall the economy be inundated by the multinationals? Shall the country remain united? Shall our national culture be distorted and deformed by the West cultural invasion? Shall the country be buried under the joint burden of mounting debt and rampant corruption? Shall the parallel black money economy thriving on Corruption, Criminalization and Consumerism overtake and pass by the masses and obliterate our national duty to give a life of dignity to every citizen, to meet his basic needs as a human being? Shall violence raise its ugly head in every town and city. in every lane and by-lane?

 When the law and order breaks down, when graft and nepotism reign supreme, when 'sifarish' and 'pairvi prevail, when executive discretion is used for the enrichment of the chosen few, the lower strata, the weaker sections, the minorities at every level (who have little representation in the power structure or the economic system or the political order) are bound to suffer. Their elite may prosper, hands in glove with their co-elites in our plural society but the burden is bound to fall on the common man in general and the Shudras, the Dalits, the Adivasis and the Muslims, in particular, who are yet to inhale the full breath of freedom.

Election: Lamp of Hope

 Every election raises hopes of a better government, of a fresh breeze, of a New Deal; But what the people have experienced is a steady fall in standards of public life and in government's accountability to the people. They have seen a steady fuzzing of the line of demarcation between democracy and authoritarianism, between communalism and secularism, between socialism and elitism; they have seen the gap widening between social groups, among the States, in the same state among districts and among Panchayats in the same district. Inequality and injustice stamp our society at every level, in every sense. Use of force and coercion, violence have become our normal method for settling conflicts of interest, even of ideas. Judiciary which has just begun to assert itself is still largely confined to its ivory tower with occasional glimpses of the ground realities. The Executive and its operative machinery the Bureaucracy are largely concerned with wringing the last drop of juice from the organge of power, of blood from the famished skeletons of the people. Legislatures have been reduced to rubber stamps of the Executive, powerless in writing legislation or formulating polities as in controlling the Executive. What is needed, therefore, is a basic change but who has the time to think, while the going is good and before the sky collapses?

 So the biggest democracy in the world shall have another general election, with the largest electorate in the world, to decide which party or group of parties shall exercise power for the next 5 years, hopefully. Though a sense of frustration and disillusionment pervades the air. yet there is no option but to try to make the best of this opportunity.

 Demons in Competition

 Three demons are competing to possess the soul of the nation and we have to decide, not between the greater and the lesser evil but between the evil, the greater evil, and the greatest evil.

 The choice will vary from voter to voter, from constituency to constituency, from region to region and perhaps from community to community, for we are still a segmented society, a fractured polity, a fragmented economy, a divided house.

Criteria for Choice

 The choice will depend upon our perception of the system, our articulation of deeply felt aspirations, our lingering hope, our priorities.

 Many people may vote for the candidate who is likely to improve the local environment, in its physical as well as social sense, get roads built, schools and health centres established, bridges constructed and industries set up. And what is most important, find jobs for the jobless. the educated unemployed youth.

Quest of Equality and Justice

 There is a rising expectation among the masses: that the legislator, shall secure due share of the development resources national, state and district for his constituency. Whether the system will be oriented equally to serve all the people, all the villages and towns of our vast country, despite their changing social demography is one question. The more important question is whether the legislator shall care only for those communities, those villages and towns even those tolas whose votes helped him win. Increasingly the legislators tick off the others who have equal claims on the resources and on their by saying 'well, you did not vote for me? Why have you come to me?"

Scarcity of resources has turned bias and prejudice into the working norms and social groups which form a minority' at any operational level invariably suffer So, there is a natural desire in every community/ social group to be represented in the legislature, in the political executive, in the administration, in the judiciary, in the professions.

Political parties are, therefore, going to be judged by the relative representation of various social groups in their list, by the choice of candidates (representatives or symbolic, worthless, tokens!) as well as the selection of constituencies for candidates from minority groups. Secondly, they are also likely to be judged by selection of parties for alliance, adjustment or understanding. Thirdly, they are likely to be judged also by the political priorities reflected in their Programmes of Action.

 Muslim Indians and Political Process

The Muslim Indians should shake off frustration, get over their disappointments and look forward to coming election with a new hope. Yes, the Babari Masjid stands demolished with no possibility of its reconstruction in the near future. But a former P.M. did lament that the three domes of the demolished Masjid represented the three domes of the Constitution: the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. And the case is still subjudice. Yes, the criminals of Bombay, Bhopal and Bhagalpur and hundreds of other places, have not yet been punished. But the overall incidence of 'communal violence' has sharply gone down. Yes, the Muslim youth are still being deprived of their due share in public employment and higher education and the Muslim localities of their due share of educational institutions. But the political system is resounding with echoes of their just and legitimate demand for Reservation. Yes, the Shariat remains under threat. But even the Left is beginning to see the difference between imposition of an alien code in the name of uniformity and the need for social reform within an acceptable framework. Yes, the mass media, at least a section thereof, continues to heap insults, to incite hatred and to promote prejudice. But the enlightened section increasingly appreciates the fact of continuing deprivation and the legitimacy of our struggle for equality. Yes, the Muslim Indians continue to be identified with Pakistan and the Kashmiri insurgents. Yet there are sign of goodwill and fraternization.

So all is not lost. The Holy Quran directs the Muslims to endeavor, with patience and forbearance and  with the faith that ultimately the 'Haq' (truth and justice) will prevail.

So this election is the Moment of Truth the opportunity to look onward and to look inward, to define oneself, to recognise others, to make a deliberate choice, to act.

Common Secular Objective: Stop Hindutva Rath

For a meaningful political analysis, the Muslim Indians have first to decide their political objective in this election, which is nothing more nor less than to stop the Hindutva Rath from storming into the Red Fort- whether the charioteer is Advani or Vajpayee! In other words, to defeat the BJP candidate, whatever the mask he may wear, whatever promises he may make, whatever language he may speak.

To defeat the BJP which is the agent of Hindu, Communalism, the secular voters have to choose the candidate who can win. They cannot afford to disperse or fritter away their votes (as they did in Maharashtra in 1995).

Not Much Choice Between Congress and JD-LF

Generally there are two alternatives: the JD-LF and the Congress. There is not much to choose between them. They both profess faith in Secularism, they both promise protection of the rights of the religious and linguistic minorities but neither has an unblemished record. If Congress killed the Gopal Singh Panel's report, the JD- LF Government gave it a State burial. If the Congress reduced the Secular order to a system of tokens and balances, a regime of inaction, the other did no better; if Congress colluded with the Sangh Parivar in demolishing the Babari Masjid, the JD or the LF took no preventive action or launched any agitation. On the other hand, one recalls the freedom and official media build-up to Advani when he rode his Rath to rouse the Hindu sentiments. Communal massacres have gone unpunished in JD-ruled Bihar, Muslim youth have received short shrift in CPI(M) ruled W. Bengal and tortured under TADA in Congress ruled Maharashtra and Gujarat.

Muslim Indians are not the bonded labor of, or under any obligation to, any political party to vote for it across the country or to any political personality, be it Narasimha Rao or V.P. Singh or Chandra Shekhar, Laloo Prasad, Mulayam Singh or Deve Gowda, Jaya Lalitha, Jyoti Basu or Naidu. But since angels will not come down from the heavens, the choice is limited. At the same time, they cannot afford to reject any party which at least professes Secularism. So they should vote in a given constituency for the viable, winnable candidate of any secular party/formation who can take on and defeat the BJP candidate, even if he wears a Sherwani and sports a beard!

The non-Congress secular parties could have formed a Front; they did not. The Congress could have done something concrete to atone for the sin of collusion and the crime of negligence, since 6 December 1992, and the failure to heal the wounds to the Muslim psyche. It did not. In this election, to defeat the BJP, both should have come to a gentlemanly understanding so that they do not decimate each other while the BJP Rath passes through. But they did not.

Make Independent Choice In each Constituency

For Muslim Indians and for other secular voters there can be no common choice for this vast country as a whole. The playground differ; the players differ, the rules differ, even the stakes differ. No party or alliance is equally entrenched all over. Muslim population itself is not spread uniformly throughout the country. 75% of the Muslims live in 132 out of our 450 districts in the country: 80% in 7 States/UTs out of a total of 30.

Therefore, the choice has to vary from region to region, from state to state, from constituency to constituency. Anyway, Muslim Indians are not a vote bank for any party to draw upon.

What the Government did not, what the Parties did not; the secular masses have to, in order to save the country's future and to protect the vital interests.

Without fear or favor, rejecting the pleas of the vote brokers hired by various parties, cutting out all emotions or sentiments, the Muslim Indians, if they are to survive with honour and dignity and to help the country to survive as a nation-state and as a civil society, have

●          To analyze the political situation in EACH constituency

●          To identify the winnable secular candidate in that constituency, and

●          To vote unitedly and massively for him, so that their choice wins.

Support Strongest Secular Candidate to Defeat BJP

Muslim Indians and all other secular voters in each Constituency must adopt TACTICAL VOTING and support the strongest candidate against the BJP, irrespective of party, religion or caste or language or race.

Once the BJP, which is today looming larger then life on the political horizon of the country, is cut down to size, a secular government is bound to emerge, hopefully with new blood and new ideas and with a new determination to take the country back from the precipice of Communalism, Consumerism, Corruption, Criminalisation and Conflict, back to an environment of Peace and Harmony, back on the road of Progress and Development for All, towards the goal of SOCIAL JUSTICE.

New Delhi

1 April, 1996                                      

(SYED SHAHABUDDIN)