At present, Muslim politics is caught in a whirlpool or stuck in a dark tunnel. It is neither finding a way out nor has anyone to guide it to come out of it ... Not to speak of a consensus leader or a national leader, it has not even a regional leader. In the era of caste politics, it has not a backward/forward leader worth the name. The Muslims are considered a religious group but it does not have even a consensus religious leader.(It has) so-called, self-styled maverick power-brokers among them ... a vast array of them ... (Some) are ... in the Rajya Sabha or MLCs backed by Mulayam Singh Yadav ... or the Congress. Some have been bestowed ... ministership due to their loyalty to the Sangh Parivar ... Some are sticking to the BSP despite being repeatedly insulted ... (Some) religious leaders (are) championing the cause of Congress ... Some turncoats (from) SP and JD) lament having supported the BSP while some are inciting Muslims against Mulayam Singh Yadav
Today Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Prasad Yadav are easily identified as the leaders for the backwards (or) of the Yadavs. Ajit Singh is the acknowledged leader of the Jats. Kalyan Singh in the BJP represents the Lodhas if not all the backwards. Likewise, Mayawati is the leader of the Jatavs if not of all the Dalits. Even the forwards have no dearth of the caste leaders but can any Muslim claim to be representing any region or caste ...
The political parties ... recruit ... Muslim faces lacking popular bases. The reason is clear that a Ghulam Nabi Azad, Najma Heptullah, Wasim Ahmad, Salman Khurshid, Aijaz Rizvi and Sikandar Bakht lacking popular bases prove staunch loyalists ... for they lack Muslim's mandate. The political parties, on the other hand, are benefited (by) induction of such showboys, to convince the Muslims that they give due prominence to the Muslims. (Such) Muslim faces (help) perpetuate their secular myth.
The common Muslim feels indifferent ...
His (voting) is an exercise more out of compulsion than choice. Disinterestedly, he votes this party to power or that. And if he feels too apathetic to come out on the day of the polling, his votes are extracted (by) fear on riots being incited ... (They) find their )intellectuals) impractical, men of cowardice and diffidence. Their secularism, constitutionalism or ... put their cowardly, guilt-ridden declaration of loyalty to India often beget rabble-rousers, communal carpetbaggers. All secular bunkum remains confined to clubs, fora, seminars and conferences and the Muslims rally behind the one playing to the gallery to the hilt.
.. Every Muslim leader or intellectual fears being dubbed as the communalist. Even media portrays one raising the just demands of the Muslims as an arch-communalist. This is the reason that the demand of the due representation of the Muslims in the government services was never raised with the vehemence that it demanded ..If ever a Muslim MP raises his feeble voice in support of such demands, other Muslim MPs remain silent due to party compulsions.
Against it ... through well-orchestrated propaganda, it is widely publicised that the Muslims are not discriminated against in government or non-government jobs. It is also propagated that the Muslims lack able candidates. Statistics are quoted to prove that the Muslims (have) a very low standard of education ... The typical response of the Muslim leadership is to remain silent.
Today the Muslim leadership has to understand that if the Christians raising the demand of reservation for the Dalit Christians are not called communal, Mayawati-Kanshi Ram, duo is not considered communal for raising demands on behalf of the Dalits, demand for ... the Jats, the Jains community, the Brahmins and Agrawal Vaishyas ... are not communal, how can then the Muslim leader or Muslim party demanding the rights of the Muslims be communal?
Battered by recurring riots and haunted by painful memories, the Muslims are gripped by fear. Leadership, Muslim as well as non-Muslim, has developed a vested interest in Muslim fear. Nobody wants to free the Muslims from fear. All only want to perpetuate the Politics of Fear.
Muslim politics needs to be salvaged from this morass. Power brokers among the Muslims will have to be jettisoned and their true leaders will have to begin a healthy, issued-based politics expanding their popular base among the Muslims.
... (Instead) of playing the second fiddle, for ... a popular base, Muslim leadership will have to come out of the whirlpool of kind of politics. (Source: The News from India)
Shahabuddin's Comments - Letter to Mahruddin Khan,14 November, 1998
I have read your article "Whirlpools of Muslim Politics" in News from India. Perhaps it has been translated from Rashtriya Sahara.
The Muslim community has no acknowledged leader not because it has no person of ability comparable to Mulayam, Laloo, Kanshi, Deve Godwa, Gujral, Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, Badal or even Indrajit Gupta and Jyoti Basu or Sonia Gandhi.
The reason lies in that the Muslim community suffers from congenital disunity, demands angelic and saintly qualities from its leadership and is prepared to fear them apart for the slightest error of judgement/tactical difference.
The Muslim community, ironically, is far too 'democratic' to build a united leadership, except on a religious issue.
There is no point in analysis! Let us put our heads together to build up a credible leadership which shall command the confidence of the community so that it may negotiate with the secular parties on terms of understanding and support.