How Muslim should face Elections in India

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By Syed Ali Mujtaba, Edited By TIO Bureau, The India Observer, TIO: Indian Muslims have continued to navigate India’s complex political landscape for the last 75 years but are unable to figure out how they can improve their strength in the legislatures which is declining after every election. It is seen that the electoral process has changed the lives of many smaller communities but the Muslims despite enough electoral muscle cannot win many seats that otherwise should have been going to their pocket.

Muslims have not realized that they can shape their future only by political participation and they must extract gains from the democratic process and not by playing the blame game that we see after each election.

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The last 75 years of Muslim politics suggest that they have remained prisoners of one political party that treated them as their vote-bank. Muslims when realized they were not being befitted, they shifted their allegiance to the caste-based regional parties. Even though this proved to be not a good bet, they tried their own community-based parties but could not cut any ice here. Eventually, some Muslims contested as independent candidates but were unsuccessful in winning the election, which is beyond the common man’s reach.

So even after 75 years, Muslims are unable to figure out what kind of politics they may choose that can give them direct benefit. Muslims are soul-searching and making strategies to guide their political future.

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However, given the community’s diversity, no consensus has been reached on how to navigate the electoral process in India. This issue needs soul-searching and brainstorming if Muslims want to have any share in the political power in the country.

One suggestion made here is that Muslims should do their political planning with a long and short-term vision. In the long term plan Muslims should work at the grassroots level and in the short run, they must consolidate their efforts and energies themselves for facing the political battle. It is only after doing the grassroots politics Muslims can expect some change in electoral results and this momentum has to be sustained.

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The first step for Muslims is to form a non-governmental organization at the Parliamentary constituency level and work for community development purposes. Muslims should merge their differences and lay support to one such organization and silently work for 365 days for 5 years. This could be a capacity-building effort to face the electoral battle as two or three weeks of the electioneering process is not sufficient to mobilize the Muslim votes. In this effort, Muslims should plug in the problem of the splitting of the votes, which is a regular feature in every election.

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Unlike traditional campaigning that starts with the announcement of election notification, Muslims should take up elections as a full-time vocation. They should start working with a plan on the electorates daily. They have to reach their voters through direct contact programe. They should do door-to-door visits and personal conversations with the electorates.  They should know about their problems and try to solve them. This is for building trust within the community and to send the message that there is someone who cares about their welfare.

The campaign message of such an organization should revolve around specific issues facing the people. It can be financial help, admission to schools and colleges, medical needs, employment, etc.

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The campaign should be with the vision of transforming the community and not to get their votes. In this campaign, the NGO should take the help of influential Muslims whose voice matters to the community. This approach may ensure the participation of the community and unite them for a purpose.

Such outreach activity should be brainstormed first and packaged with some meaning before reaching the targeted audience. Volunteers should foster a sense of security among the Muslims that they are standing behind them in their thick and thin. Such activity should be done with a sense of responsibility to motivate the community to make them understand how they can benefit if they are united.

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Muslim women should have their roles cut out for the political mobilization of the Muslims. The Shaheen Bagh protest in Delhi against the CAA has set an example of how Muslim women can play a seminal role in mass mobilization. Similarly in such a case, Muslim women have to step out of their houses and go for door-to-door campaigns with an emphasis on community service.

The female volunteers should educate the Muslim women about the importance of democracy, the electoral process social and political activism, etc. Such a silent campaign should be behind the scenes and at the grassroots level, throughout the year, ensuring a robust interaction between the women volunteers and the Muslim electorates.

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When it comes to political mobilization, Muslims should have a deep understanding of the Muslim electorates in the Muslim-dominated constituencies. Muslims should have some Psephologists from the community who can guide the kind of campaign to run to entice the voters. This is a specialized job and many volunteers in the community can take this up with serious enthusiasm.

The most crucial aspect of the political mobilization process is to choose a political candidate and the political party that the community may like to back. This is the most difficult task as many political parties and independent candidates are working on how to divide the Muslim votes.   This is where Muslims need coordinated effort, bury their hatchet, and zero in on the candidate they may like to support. This should be done by keeping the Muslim strength and weakness in a given constituency.  This decision should be made open only on the election and should be a guarded secret. In the electoral process, Muslims must seek tactical support from other like-minded groups that can give strength to their candidate.

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 Last but not least, elections are decided on the polling day. Muslim volunteers should be tasked to manage the Muslim-dominated polling booths and ensure their presence at each of them on Election Day.

The booth management activity is crucial to converting the defeat into victory. Volunteers should work tirelessly to bring every Muslim voter to the polling booth. They should arrange transport to bring and take them back.  Such effort to mobilize voters should with a sense of unity of purpose. It is only through enhancing the maximum turnout of Muslim voters that some favorable results can be expected.

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To achieve such an objective, Muslims should do proper planning before plunging into the electoral battlefield. The long-term vision should be geared towards community transformation and the short-term objective should be to achieve the political goal.

The positive aspect of this political challenge is Muslim’s voting strength has not yet been explored.  Their weakness is always cashed by the opposite camp and in each election, Muslims have a red face. Muslims must realize that the biggest asset they have is their electoral strength and they should play the game of democracy on the strength of their numbers. This can be done by the optimal utilization of their political strength.

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It is high time Muslims should shed their attitude on relying on others and try to search within the community to gather political strength of their own.

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Curated and Compiled by Humra Kidwai

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