Now is the time for all major political parties to come to the aid of Muslims. They just cannot afford to ignore the biggest minority holding the balance in many a Lok Sabha constituency across the country. Thus, it is not unusual that they are at it again, trying to wheedle votes out of a sense of victimhood. However, what merits note is the hypocrisy of the entire exercise and the increased hollowness of the poll-time rhetoric. It is not Muslim-wooing that is being indulged in so much as minority intimidation. It is not specific programmes for one of the weaker sections of the society that the contenders are offering but protection and the premise of the proposition cannot leave the target audience anything but gravely apprehensive. All the more so as the pledges lack credibility.The most ludicrous instance in this regard is the pseudo-solemn resolve of the Congress not to allow a repetition of events culminating in the disgrace and disaster that was the Babri demolition. It should amaze only thoseunfamiliar with the record of the party over recent years that it should expect to be taken seriously on this count even after its utterly untenable attempt to make a scapegoat of P.V. Narasimha Rao for its collective crime against national unity.
No less laughable are the statements on the subject that have emanated from the party's star campaigner. Sonia Gandhi has not even fooled some of the people for some time with her assertion that Rajiv Gandhi would have averted the fall of the Babri Masjid after endangering the edifice of secularism in Ayodhya by opening the gates of the disputed shrine.
All this, however, does not make the Bharatiya Janata Party appear the new-found messiah of the minority as the modified saffron manifesto claims. The party's doublespeak on Ayodhya -- with L.K. Advani ruling out any relaxation of its stance and Atal Behari Vajpayee speaking of a new solution based on a national consensus -- spells no ambiguity of a delightful kind. Nor do the several voices within the SanghParivar on Kashi and Mathura. Bal Thackeray, who once bragged about the Shiv Sena's role in the Ayodhya outrage, is clearly, but not convincingly, fishing for votes with his bait of a national monument over the Babri ruins. While the Sena chief does not sound like a convert to the cause of secularism when he says he will let Pakistan's cricketers play in Mumbai if that country improves its ``behaviour'', his allies are only trying hard to evade the issue of a common civil code.
The BJP is, obviously, banking on Vajpayee's personal image to make a vital difference. But, the party's assurance of security for Muslims under its government may sound no better to the minority than the familiar Congress pitch for a protection vote. And, the politics of vote banks, of which the Muslims are truly victims, is pursued with no less vigour by the United Front. India will have to wait, apparently indefinitely, for an election in which the minority community won't be wooed as a section so egregiously apart from themainstream.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
