MIM: Minority communalism gets its new face

The Super Saffron Sunday verdict, which saw the BJP emerge out of Shiv Sena's shadows as the single largest party in Maharashtra, also saw a new entrant in the state. Asaduddin Owaisi's Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (MIM) won two seats and came second in as many constituencies, officially moving out of its stronghold in Hyderabad, which it has represented in the Lok Sabha for the last three decades.

A debut of this nature is an opportunity to introspect also since it could provide a mirror to the mood in society. It is for this reason the MIM's Maha verdict outside its sphere of influence must be studied.To see MIM's entry into Maharashtra as only a reflection of aspirant Muslims is too simplistic and misleading. There is more to the story.

It began earlier this year when the BJP rode the Modi wave to Parliament and Race Course Road. The crumbling of the Congress brand of ersatz secularism in the face of the new Moditva die of development and anti-Congress rhetoric had many Muslims put on their thinking caps, wondering about their safety and security.

With Modi and Amit Shah comes the RSS and not-so-hidden agenda. Never before has the Sangh so close to the government at the Centre.

Most of Modi's recent actions have been guided by this core ideology. It would be naïve to deny that the dangerous and divisive love jihad campaign, Dina Nath Batra's bigotry passed off as science and even the controversial reinvention of Teachers' Day cannot have been done without appealing to the Hindutva agenda.

Was the MIM win possible in a non-Modified India? Why did Muslims in Marathwada vote in significant numbers for the hawkish party, whose leaders are known practitioners of minority communalism?

That is because majority communalism is now official. It is the cult now. The zeitgeist.

The BJP was never unapologetic about its hatred towards Muslims. That feeling grew exponentially with Modi at the helm. The community has negligible representation in his government. There is no Muslim MP from the BJP in Lok Sabha. The RSS ideologues keep harping on a Ram Mandir. And Yogi Adityanath is never censured when he speaks of a Hindu Rashtra.

Before the Lok Sabha polls, political pundits suggested that maverick Modi would rein in the RSS to prove his secular credentials, that being the prime minister was his only ambition and that he would mellow down now to wash away the 2002 Gujarat riots taint.

But it did not happen, leaving the Owaisi brothers to harvest the fear and insecurities of Muslims in Maharashtra into votes. And they now plan to go national. At least their Uttar Pradesh entry seems imminent given the post-Muzaffarnagar riots political matrix.

With the secular, and most times opportunistic, opposition mostly decimated, it is going to be a free run for the communalists - majority and minority.

The 21st century India must understand that communalism breeds communalism. In a Modi-fied India, minority communalisation has raised its head. The tinderbox is being made again. Gunpowder ready. Match sticks aplenty.