Politics of the Indian Minority

In yet another instance of divisive politics, prior to the April 2014 elections, Mr. Subramanian Swamy of BJP party asserted that Indian Muslims who don’t admit their Hindu ancestry must be stripped of their voting rights.

Votes of the 14% Indian Muslim population must be divided among different political parties while those of 80% Indian Hindu population must be bagged by the BJP, he added.

This, I heard in a video with interview clips of Mr. Swamy on various news channels.  He made many other statements on the issue.  A couple of things that struck me as odd and inexplicable include:

1.       The onus of establishing the ‘Indian’ identity as a Hindu state solely lies with the Muslims among the minority populace. The other minority communities such as Christians, Zoroastrians, Jews, etc. are exempt from such or similar allegiances.

2.       Politics in the name of religion is being promoted so aggressively that to the likes of Mr. Swamy, terms like Secularism are ‘non-sense’.

Now, if any political party in India alienates 14% of the Indian Muslim population, they lose close to 17 lakh (1.7 million) voters. If they further alienate all minorities in India, they lose 24 lakh (2.4 million) voters. Even so, if the Hindu majority votes for a single political party (a very utopian assumption), the party will accumulate 96 lakh (9.6 million) votes. So from the face of it, there really isn’t any need to appease the minority communities in India.

But the on-ground reality is that not all Hindus will vote for one party. If we take BJP as case in point, there are many Hindus whose political ideas don’t align with those of BJP or NDA or both. On the other hand, there also are some minority community members who support BJP and believe that they will bring prosperity to India. To me, in this case, alienating them would not be the best strategy.

Today many young urban Indians want to vote for candidates who can assure quality lifestyle, better transport and infrastructure, affordable homes and education, employment opportunities, better salaries, etc. Most of the rural Indian population, I assume, would seek better irrigation facilities, better logistical and medical infrastructure, more schools and offices in their towns and villages, easy access to water, fuel, electricity and the like.

Thus, political parties in India must look to contest the forthcoming elections on the merit of their promises for a better future rather than their loyalties to certain faiths.

Now contrary to the Indian scene, if we take a look at the global scenario, we see that there is a global majority of Christians followed by Muslims. In December 2012, the Pew Forum found that 157 countries have a majority Christian population, while 49 have a majority Muslim population.

If religious politics were so central in global trade and international relations, the Christian-majority and Muslim-majority nations would have an indisputable upper-hand at deciding policies which would benefit their populace.

Sadly, till date in nations such as Russia and France (among others), Muslims are openly criticized, as per my understanding, for their choice of wearing a veil. They are even ‘advised’ (recently by President Vladimir Putin) to go to nations where the Sharia law is the state law.

But, in a hypothetical situation, if nations of the West and Middle East decided to trade and share resources only with other nations with same religious inclinations; that would mean bad news and bad business for countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, among others. It would sorely affect areas such as arms imports, fuel import, sharing of medical technologies, outsourcing, etc. Consequently, it would also impair the smooth functioning of the nations of the West and Middle East, since each nation is, in reality, dependent on others at many levels.

This of course is not practicable, and would bring much disaster to all nations. The bottom line, however, is to say that alienating one segment of a national or global population will lead to a debacle. Thus, the assumption of some Indian politicians that India can prosper without the help and support of minority communities is flawed and loop holed.

India needs a Government which is inclusive, not divisive. India must live up to its declaration of being the largest democracy by allowing all Indians to participate in the voting process. The future Indian Government must focus on developmental issues and become progressive rather than play the religion card and act regressive. As I see it, the only way for India to prosper is by opening itself to multiculturalism and by enforcing policies which uplift all Indians, irrespective of their ancestry or their declarations of the same.