Whenever footfalls of elections are heard at the door, politics of hatred and enmity raises its ugly head in some form or the other. These days it is not surprising that such politics is played out against the Muslims before every election in India. In the current regime everyone right from the Prime Minister to CMs, ministers to MPs, MLAs, Corporators, regional leaders to street leaders, and others perceive that the first step to political success is to spew venom on the Muslims. This tendency has grown in leaps and bounds after the victory of Modi in the 2014 general elections. Such a proclivity of the persons in public life has terribly ruined the brotherhood matrix of pluralistic India. As a result, not just the Muslims but everyone in the subcontinent has fallen in the flames. Where incidents of the mob lynching of Muslim youths have become common, episodes of Hindu youths subjected to the same human rights abuse are not rare. Where attempts are made to damage the businesses of Muslims there exist reports that the trade and commerce of Hindus have also suffered. The sad part is that the powerful and influential classes have remained silent in playing their role to control the horrifying state of affairs. They expect the affected to take care of themselves. By thinking so they are failing to realize that flames do not have regard for any religious faith or financial status while engulfing the target.
Elections to the legislative assemblies in some states will be held in the coming five to six months. But the eyes of everyone are on the election to be held in Uttar Pradesh. BJP, the present ruling party in the state is busy cleaning up the images of Yogi and Modi and dreaming to the play cards of hatred and communalism. Mr. Yogi Adityanath, the Chief Minister of the state, has kicked off his election campaign by using certain words with a derogatory innuendo that has hurt the feelings of the Muslims obliquely. In one of his speeches two weeks ago Yogi Adityanath while leveling allegations against Mr. Akhilesh Yadav, his predecessor in the office,has said that prior to 2017, the ration distributed by the government for the poor was swallowed up by those who used to say “Abba Jan.” By using the words Abba Jan, a term of endearment for fathers used generally by the Muslims, Mr. Yogi Adityanath has incurred the ire of the Muslims and opposition parties. He did not stop his comments on the ration issue but went on to say that in the previous regime even government jobs meant for the poor were snatched away by the people who used to say Abba Jan. What Yogi Adityanath has tried to convey is that Muslims in the previous regime of Akhilesh Yadav were referring to Mulyam Singh, the patriarch of Samajwadi Party as Abba Jan, and were enjoying benefits at the cost of the denial to the majority community. Non-BJP parties across the board have termed the remarks of Yogi Adityanath as ‘unparliamentary’ and ‘uncivilized’ and have urged him to maintain decorum and be within the ambit of decency in public life. Congress in clear words has asked him where he was when corpses of covid patients were floating in the Ganga river and has questioned his intentions to appear on the scene with the stories of ‘Abba Jan’ when elections are on the horizon.
It is an open secret that the BJP cannot fight any election with an agenda other than communalism and spreading hatred among people. The electoral strategies of the party solely revolve around maligning Muslims and causing polarization of voters. By downgrading Muslims with the concocted stories of ‘ration swallow up’and ‘abbajan’, Yogi is trying to coax the Hindu voters for re-seeking his election as Chief Minister for one more term. With similar tricks and stratagems, BJP fought the latest elections in West Bengal and Delhi. No stone was left unturned by the party to polarize voters on the basis of religion. Every possible attempt was made to depict Muslims in a bad light. But all strategies of the party fell to the ground. Both Modi and Yogi who campaigned for the party in these states had to cut a sorry figure. With the taste of recent defeats in the background, BJP and its leaders are tense with regard to the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh. It is the critical compulsion of the BJP to give precedence to politics of hatred and communalism to retain its power in Uttar Pradesh, the last bastion to remain in power for long. For consolidating its vote bank, the party is expected to employ all possible kinds of trickeries, maneuvers, tactics, and ploys along with money and muscle powers. The stories of ‘ration’ and ‘abba jan’ appear to be minuscule fragments of mega plansfor seizing the power once again in Uttar Pradesh.
The jibes Yogi Adityanath is taking today at Muslims are akin to some expressions used by Modi in 2017 for the Assembly Elections in Uttar Pradesh. The words were ’Qabrastan and Shamshan’. What Modi meant by it was that when graveyards for Muslims are granted in villages crematoria should be established as well. When electricity is supplied in villagesfull day on the days of Eid, such a facility should be available for Hindus too on the occasion of Holy. Though these were not new issues, the logic of giving a religious complexion to them worked well and fetched landslide victory to the party. The coining of jargons of ‘ration’ and ‘abbajan’ for election purposes appears to have been learned by Yogi Adityanath from Modi. However, the intended influence of the new jargon did not last long. The vehement opposition and protests for the jibes by leaders of opposition parties and Muslims across the country punctured the balloons of arrogance and pride of Yogi Adityanath. The politics through jargons of ‘Abbajana’ and ‘ration’ cannot hide the failures of Modi and Yogi governments in controlling inflation, unemployment, Covid pandemic. Today both of them are unpopular for their dishonesty, irresponsibility, and indifference. BJP leaders know well that talking about real issues would damage the prospects of the party. So the last hope of the party to retain power is to play communal cards. The political planks with misleading issues of Aligarh, Abba Jaan, ration etc, have failed miserably. Now, the party may whip up the issues of Ram Mandir and Article 370. Possibilities of riots before elections cannot also be ruled out. The dispute regarding the Eidgah in Mathura may be driven to make it occupy the headlines. There is no strong leader in the opposition to counter the BJP. No doubt Akhilesh Yadav is a ray of hope, but he lacks the skills to counter BJP by taking the issues head-on in the manner done by Mamta Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal. Amidst all plans to mislead voters and cause confusion the glad tidings are more and more people are coming to know the game plans and true intentions of the party. The resentment and opposition graphs towards the party and its leaders in the state are rapidly moving upwards. If a strong anti-incumbency wave runs across the state in the wake of prevailing bad administration, then no one can prevent BJP from tasting defeat in the upcoming elections.
