Opinion: In this election, why is Modi sometimes hot and sometimes soft on Muslims?

Author: Hasan Suroor
Given his keen political acumen, it would be right to assume that Prime Minister Narendra Modi must have anticipated the reaction against his claim in a TV interview that he did not do ‘Hindu-Muslim’. At first glance, this was a bold claim, as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s election campaign has been dominated by attacks on ‘minority appeasement’ (Muslim appeasement in political terms), with some of the most aggressive claims being made by him himself.

This was particularly audacious as it came just weeks after his controversial speech on April 21 in Banswara, Rajasthan, in which he accused Congress of handing over the country’s resources to ‘baby boomers’ and ‘infiltrators’. Was accused of.

This was widely understood to be a reference to Muslims, who the BJP has consistently accused of having more children in an alleged conspiracy to tilt the demographic balance in its favor.

This is what he said, ‘Earlier when his government was in power, he had said that Muslims have the first right on the country’s property. This means, to whom will they collect this wealth and distribute it? Those who have more children will be distributed among them and infiltrators will be distributed. Will your hard-earned money be given to infiltrators? Do you accept this?’

He had also said, ‘The Congress manifesto says that they will take stock of the gold of mothers and daughters, and then they will distribute that wealth among the people, about whom the Manmohan Singh government had said ‘First on Wealth’ The right belongs to Muslims. Brothers and sisters, this urban Naxalite thinking will not leave even the mangalsutra of my mothers and sisters.

Even though he did not directly mention Muslims, when read in conjunction with ‘will distribute those who have more children, will distribute infiltrators’, it was a veiled reference to Muslims.

A prominent Muslim intellectual, who did not want to come out in the open, said: ‘Even though some part of his speech in Banswara may have been lost in translation, it is not right to deny it outright.’

However, in one of his TV interviews, Modi insisted, ‘I did not say Hindu or Muslim. I have said that you should have only as many children as you can support. Don’t create such a situation that the government has to help.

When asked whether Muslims would vote for him, he said, ‘I believe that the people of my country will vote for me. The day I convert from Hindu to Muslim, I will not be able to live in public life. And I will not do Hindu-Muslim. This is my resolution.

Yet, as many happily pointed out, within 24 hours of his denial he was back to ‘Hindu-Muslim’ and said that Congress had spent 15% of the Union Budget exclusively for Muslims when it was in power. He had planned to spend on, but abandoned it after opposition from his party.

The special thing is that his comments have generated more enthusiasm among liberal Hindus than among Muslims, who have learned to take such things in stride. Most reacted with sarcastic smiles and knowing shrugs.

life in gujarat

Meanwhile, for this writer, the most intriguing and interesting part of the interview was the extent to which Modi went to prove his closeness to Muslims as neighbours, friends and colleagues. He said that he grew up among Muslims who lived shoulder to shoulder with Hindus and he spent his early years interacting with Muslims almost every day.

He said, ‘We celebrated all the festivals together. On the day of Eid, food was not cooked at our place, so much of the food came from our Muslim neighbours.

He recalled that he and other children used to enjoy participating in Tajiya processions on the day of Muharram. ‘I have grown up in such an environment,’ he said while talking to Rubika Liaquat, an ardent Muslim woman journalist.

Modi claimed that as Chief Minister of Gujarat, Muslims regularly thanked him for the work his government was doing to improve their lives.

Modi cited the example of Ahmedabad’s famous Manek Chowk, which is a vegetable market in the morning, a bullion market in the afternoon and a busy street at night, as an example of Hindu-Muslim harmony in Gujarat and the Muslim community’s affection for him despite the ‘misinformation’ of critics. Turns into a food market.

He said that following attempts to ‘defame’ him following the 2002 Gujarat riots, he ordered a survey of Muslim mood in Manek Chowk. He chose this area because of its unique mixed character.

He told, ‘All the traders there are Muslims and all the buyers are Hindus. It is packed during Diwali.

He said that the survey revealed that Muslims have deep faith in Modi. When the researchers provoked him to say something against Modi, he was asked to remain silent.

PM told about the results of the survey, ‘They said do not say anything against Modi, otherwise your wife will not give you dinner at night. They are so happy that because of Modi our children are going to school, their lives are getting better.

Almost 90% of the Muslim traders were also of the same opinion.

She also narrated an intriguing incident of how a group of Muslim women had come to meet her. They thought she had come to complain about something. The PM said, ‘But he said that we have come to greet you. I said that I did not do anything. But they said no, because of you we are getting regular and cheap electricity. He explained in detail how it all happened.

Such stories were used in the interview to make it clear that his ‘anti-Muslim’ image was far from the ground reality and was created by his political enemies to undermine him.

How can a person who has grown up among Muslims be anti-Muslim?

In a way, he tried to say, ‘If you doubt me, then ask the Muslims only.’

Certainly, this is not the last time we hear about ‘Hindu-Muslim’. This is a topic of electoral controversy across the political spectrum in India and unfortunately there is no way to avoid it.

(These are the personal views of the author)