While 10% of the population is made up of Muslims, what political voice is being given to the Muslims of Gujarat? If any Muslims do come forward, they are being arrested and labeled as Pakistani spies under POTO !!
May god have mercy on the innocent Muslims, and save them from the Muslim burning Hindus?
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/comp/articleshow?artid=30503270
Lip service, but no tickets for Muslims
MAHESH DAGA
TIMES NEWS NETWORK SATURDAY, DECEMBER 07, 2002 12:41:13 AM ]
AHMEDABAD: In some ways Indian politics in the last decade and a half have revolved around a single question: The future of minority communities. But seldom has this question become as central as in the forthcoming Gujarat polls.
Yet the minorities remain profoundly peripheral to these elections both in terms of eventual outcome and representation. Consider the following. While Muslims constitute almost 10 per cent of the population in Gujarat, neither of the two principal parties have recognised their political claims.
While the BJP under Narendra Modi’s ‘‘uncompromising’’ leadership has blanked them out completely, the Congress has handed them a grand total of four seats.
Says a Muslim analyst: ‘‘You can’t argue that only Muslims can represent their own in a democracy. But when you look at how carefully the two parties have tried to accommodate every other caste and community — from Patels and Kshatriyas to SCs and STs — it’s clear that there’s been a cynical attempt to keep the Muslims out.’’
Hanif Lakdavala, who runs an NGO in Ahmedabad, says he understands the Congress strategy of not ‘‘giving the BJP a handle by putting up too many Muslims’’, but he is angered by the party’s refusal to even accept, much less raise, issues affecting minorities, particularly the plight of riot victims.
Lakdavala’s point is echoed by an old Muslim trader. ‘‘Other than Soniaji to some extent, have you heard anyone else raise the issue of post-Godhra violence in the elections?’’ he asks after attending a Congress rally addressed by Sonia Gandhi at the Polo Grounds in Vadodra.
‘‘The reason for this neglect is simple,’’ says a bitter Muslim youth in Naroda Patia — the scene of some of the city’s worst rioting. ‘‘The Congress has taken Muslim support for granted.’’
This exclusion of Muslims from the political process — except as voters ‘‘who would be herded like sheep into the polling booths’’, come December 12 — worries activists who feel that it could push the community towards fundamentalist causes. ‘‘When the space for real politics shrinks,’’ as one of them says, ‘‘it’s an invitation to extremism.’’
‘‘In that sense,’’ as activist Achyut Yagnik puts it, ‘‘these elections are already a victory for the Hindutva cause.’’
TOI Comment: Alienation of any group from the ‘mainstream’ is a dangerous development. Any democracy worth the name is inclusive, not exclusive.
