Why are Indian Pseudo-Seculars Angry with Modi’s Victory Across Religions and Castes?

It was the summer of 1995, when I was sitting on the pavement in front of a tea shop and sipping chai after an entire day of walking around in the villages near Saharanpur, UP to interview Muslims in Madrasas, Waqf boards etc to understand their socio-economic challenges and look for answers.  A young kid came and sat next to me.  I struck a casual conversation with him.  He was a Muslim kid.  I asked him where he studied?  “Madrasa”, he said.  Almost uninterested in the obviously depressing answer, I asked “So what do you want to do when you grow up?”  He sat up strongly and with a strong sense of intention replied “I want to study in a normal college and then come back to my village and start a normal school so other kids can study where I couldn’t!”  Now, it was my time to sit up and stare.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ~ CS Lewis

What the heck had the entire political and religious setup missed?!!  This kid was echoing the complete and total disconnect between individual aspirations and political game play of the so-called Secular parties.  And media as well.  These people, specially media folks have not met such kids or refuse to even take into account their aspirations of succeeding in an extremely competitive world faced with religious hegemony of idiots who dictate the religious and social discourse!

A Hindustan Times article introduces the writer as: Jawid Laiq is a political commentator who has been covering nationwide elections since 1977.

You would believe that such a “journalist” who has been covering the elections for so long would have some deep insights into how people are voting.  Specially, with respect to the community he surely espouses even though a journalist ought to be neutral.  This is what he says however:

Now that Prime Minister Modi has had a historic triumph in UP, it is about time he included Muslims in his “sabka sath sabka vikas” development programme, so that Muslims may vote for him in the 2019 national election.

There are two aspects to his rather patronizing statement – One, who voted for BJP (whether Muslims voted or not) and Two, who benefit from BJP rule (whether Muslims see the benefits or not).

Both, one has to point out are not linked and SHOULD NEVER be linked!  A Government is NEVER for those who voted for them.

To clearly understand the point #1, one needs to merely look at the statistics of the UP election.  And to understand point #2, one has to see whether BJP’s programs single out benefit to just Hindus and expressly debar the Muslims from taking any benefits?

The #2 is easily debunked because none of the Modi Government policies are being implemented on religious lines.  In fact, the Muslims are benefiting more under Modi than under anyone else.  Of course, the classic case study of Tata Nano move from West Bengal to Gujarat and impact on the local Muslims is by far the greatest way to shred such notions completely!!

Tata Nano and Secularism Case Study

Tata Nano was planning to construct a plant in Bengal.  The Chief Minister, Mamata Bannerjee cited the plight of poor and their lands.  A typical communist/socialist cry.  Soon the cadres were agitating and the plant had to close down.  Modi saw an opportunity and brought the Tata Nano plant to Gujarat.  The village near which the plant came up was a Muslim majority village.  The prices of land in that village rose 25 times in mere 5 years!  Ironically, the Muslims and poor in the “Secular” coddling state were still starving, while their brethren in “Communal” Gujarat were rich men and women!

The Gujarat government will give Rs 350 crore to a Muslim-dominated village near Sanand in Ahmedabad district where land prices have appreciated 25 times in the past five years.  Muslims comprise about half the population here. After Sanand, Khoraj, Bol and other surrounding villages the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation has initiated the process of acquiring 350 hectares of land in this village which is home to about 250 families.

Sharad Parikh, general manager (land) GIDC said the process of acquisition will start on Wednesday at the rate of around Rs 1 crore/hectare — up from Rs 4 to 5 lakh/per hectare when the Nano project shifted here in late 2008.

Now let us look at point #1 – i.e.; whether Muslims voted for BJP and Modi in the 2017 Assembly elections or not?  When one aggregates the party-wise votes for the 42 Muslim dominated constituencies, one sees that Jawid Laiq would have been better of watching Govinda movies (need not use their grey matter!) than covering elections.  For he learnt absolutely nothing!

This was the reality of the Muslim votes and the aspirations of the people in the community.  One also needs to appreciate that the Muslim votes – an expression thrown around so carelessly by the so-called journalists and politicians in India – is NOT a monolith!  Many sections amongst them – Women, Shias, Ahmadis, Dawoodi Bohras, Ismaili, Barelvis do not favor the Wahabi-oriented ways of the Sunni clerics backed by the so-called Secular parties like Samajwadi Party, Congress and BSP.

These sections of the Muslim population are not willing to go along with the Sunni men who are beholden to the clerics who bring nothing but ruin, terrorism and violence to the community.  All you need to know about how the vote in the Muslim areas has changed is to look at the result in Deoband, one of the five Saharanpur District constituencies in North UP.  Deoband is the town of Darul-Uloom, the most important Islamic seminary that controls hundreds of thousands of madrasas all over the state.  Most importantly, Deoband has 65% Muslim population.  And, yet it voted BJP!

Who is REALLY Manufacturing Hate and Communalism?

When the empirical evidence is so heavily stacked against you, isn’t it rather Machiavellian for a journalist to keep asserting as if Modi is against the Muslims and Muslims are against Modi.  It is a chasm that has been manufactured by the Indian media despite strong elections results alluding to the contrary.

It is almost as if the media is heavily invested in communal politics and those who speak for Muslim rights cannot digest that Muslims – of ALL hues, not just Sunni men – are looking after their own good!  It seems as though these journalists and politicians are telling Muslims to be confined to ghettos and behave as a monolith group even in elections!

Isn’t  voting by religion and not by personal choice against the very grain of democracy?!

Have we heard of a Sikh Vote?  Or a Jain vote?  Or a Christian vote?  Then why should there be a Muslim vote or an OBC vote?  The fact is that when people vote per their own choice and how they perceive the candidates individually, they cannot be seen as a monolith group.  A community that votes as a group dictated by some cleric is not acting Secular, but is a National Security threat!  Because, anyone with an ulterior motive can finance the narrative for that community via the right cleric!  It is not inconceivable, for example, that Saudi Wahabi money is used to dictate the elections in India simply because the Muslims are led to believe that they have to “stick together” and not think of their own good!

Even the Caste Groups voted Overwhelmingly for BJP!

Contrary to the lazy and retarded narrative of the Indian media and so-called Secular politicians, Modi is the one who is breaking the distinctions of the population into castes and religion based voting.  After all, in these elections, another myth broke down as well – All the caste groups voted per the general pattern and not by their caste!

As you can see, all the groups which the SP and BSP used to string along to vote for them ONLY because of their caste affiliations have voted heavily and overwhelmingly for BJP instead.

India can surely do without the perversity of Pseudo-Seculars

With this victory in 2017 Assembly elections, specifically in Uttar Pradesh, the time has come that people realize what Modi’s vision and work is for India.  More importantly, what India really wants.  Not what the perverse minds of so-called Secular journalists and politicians so fervently hope that India should be rooting for.  Left alone – without the sick and perverse communal narrative of these discredited groups (media and pseudo-secular politicians) – the population and the nation does just fine.  Thank you very much!