Muslims and the Mandate

The Lok Sabha election result has rekindled hope for Muslims to participate in nation-building

- Tanvir Aeijaz

THE electoral verdict of June 4 has reassured the 200-million-strong Muslim community in India that they can breathe a collective sigh of relief. The immediate response Muslims had was that the mandate was against PM Narendra Modi’s ‘‘hate and divisive politics’’, and a sense of pyrrhic victory pervaded their understanding of the verdict. A victory that would exert to extenuate, at least for the time being, the demonising of hapless Muslims. The calculus between the hope for peaceful co-existence and fear of religious oppression runs deep in the Muslim psyche, but the verdict, nonetheless, strengthened their faith in and conviction of belongingness to the Indian State, democracy and the Constitution. It rehashed a new hope for Muslims to participate in, represent and make a difference in the nation-building exercise. But, given the lynching of two Muslim men, and a third in critical condition, for transporting cattle in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur district, just two days after the verdict, it seems to be a predicament for Muslims irrespective of the verdict. So, is this sense of blitheness for Muslims skin-deep and ephemeral?

Political Mobilisation and Muslims