UP Elections 2017: Security precedes development for Muslim voters

Even as the world famous Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband has shut its gates for politicians and media to appear neutral and in a bid to avoid controversies in the run up to the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Assembly elections, 300 kms away at rival centre Bareilly, there are no such qualms.

At the Sufi scholar and the founder of Barelvi movement, Imam Ahmed Raza Khan’s tomb, grandsons and custodians of his shrine are forthright. Like in Lucknow and Saharanpur, a stiff political battle between uncle and nephew has surfaced here as well.  

Mystic scholar’s great grandson Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, after trying his luck between Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) has now floated his own party, Ittehad-e-Millat Council (IMC), which will contest some 90 seats. His uncle Mohammad Mannan Raza Khan alias Mannani Mian told DNA that his nephew is out to divide the Muslim vote to ultimately help “communal forces come to power.”

Though, in 1995, he organised a unique protest against then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s visit to his grandfather’s shrine, Mannani Mian has now wholeheartedly switched loyalties to support the Congress-SP alliance.

In Deoband, though the  Darul Uloom may have shut its doors for a political discourse, ‘kafia’ clad students and scholars coming out from their classes at the afternoon break told DNA that security will be on top of their minds, while they cast their ballot in the elections.

Failed promises and the Muzaffarnagar riots just at the doors of this city have raised question marks on the seriousness of the SP, but there are apprehensions about the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati as well.

Leading figure of Deoband, Maulana Nadeemul Wajdi, admits that the riots in Muzaffarnagar and elsewhere have hurt the psyche of Muslims, but there is hardly any choice for the community, in the wake of statements issued by the BJP leaders. Ironically, instead of voting on issues related to development and their welfare, Muslims still have to vote with an insecure mindset, he laments.

Advocate Nadeem Akhtar echoes this view and says that Muslims have been pushed into such a situation, where BJP knows, they will not vote, so they hardly campaign in our localities and have nothing to offer. At the same time, these secular parties, know, they (Muslims) cannot go anywhere, so they also don’t bother about their upliftment.

But party hopper and head of the local Nagar Nigam Ziaudin Ansari is supporting the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as he now believes that a Dalit-Muslim alliance was answer to many problems of Muslims, after he was denied ticket by the Samajwadi Party (SP).

In contrast to Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), which produced western-educated elite Muslim class, who mostly sided with MA Jinnah leading to demand of a separate nation, the Deoband seminary has remained at logger heads with the West, more particularly the British. Historically, it has sided with the Congress, opposed Partition and provided intellectual fodder against the two-nation theory. Ironically off late, the Taliban in Afghanistan who mostly were educated at innumerable madras as, doting Pakistan’s North-West Frontier bordering Afghanistan, have owed allegiance to this seminary.

Crowded amongst his disciples in Bareilly Mannai Mian’s drawing room relates his confrontation with the former PM Rao. How he prevented Rao offering ‘chadar’ at the dargah of his grandfather. While many in the city say, that angry at the Rao’s role in the demolition of the mosque, they had pushed him to show some spine, Manani Mian has a different story. He says that he got orders to protest against Rao by his grandfather, when he was doing penance at his grave.

“I took revenge from Rao, for his role in the demolition of the mosque,” he said. He also appeals to his community not to vote for his nephew Tauqeer.

“Learn from the Bihar experience and vote unitedly to keep communal forces away from power. Vote for Itihad-e-Millat will only divide your votes,” said the aged custodian.

The modern day Chanakya, Rao had arrived in the city to appease Barelvi Muslims to counter Deobandi groups more particularly opposition from Jamiat-e-Ulma-e-Hind in the aftermath of demolition of the Babri Masjid.

At a short-distance away at a residence of his party worker nephew Tauqeer Raza Khan disputes that his jumping the fray will divide votes. “Unless we have our own voice in the Assembly and these secular parties don’t depend on us after the elections as well, nobody will listen to us to think of our welfare,” he said, adding that he has chosen 90 seats carefully, to ensure that BJP doesn’t get walkover in case of division of votes. He has also fielded a Sikh candidate Manjit Singh from Bareilly cantonment and a Hindu woman from one of the seats in the district. Both these top Barelvi leaders, however, opposed attempts to use their movement to divide Muslims, reminding that they had issued statements against government sponsored Sufi conference in 2016.