Ear to the ground

The importance of Arif and Najma

On the face of it, the Congress leaders have written off Arif Mohammad Khan’s entry into the BJP and Najma Heptullah’s similar plans as inconsequential but the unease is far too evident to be missed. True, they are not mass leaders. Khan can claim a limited vote-base in UP and Heptullah none whatsoever. She has always been nominated to the Upper House and is stand-offish in her approach. The damage, therefore, is not much in terms of vote. What then is causing so much discomfort to the Congress leaders? For, even the Congress president reacted sharply to Heptullah’s utterances against the party saying: “Congress is an ideological party and the people who have no faith in the party's ideology and violate party discipline have no place in it.”
Not that the BJP is claiming it would gain any minority vote because of them. In fact, senior party leaders say whatever minority vote they get is all because of Atal Behari Vajpayee’s image as a statesman and a moderate leader. That is why the three-point action plan which the party adopted at the convention of the minority community in New Delhi last Wednesday included the decision to set up “Support Atal Behari Vajpayee Committees” comprising entirely of Muslims. And contrary to what many would like to believe, the BJP does get some Muslim votes. There are no data to substantiate it but those familiar with ground realities peg the figure at four to five percent, which is about one percent of the grand total.
So, what then would the BJP gain by inducting Khan and wooing Heptullah? Plenty. Ask the BJP strategists and they would tell you that the party is, in fact, aiming for wooing “secular” and “liberal” Hindu votes through them! Even if the party manages to win over a fraction of such votes the gain in terms of seats could be significant. This is the section of Hindu voters who love to hate the BJP by branding it as communal and don’t vote for Vajpayee even if it believes he stands for peace, development and communal harmony and has statesman like qualities. A senior BJP leader said on condition of anonymity: “They (Khan and Heptullah) won’t fetch us votes. Our gain is in terms of the Hindu votes. Our image among the Hindus would certainly improve.” Of course, he was referring to “liberal and secular” Hindus. Hardcore Hindus are already in their camp.
The BJP is convinced the Muslims wouldn’t actually queue up outside their offices in large numbers to enrol themselves or support during the polls whatever they may do. Vijay Goel, Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports, who won the Chandni Chowk seat twice, is determined to switch from his Muslim-dominated Chandni Chowk seat to Hindu-dominated Delhi Sadar. All because Pervez Hashmi, who cornered the minority votes (about 30 percent vote share) and made sure the Congress candidate lost the election on past two occasions, has joined the Congress. He knows his defeat is ensured if he persists with Chandni Chowk.
Syed Shahabuddin has this comment to offer on the issue of Khan and Heptullah siding with the BJP: “The BJP’s objective is not to get Muslim votes but liberal Hindu votes--the fence sitters. They want to show to liberal Hindus that they are changing and not communal anymore. They are stuck on a plateau (in terms of Hindu votes) and want to increase their vote share by at least another five percent (with the help of liberal Hindus).”
It may be pointed out that the BJP has never shown any inclination to really expand its minority support base. In fact, such an approach wouldn’t fit with their ideological makeup. The Sangh Parivar has always worked towards uniting the entire Hindu community, which the BJP is continuing. For this purpose it has adopted a twin strategy: One is evident in ghar wapsi and trishul dikshya functions, Ayodhya movement and post-Godhra pogrom. This helps consolidating the hardcore Hindu votes.
One of the reasons why the BJP adopted Dr Ambedkar is that they found it convenient to quote him on his advice to the Scheduled Castes not to convert to Islam. Their favourite line is from Dhananjay Keer’s biography, Dr Ambedkar: Life and Mission: “…It has become a habit with the Scheduled Castes to look upon the Muslims as their friends simply because they dislike the Hindus. This is a mistaken view.”
The other strategy is to expand the social base through alliance with Mayawati, Ram Vilas Paswan and Nitish Kumar who are leaders of backward castes.
If Sir Vidiadhar Naipul was called to the party headquarters on Thursday it was because he was the only intellectual of international standing to support the ‘Hindu resurgence’ and, well, he is also famous for pointing out flaws in Islamic societies.
Had the BJP strategy not purely been Hindu-centric, it wouldn’t have accorded Narender Modi and Dilip Singh Judeo the star status during the last Assembly campaign. Modi was so important that his campaign schedule was circulated to media persons, along with that of the big three-Vajpayee, Advani and Venkaiah Naidu. Judeo was caught on videotape taking bribe but that was brushed aside. More recently, Kalyan Singh, the poster boy of the Ayodhya movement, was brought back and what is his battle cry? Ram ka naam, Vajpayee ka kaam.