Muslims in Gujarat try to regain lost space     

Ever since the Gujarat pogrom targeting Muslims that had followed the Godhra train burning episode in February 2002, a socio-political process has been at work in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state. The minorities, particularly the Muslims, were pushed to the margins of the political narrative and it sort of reached its culmination during last year’s Assembly polls where the community stood banished from the mainstream political discourse.

But over the last few months, sustained effort by some activists from within the community is aiming to gain lost ground in the political narrative. Under the banner of Minority Coordination Committee Gujarat (MCCG), a demand is being raised that the community be given its constitutional rights. The committee has been organising programmes at regular intervals where these issues are being raised.

A public rally was organised by the committee on Tuesday at Satyagrah Chhavni in the state capital of Gandhinagar where a sizeable number of community members came to put forth their demands. According to the committee, Muslims comprise 11.5 per cent of Gujarat’s population and this segment has been left out of the state’s development paradigm.

The demands include a ministry of minority affairs in the state, a minorities’ commission and proper budgetary allocation for development of the community.

Mujahid Nafees, convener of the committee, said, “There is no mechanism to protect the rights of minorities or to ensure their development. The community is living in fear and things have come to such a pass that people are being attacked and looted even when they are transporting their cattle. On one side, the government is harping on the slogan of ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ and on the other, the dropout rate of Muslim girl students between class one and five is as high as 10.58 per cent. The government is not intervening. There is no minorities’ commission to address the complaints of the community. We have now understood that the minorities in Gujarat are being denied the rights that are available in other parts of the country.” He announced that the committee will organise a demonstration outside the state Assembly whenever the next session meets.

Other demands being raised by the community include: Opening of schools till class 12 in Muslim-dominated localities; that the certificates given by Madarsas be treated at par with that of the school education board; a special package for the development of minorities and proper implementation of the Prime Minister’s 15-point programme.

The community further wants that the government frame a policy for the people displaced in communal violence. This demand needs to be looked into in context of the 2002 riots where a large number of victims who were displaced continue to lead miserable lives.

Nafees told National Herald, “It needs to be understood how the Muslim community has not only been marginalised but driven out of the political narrative over the last almost two decades. The constitutional rights were never given and everything was looked at through the religious angle. We want to be back in the mainstream. We want our constitutional rights so that everybody is well educated, is a part of the political discourse and earns a decent livelihood.”

Nafees’ concern can be gauged from what happened in the last Assembly polls in the state. While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tried to sell its development narrative, the Congress countered it on its failures to deliver over the last two decades. At the same time, there were attempts to polarise voters on communal grounds but this never became a reference point of the campaign.

The Congress too refrained from talking about Muslims, lest Hindu voters see it as a pro-Muslim party. This was so evident that even senior Muslim leaders from the state, such as Ahmed Patel, were not seen campaigning. The Muslims also kept quiet. While some saw this as tactical silence, others interpret it as disillusionment.

“It is a very important initiative as it attempts to change the discourse. After the 1992-93 and 2002 riots, efforts were made within the community to bring about an improvement in the education standards. New institutions came up but these were run by religious bodies. Along with education grew orthodoxy. But this is an initiative that is talking about education, competition and jobs. This change in discourse is important because nobody knows about the constitutional rights,” says social activist Hanif Lakdawala who has been working to bring Hindus and Muslims together since the 2002 pogrom.

“What has been going on for the last few months is a dialogue in real sense. It is a significant move that will go a long way,” said Lakdawala. The committee enrolls volunteers who are neither affiliated with any religious institution, nor any political party, and are also not a paid employee of any social organisation.

Nafees said the whole exercise to start such a movement was triggered by the analysis of the status report of the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs almost two years ago where it was we found that out of the 27 schemes meant for the minorities, only three had been initiated in Gujarat, and this included allocation of mere Rs 55 lakh for rural housing and Rs 70 lakh for upgrade of some institution. There was a big zero against other schemes like skill development, starting of self-help groups, etc.

Referring to the report, he said there was no specific allocation for Muslims in the state budget, while the Rs 55 lakh allocated was to the clubbed category of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Castes and minorities. This paltry amount becomes even smaller when compared with the annual state budget of Rs 1,76,000 crore. It was upon this realisation that the idea to form the committee dawned upon some. This was followed by a three-month drive under which one lakh post cards listing the demands of the minorities were addressed to Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani. Though there was no formal response from the government, there were enough telephonic calls from officials making promises.

The committee members say that their biggest achievement came when Rupani had to talk about what his government proposed to do for the Muslims in the presence of Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on August 29 last year. This was for the first time that Gujarat government was talking about Muslims ahead of the elections. With parliamentary polls approaching, the community will try its best to air its demands forcefully so that political parties have to factor them in while drawing up their poll promise lists.