The Telegraph, May 28, 2009
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MUSLIM VOTE
This year’s Lok Sabha polls exposed once again the numerous myths about how the minority community votes, writes Zoya Hasan
By now, the factors responsible for the awesome verdict in favour of the Indian National Congress and its allies in the 2009 elections are clear. The primary factor appears to be the overriding view among large sections of the electorate that only the Congress could provide a stable, secular government. The second factor was the track record of the United Progressive Alliance, particularly its pro-poor policies and social welfare measures, which played a central role in changing the dynamics of voting. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and farm-loan waiver were the game changers. The third factor was the strong support of Muslims for the Congress in West Bengal, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, marking an end to the post-Ayodhya estrangement of Muslims from the grand old party. The implementation of some welfare programmes for Muslims over the past five years — reflecting a shift from identity to development — also went a long way in creating goodwill for the Congress.
This election has again exposed numerous myths about the Muslim vote. Conventional wisdom says that Muslims tend to vote en bloc for candidate or party because of communitarian unity. This is not true. This election shows that there is nothing like a unified Muslim vote, just as there is nothing like a Hindu vote. There is no difference between large sections of Hindus and Muslims and their wish to support an agenda of inclusive development, secularism and stability.
The Congress gained more Muslim votes this time because Muslims, like many other voters, were keen to ensure that the Bharatiya Janata Party did not stage a comeback. The fear of L.K Advani becoming prime minister, not to speak of Narendra Modi as a possible contender for the top job, weighed heavily in favour of the decision to support the Congress as the party most capable of defeating the BJP. The shift in Muslim votes to the Congress cut across class divisions among Muslims in urban and rural areas. These fears also explain the substantial support of Muslims for the Congress and its allies even in the strongholds of the fabled third front. The Left’s decision to align with the ex-partners of the BJP in the mistaken belief that this would prevent them from returning to the BJP’s fold lacked credibility. This decision may have encouraged a large scale shift of not only Muslim but also unattached secular votes to the Congress and the concomitant decimation of the Left in West Bengal and Kerala.
Muslim voting preferences clearly indicate that religious sentiments are not paramount when it comes to exercising the franchise. Issues of livelihood, education, secularism and security matter more than the counsel of clerics or pan-Islamic passions. Indeed, the resounding defeat of candidates sponsored by clerics in different states substantiates this tendency. In Kerala, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s attempt to garner the support of Muslims by courting the fundamentalist leader, A.N. Maudhany, proved counterproductive with a large proportion of secular and Muslim votes going to the Congress-led alliance. Equally, the Left’s anti-nuclear-deal stance was just not enough to neutralize Muslim discontent with regard to policies on land, livelihood and education in West Bengal. In this respect, the Muslim vote is not different, and not more ‘strategic’, from the secular vote, which would go to parties that can defeat communal outfits or can provide a measure of welfare and dignity to the deprived.
With the exception of a few elections, Muslims have not voted en bloc for any single party. Rather, they have voted for whichever party was likely to offer them economic and political inclusion and security. Like everyone else, Muslims exercise their vote overwhelmingly on party lines, and not on the basis of identity of the candidate regardless of the party he/she belongs to. This is the reason why large numbers of Muslims contesting as Independents lost from dominantly Muslim constituencies in these elections. In Uttar Pradesh, Muslims voted for the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. Even though the SP did not manage to get a single Muslim candidate elected, it could not have won 23 seats without their support.
Although Muslims have played a decisive role in increasing the tally of the Congress and its allies, only 5 per cent of the elected members of parliament are Muslims. The number of Muslim MPs has declined from 35 in the 14th Lok Sabha to 30 in the 15th Lok Sabha. Of the 30 winning candidates, 11 belong to the Congress, four each to the BSP and various Muslim parties, three each to the Trinamul Congress and the National Conference, and one each to the BJP, DMK, CPI(M) and JD (U), apart from one Independent. There are no Muslim MPs from 19 states and six Union territories. The SP, RJD and TDP have no Muslim representative in the Lok Sabha.
The decline in the number of Muslim MPs ought to be a matter of serious concern since Muslim representation is already much lower than the proportion of their population might warrant.
The legislative under-representation is due to a combination of institutional and political factors, especially first-past-the-post electoral system, which favours minorities that are geographically concentrated and, conversely, disfavours minorities such as Muslims who are demographically dispersed. In addition, Muslim representation is likely to be affected by the fact that some of the constituencies in which Muslims are concentrated are reserved for scheduled castes which means they are denied the opportunity of contesting elections from these constituencies in which they form a large proportion of the population.
Another well-known reason is the under-nomination of Muslim candidates by parties. National parties had given fewer tickets to Muslims this time than in previous elections. Many of those who were given tickets lost because of the split vote. The chances of Muslim candidates were greatly damaged by the new Muslim parties whose candidates could not win a single seat but succeeded in cutting into the votes of more winnable candidates nominated by national or regional parties. It is gratifying that Muslim voters rejected attempts by these sectarian parties at stoking religious identity for electoral gain.
A basic premise of representative democracy is that all those subject to policy should have a voice in its making. Political representation is valuable not only in itself — it can give a legitimate voice to minorities in the political arena — but also has instrumental value because it can help them influence policy decisions that can decrease marginalization of minorities. The only way to significantly increase representation of deprived groups is through positive action. For Muslims, the most practical option is for parties to give more tickets than are given to them at present from winnable constituencies. There are no reservations for the backward castes in legislatures, but their representation has gone up because post-Mandal, parties demonstrated the political will to increase their representation by giving them a large number of tickets. The time has come to begin a public debate on the merits of alternative electoral systems such as proportional representation or its variants in which parties win seats in proportion to the votes they poll and are thus more representative of voter choices and diversity of the electorate.
The author is professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University and member of the National Commission for Minorities
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