From: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol - XLVIII No. 03, January 19, 2013
Editorials
Fifteen Minutes of Infamy
Will Akbaruddin Owaisi's speech yield political dividends or bring all other hate-mongers to justice?
In the five decades of its existence the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) has remained a minor player in the politics of Andhra Pradesh representing a section of the Muslims of Hyderabad. It now has a few members in the legislative assembly and one member in the Lok Sabha. However, a recent speech given by its legislature party leader, Akbaruddin Owaisi, in Adilabad has suddenly catapulted it to national prominence and the MIM has been subjected to intense scrutiny by mainstream and social media. Akbaruddin is in jail, finally arrested by the police for spreading hate among communities and waging war against the country. The most quoted of his outrageous statements was one where he said that if the police was removed from the country for 15 minutes, India’s 25 crore Muslims (a fancy number in itself when the census states it is 13.8 crore) would teach a lesson to 100 crore “Hindustanis”. Akbaruddin made other incendiary statements as well and it is only proper that he has been arrested. However, the interesting thing is that he has been making similar speeches for at least 15 years, carrying on the “fiery” oratory tradition of his father, Salahuddin Owaisi.
The MIM under Qasim Rizvi defended the “independence” of an Islamic state of Hyderabad under the Nizam at the time of Independence in 1947. It organised the “Razakars” (a mercenary army) infamous for its violence and killings of communist partisans and Hindu subjects of the Nizam. It was banned after Hyderabad state’s merger with the Indian Union in 1948 but was revived by Rizvi, in 1957, in the 48 hours he had between being released from prison and leaving for Pakistan. It is common knowledge this was part of a deal with the Government of India to undercut the popularity of the Communist Party of India in Hyderabad by propping up the MIM to wean Muslims away from it. Rizvi appointed Abdul Wahab Owaisi as president of the revived MIM before leaving for Pakistan.
In its second incarnation the MIM gave up its demand for an Islamic state but adopted aggressive Muslim fundamentalism to weld an electorally viable political bloc. It took some time but by 1969 the MIM got its first member in the legislative assembly, slowly increasing that number to about half a dozen. In 1984, the MIM won the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat and has remained undefeated since. The secret of its electoral success has been the sense of security it has provided Hyderabad’s Muslims who have suffered, since Independence, regular bouts of intense violence at the hands of an aggressive Hindu right as well as an insensitive state administration. The growing muscle of the MIM has neutralised this violence and since 1990, when the last major communal violence took place in Hyderabad in the aftermath of L K Advani’s “rath yatra”, there has not been any major incident in the city. Media reports and academic research both suggest that Hyderabad’s Muslims vote for the MIM largely because of the security it provides and the space this has opened for Muslims to pursue business, jobs, education and recreation without fear. The growing public profile and self-confidence of the Muslims of Hyderabad has also helped sustain a politics which foregrounds their cultural assertion.
However, this success has also limited the MIM to parts of the city and one community, and retarded its growth. Akbaruddin’s brother, Member of Parliament Asaduddin Owaisi, tried to transform the MIM into a broad platform of marginalised communities, Muslims as well as lower caste Hindus by giving tickets to non-Muslims in local body elections. While this strategy proved unsuccessful (mainly due to the inability of the MIM to let go of its religious core), Akbaruddin’s political line of returning to the aggressive politics of Muslim fundamentalism has paid rich electoral dividends. The MIM recently won an unprecedented 11 seats in municipal elections in Nanded in neighbouring Maharashtra. It was in pursuit of this strategy that the MIM formed the United Muslim Action Committee with the All India Muslim Personal Law Board office-bearer, Abdur Rahim Qureshi, as its convenor, and had recently withdrawn support from the Congress-led governments in Delhi and Hyderabad.
It remains a matter of conjecture as to why this particular speech suddenly caught national attention. A major role has been of new media and social networks where a video of Akbaruddin’s speech went “viral”, forcing attention by the mainstream media, government and judiciary. While the wheels of justice move indecisively and slowly, the political ramifications of this unexpected trial of Akbaruddin are significant. By foregrounding “Muslim” hate of Hindus, this speech will give a fillip to the Bharatiya Janata Party and other Hindutva forces not just in Andhra Pradesh but around the country. In Hyderabad, this will lead to a further consolidation of Muslims behind the MIM, leading to a strengthening of communal politics. The fact that action has only been taken against a “Muslim” leader when scores of Hindu extremists have said worse things but remain untouched by the law will further polarise opinion. The Congress government in Andhra Pradesh is playing both sides. It has charged Akbaruddin with sedition to win “Hindu” votes, an accusation that is unlikely to stand up to legal scrutiny. The MIM leader will then be freed and this will thus keep the “Muslims” happy. The coming forward of progressive forces to denounce Akbaruddin’s speech and the public outrage over his comments will hopefully not only scuttle attempts to let him off the hook, they should also force a reluctant state to initiate action against all other hate-mongers. Anything less will be too dangerous to contemplate.
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