Sadiq Khan's win conceals the communalisation of minority politics in the UK (Gita Sahgal)

India Today - May 12, 2016

A fraught victory
Sadiq Khan's win conceals the communalisation of minority politics in the UK

Gita Sahgal

Sadiq Khan won such a convincing election victory to become the first Muslim mayor of London that his success now seems a foregone conclusion. But it was far more of a slog than it should have been.

His main opponent, the Conservative Zac Goldsmith, was known as an environmentalist, but his campaign failed to play to his strengths. Instead, they followed the template developed by the Australian Lynton Crosby who utilised negative tactics to win the Conservatives the general election against the wisdom of the opinion polls. This time, horrified Conservatives watching the campaign implode called them 'dog whistle' methods.

Steve Hilton, a former Conservative spin doctor, commented on the unlikelihood of Goldsmith bringing back 'the nasty party ' label to the Tories. Hilton understands, for he is immortalised in the political satire, The Thick of It, as a barefoot spin doctor teaching old school Tories to be cuddly and love 'the Big Society'. Hilton failed and went off to his spiritual home-California.

Were all the questions raised about Khan simply smears? Maajid Nawaz, a former member of the Hizb-ut- Tahrir, generously acquits Khan of being a fundamentalist sympathiser. Nawaz is grateful to Khan who defended him while he was a fundamentalist imprisoned in Egypt; even though he later smeared Nawaz as an 'Uncle Tom'.

Britain's open secret is that all parties have a rigidly communalist view of minority politics. Khan spent many years as a human rights lawyer defending terrorist suspects. Nawaz rightly distinguishes between his work and his political associations-which ranged over those associated with terrorism in Britain to defending Muslim Brotherhood preachers and the Jamaat-e- Islami umbrella organisation, the Muslim Council of Britain. I had investigated senior figures in the MCB during my work on the campaign against The Satanic Verses and the Bangladesh liberation war. In The War Crimes File, which I produced for Channel 4, we investigated Al Badr death squads. A leader, Chowdhury Mueenuddin, was later convicted of mass crimes in the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh. In spite of the allegations against him, he rose to prominence in Britain, embraced by Prince Charles as well as Tony Blair. It's perhaps not so surprising that a young lawyer looking to make his way in politics would gravitate to terror suspects and Islamist parties. They had become the heroes of the Left and necessary advisors to government. An earlier generation's power brokers were men associated with the Congress, the Pakistani PPP, the Bangladeshi Awami League or the Communist parties with their strength in various workers' associations. Now, these were passé; and the mosque and temple de rigueur, instead.

David Cameron has frequently denounced multiculturalism but his campaign video, Neela Hai Aasman , followed the Labour footprint. A garlanded Cameron is seen with his wife dressed in a sari, bowing before various godmen. Not a single Muslim is in sight, but Modi features strongly to add lustre to the Conservatives. Goldsmith had a similar video.

During Goldsmith's campaign, voters of Indian origin received leaflets targeted at religion and region. The British PM's visit to the Golden Temple was celebrated for Sikhs, Gujaratis were told Corbyn and Khan were anti-Modi. Scare stories spread of Labour taxing family jewellery.

But finally, Cameron over-reached himself when he used parliamentary privilege to accuse Sadiq Khan of supporting Suliman Gani, an imam he claimed was a supporter of the Islamic State. Gani denied the accusation and announced he was a Conservative supporter.

If Khan faced a rough time, his campaign tactics for his parliamentary seat summoned up a vicious communalism. Maajid Nawaz claims that Khan allied with Sunni Muslims against an Ahmadi Muslim candidate.

These horrors recall an earlier election in the 1980s where the gay Labour candidate Peter Tatchell faced vilification and violence for his sexuality. The Liberals fought and won a dirty campaign for their man, Simon Hughes, who had not declared that he too, was gay. Hughes went on to serve for decades as an honourable Liberal Democrat.

In spite of the allegations, many anti-fundamentalist campaigners voted for Sadiq Khan. They want to challenge a poisonous anti-migrant narrative, and to address the housing crisis which has priced even middle-class Londoners out of the city.

Meanwhile, many secular Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Dalits and athiests-- all from minorities-- are subjected to death threats and discrimination by fundamentalists in the UK. Khan has distanced himself from allegations of anti-semitism but he needs to hear the voices of minorities within minorities.

Sadiq Khan has won a landmark election which he fought as the son of a bus driver and seamstress. Perhaps his greatest achievement is to restore the idea that the welfare state is the guarantor of stability and opportunity.

Gita Sahgal is Director, Centre for Secular Space, UK