July-August 2010 
Year 16    No.153
Special Report


Left in the lurch

The jugglery of the communists no longer enthrals Indian Muslims

BY NAVAID HAMID

The recently concluded municipal elections in West Bengal seem to have brought the firebrand, Mamata Banerjee, whose Trinamool Congress is the second largest group in India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance and who is herself the union railway minister, one step closer to the chief minister’s chair at Writer’s Building in Kolkata. If it had been any state other than West Bengal, which has been ruled by the Left Front for more than three decades, one would agree that local body elections are rarely an indication of future trends in the battle for the highest office in the state. But the massive erosion of the Left’s political base in West Bengal is no ordinary political event and cannot be lightly dismissed.

The state has been a strong bastion of the Left movement in India. After the collapse of the USSR from where the Left has always taken inspiration, many wondered how long the communists in India would hold on to their fort. Opponents of the Left parties scoffed at their chances of survival and predicted their downfall sooner or later because of the declining interest in Marxist ideology across the globe.

Ironically, it was not the declining interest in Marxism that led to the ongoing decimation of Left rule in West Bengal. The arrogance of its leadership, the slow process of development and policies that are biased against the Muslims in West Bengal are major factors that are harming the electoral interests of the Left alliance in the state. Being the dominant partner in the Left Front in West Bengal, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) seems to be the main culprit in the Left Front’s sad decline.

Soon after the results of the local body elections were announced, the chairman of the Left Front and secretary of the CPM in West Bengal, Biman Bose, admitted that the Left Front had lost because of the decline in support for Left parties among Muslims. He is absolutely right and this was indeed a bold and candid admission by a top CPM leader.

The discontent with the CPM-led front among the Muslim community was so great that now, for the first time in its history, the Bally Municipality in Howrah district will have members occupying the opposition benches. And all the opposition members in the 35-member municipality will be Muslims belonging to the Trinamool Congress.

The erosion is not a sudden phenomenon. I envisaged the breeze of change about three years ago when the West Bengal chapter of the Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind spearheaded a campaign against the state government’s move to acquire farmland in Singur and Nandigram. So jittery was the Left leadership that it approached the Jamiat’s central leadership in an attempt to dissuade the group’s state unit from continuing the protest. In subsequent years the Muslims of the state became increasingly convinced that the CPM and its allies were indulging in acts of discrimination against the community.

Muslims, who constitute a little more than a quarter of the state’s population, have been the most neglected, marginalised and discriminated group in West Bengal for more than three decades under leftist rule. This sad truth has also been corroborated by the Sachar Committee, constituted by the Manmohan Singh government during the UPA’s first tenure to study the status of Muslims across India.

With no government jobs, no financial backing to Muslim entrepreneurs and denial of opportunities proportional to numerical strength to be Left alliance candidates in various elections, whether to local bodies or Parliament, agricultural land has been one of the basic sources of income and empowerment for a sizeable percentage of rural Muslims in West Bengal. A substantial number of the farmers affected by the state government’s move to acquire land for the Tata Motors plant were Muslims and the state Jamiat saw this as the perfect opportunity to jump into the fray along with others and raise its voice against the acquisition of farmer’s land for the Tata Nano project. It was the first-ever attempt by a non-political Muslim group in the state to raise its voice in an organised way against the leftist hegemony of the past 30 years. Over the past five years or so whenever I spoke to ordinary Muslims in West Bengal, they complained bitterly about the state administration and the Left leadership. This phenomenon was entirely new to me.

On March 3, 1978 Jyoti Basu, the then chief minister, admitted on the floor of the West Bengal legislative assembly that the Muslims of West Bengal were very, very backward due to several historical reasons. In subsequent election manifestos, the Left Front proclaimed the principle of due share for the minorities, including the Muslims.

Seven years before this candid admission by Jyoti Basu, the West Bengal cabinet of a democratic coalition government of the Congress, the Muslim League, the Praja Socialist Party, the Communist Party of India, the Forward Bloc, the Gorkha League, the Congress (O) and the Jan Sangh adopted, on June 27, 1971, a resolution on proportionate reservation for Muslims and other minorities in public employment and decided to appoint the Talukdar Commission (headed by JN Talukdar, a retired Indian Civil Service officer and former chief secretary) to investigate reasonable preferences for minorities, including Muslims, in government services. After the fall of the democratic coalition government, the Left parties along with the Muslim League of West Bengal were in the forefront of the demand for reservation for Muslims in employment and submitted a memorandum to the governor of West Bengal in 1972.

Ironically, the same Left Front, after taking over the reins of power, appeared to have forgotten its earlier intentions, proclaimed through the Talukdar Commission and the joint agitation for reservation for Muslims in 1972. Not only did the Left Front do nothing to fulfil the promises it had made to the minorities, and particularly to Muslims – to empower them, educationally, economically and politically, it also bitterly opposed the demand for reservation for Muslims and even denied them their equitable share in the political hierarchy by denying them party nominations proportionate to their numbers in election after election.

Never once in their 34-year history as rulers have the CPM and its allies been able to send more than seven per cent of Muslim representatives to the state assembly for the simple reason that they have never seriously addressed the question of the low representation of Muslims in the state legislature.

In the recently concluded municipal elections, out of the 86 candidates fielded by the Left Front in the district of Murshidabad, only 25 were Muslims, accounting for less than 30 per cent of the front’s candidates in a district where Muslims constitute 70 per cent of the total population. And here, in a district with the highest concentration of Muslims, the CPM has never considered a single Muslim worthy of heading the party’s district unit. What is even more amazing is the CPM’s defence of its partisan act, the party’s reasoning that it was not necessary to have representatives from among a particular community just because the community formed the majority in that area. If this is true, why then has the party also failed to give representation to Muslims in those constituencies where Muslims have a lesser numerical strength? The situation in Malda, another district with a densely concentrated Muslim population, is no different from that in Murshidabad.

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation will now have more Muslim councillors than ever before, courtesy of the Trinamool Congress. The Trinamool Congress bagged seats in 11 Muslim-dominated wards whereas the Left Front only managed to win eight (CPM – four, Revolutionary Socialist Party – two, Forward Bloc – two) and the Congress won three.

On the issue of the Women’s Reservation Bill too, the CPM has taken a strong stand opposing the demands of Muslim and OBC women for a sub-quota in the Women’s Reservation Bill. It has also been misleading the nation with the disingenuous assertion that Muslim women have benefited from the introduction of a women’s quota in panchayats and other local bodies. This is in fact a hollow argument which makes no mention of the fact that the Muslim women who have been getting elected have won in constituencies that have either overwhelmingly or substantially Muslim populations. Another relevant factor that is also deliberately ignored is that these are small constituencies of around 5,000 voters and cannot be equated with the sprawling assembly or parliamentary constituencies of around 2,00,000 and 10,00,000 voters respectively.

Caught on the wrong foot after the Trinamool Congress lent its support to the Muslims, backing their demand for a sub-quota for Muslim women in the Women’s Reservation Bill, the CPM through its leader Basudeb Acharia tried for the first time to be seen as favouring the sub-quota as well. At an all-party meeting convened by Congress troubleshooter Pranab Mukherjee on April 5, 2010 Acharia stated: “This is not constitutionally possible. But we are not opposed to looking at a proposal if brought by the government.” Mr Acharia fails to see that with the process of a major constitutional amendment to provide a quota for women in the legislatures already underway, it would be much easier to include a sub-quota for Muslim women at this stage itself. Moreover, the Constitution of India debars discrimination on the grounds of gender. If this were not so, there would have been no need to amend the Constitution and initiate the process for reserving seats for women in Parliament and state assemblies.

Instead of opening new modern educational institutions for Muslims, the Left Front government through the state madrassa board took control of the madrassas in West Bengal and introduced modern subjects into their curriculum. While one cannot deny the importance of teaching modern subjects in the madrassas, has this really helped the Muslims in West Bengal on a larger scale? The Sachar Committee pointed out that the most educationally backward Muslims in the country belonged to the state of West Bengal. The statistics provided by the committee are adequate proof of the malaise and the discrimination faced by Muslims living in the state.

Over the last 34 years the Left Front government has not only discouraged the opening of new modern educational institutions by Muslim NGOs, rejecting their applications for recognition year after year, but has also failed to actively address the issue of Muslim educational empowerment as evidenced by its failure to open government schools in Muslim-concentrated pockets in the state. This is nothing but criminal negligence on the part of the leftist administration, denying opportunities for education to the state’s Muslim community.

By taking control of the Islamic madrassas, even if indirectly, the Left Front government abdicated its constitutional responsibility to protect and promote the educational interests of the Muslim community in the state. Most of these madrassas subsequently became centres of education for pupils of all castes and religions.

After the Left alliance’s electoral victory in 2006, at a public reception organised by the Milli Council, which has supported the alliance’s candidates in assembly elections, the Left leadership through Biman Bose assured the Muslims of West Bengal that the state government would set up a primary school in every Muslim-concentrated village in the state. That promise was not considered worthy of implementation.

With regard to the presence of Muslims in public employment and recruitment by the state government, the following statistics are sufficient to comprehend the Left’s true inclinations in West Bengal:

On August 31, 1977 the proportion of Muslims in the Indian Administrative Service (West Bengal cadre) was two per cent while in the Indian Police Service (WB cadre) it was four per cent and in the Indian Foreign Service (WB cadre) it was one out of 78. The proportion of Muslims in the West Bengal Higher Judicial Service and the West Bengal Police Service was two per cent and six per cent respectively while the number of Muslims in the West Bengal (Senior) Forest Service amounted to nil. (Source: Q. 202 dated May 5, 1978 as in Legislative Assembly Reads.)

Out of 211 officers in the Calcutta Corporations, six were Muslims and out of the total number of 32,935 employees of the Calcutta Corporations, 4,230 were Muslims. (Source: Q. 208 dated April 21, 1978 as in Legislative Assembly Reads.)

On April 1, 1978, in the information and broadcasting department, out of 44 Class I officers, one was Muslim; out of 76 Class II officers, one was Muslim; out of 723 Class III employees, 12 were Muslims; and out of 398 Class IV employees, 15 were Muslims. (Source: Q. 1424 dated April 28, 1978 as in Legislative Assembly Reads.)

On April 1, 1978, in the rural and small-scale industries department, out of the 119 Class I officers, not one was a Muslim; out of 385 Class II officers, 20 were Muslims; out of 1,498 Class III employees, 53 were Muslims; and out of 839 Class IV employees, 30 were Muslims. (Source: Q. 1428 dated April 28, 1978 as in Legislative Assembly Reads.)

On April 1, 1978, in the Calcutta State Transport department, out of 98 officers, one was a Muslim and out of 13,232 employees, 101 were Muslims. (Source: Q. 280 dated March 7, 1979 as in Legislative Assembly Reads.)

Now let us look at the trend in recruitment of Muslims in state services in January 1980, recorded almost two years after the statistics for 1978 provided by the state government in the state assembly. The government responded to various questions with the following statistics:

 

The number of Muslim recruits as recorded in 1980 says a lot about the sincerity of the Left parties with regard to the upliftment of Muslims in West Bengal.

This is what the Sachar Committee had to say about the plight of Muslims in West Bengal after 30 years under the supposedly secular and unbiased leftist combine: In West Bengal, where Muslims constitute about 25 per cent of the population, their share in government employment was just 4.2 per cent. The presence of Muslims in higher positions in state public sector undertakings was nil.

On February 8 this year Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya announced a 10 per cent quota in government employment for Muslims under the OBC category. The CPM and other Left parties patted themselves on the back for the move. But what does this proposal actually mean? It is important to understand that the total reservation in government employment for OBC communities in the state of West Bengal is only seven per cent. If the state government proposes to give Muslims a sub-quota of 10 per cent from within this seven per cent quota for OBCs, the scheme amounts to little more than a cruel joke. Apart from that, more than four months after its announcement, the proposal has yet to be notified.

Most people wonder about the reasons for the Left leadership’s indifference to or bias against a powerful “vote bank” of 25 per cent, the overwhelming majority of whom have always stood like a rock behind the leftist combine in every election in the state. In trying to understand the rationale for its actions, I arrived at certain conclusions.

With the decimation of the Congress in West Bengal, the traditionally dominant groups infiltrated the Left parties and these groups continue to occupy positions of power and privilege despite the shift in political power within the state. Despite the slogan of power to the people, the rhetoric about social and economic equality and the emphasis on democratic values, there exists within the Left leadership a powerful section from among the dominant groups that has influenced decisions and exploited the Left’s ideology.

Bengal has not held aloof from the regions that have been a breeding ground for those who strongly desired the revival of far-right Hindutva nationalism. In his book entitled Hitler’s Priestess, British historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke revealed that the renowned Bengali spiritualist, Savitri Devi, compared Adolf Hitler to Kalki, the last avatar of Vishnu. According to the author, Hitler was once worshipped in elite Bengali homes in Calcutta. The right-wing Hindutva forces in India have always been admirers of Hitler’s politics and his Nazism and some even proclaimed him a great nationalist. It has long been a practice of right-wing political activists to use religious figures to push their political agenda.

The rise of the Left movement in West Bengal and its capture of political power may well have forced the right-wing forces to alter their tactics and infiltrate the Left parties. While this observation certainly requires detailed study, it cannot be dismissed outright. Though many people are aware that the Left leadership does not believe in the caste hierarchy, many would be astonished to hear that the overwhelming majority of the Left leadership in fact belongs to the upper castes.

One of the major reasons for the Left’s diminishing influence in the cow belt of northern India is its lack of trust in and commitment to grooming leaders from within the OBC sections of Hindu society.

There was a time when the Left parties had considerable influence in Muslim-concentrated pockets in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Delhi but this has now been totally eclipsed. The major reason for the near decimation of the Left in these areas is its failure to groom Muslim leaders. It is important to point out that these Muslim pockets have never been centres of labour movements in independent India because of their low representation in government and semi-government undertakings. Muslims in these pockets have always been involved in traditional artisanship and they supported the Left parties as an alternative to the Congress party because of their anger against the ruling Congress administration. With the rise of the caste-oriented parties from the 1980s, they have found better alternatives in the new political configurations, as these parties have, to some extent at least, groomed leaders from within the community.

Another major reason for the decline in the Left’s influence among Muslims in the northern states is its forceful stand in favour of a common civil code and its opposition to Muslim personal laws. Incidentally, the Left has also groomed and consistently supported several persons bearing Muslim names who have denounced religion and proudly proclaimed themselves to be non-believers. Being sensitive to the issue of religion, ordinary Muslims perceived the Left parties as being in concert with the far-right Hindutva forces on the issue of personal laws and this also played a major role in widening the gap between Muslims and the Left in northern India.

We now come to the Left’s relations with the Muslims in Kerala. Whenever the Left has been out of power in the southern state of Kerala, it has taken special care to seek allies among the Muslim community. With a small swing of one or two per cent, election results in Kerala can dramatically alter power equations. The Muslim League has a history of being at loggerheads with the Left Front in the state and is a long-standing ally of the Congress. To counter the Muslim League, the Left has always sought help from other Muslim organisations in the state. In the recent past the Kerala unit of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Indian National League (a breakaway group of the Indian Union Muslim League) and the cadre of the People’s Democratic Party led by Abdul Nasir Maudany have openly supported the Left Front. As a thanksgiving to Abdul Nasir Maudany, the state leadership of the CPM had campaigned for Maudany’s release from a Tamil Nadu jail and had not only shared a dais with him but also highly praised his leadership.

In a conversation with me after the last assembly elections, E. Ahamed, currently the minister of state for railways in the union government, was bitter about the Jamaat-e-Islami’s role in the defeat of Congress and Muslim League candidates. I was not surprised, as I was aware of the politics of the Kerala Jamaat.

Recently, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) chief minister of Kerala, VS Achuthanandan, issued a statement on the rise of Muslim and Christian communalism in Kerala. The secretary of the Kerala committee of the CPM, Pinarayi Vijayan, also attacked the Jamaat-e-Islami. The harsh statements and the parting of ways were not unexpected.

Achuthanandan’s sudden discovery of the rise of Christian communalism must be seen in the light of the merger of the Kerala Congress (Joseph) and the Kerala Congress (Mani) headed by the Christians. The Kerala Congress (Joseph) was a part of the LDF alliance before it quit the LDF to pave the way for its merger with the Joseph group. Interestingly, the ruling LDF under Achuthanandan then admitted the PC Thomas group of the Kerala Congress into the LDF. PC Thomas was once a minister of state, and his Indian Federal Democratic Party was a coalition partner, in the National Democratic Alliance government led by the BJP’s mukhota (mask), Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The Left’s confrontation with the Muslim groups began after the Solidarity Youth Movement, the youth wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, revived its agitation against the acquisition of land for the construction of a highway through Kinaloor in Kerala’s Kozhikode district. Earlier, during the reign of the United Democratic Front too, Solidarity was in the forefront of the campaign against the move by the then Congress-led government to acquire the land – an agitation which, ironically enough, the Left parties had supported at the time. Now, after the LDF government decided to revive the project and initiated the process of land acquisition, Solidarity has revived its agitation.

The other major reason for the confrontation was the announcement by the Kerala Jamaat that it would field 700 candidates in the upcoming panchayat elections. The announcement sent shock waves through the LDF which feared heavy losses in the panchayat elections with the Jamaat’s entry into the fray.

In another significant development, the Indian National League (INL) severed its ties with the LDF, a move provoked by the LDF’s refusal to formally admit the INL into the ruling alliance. Having waited for a long time, the INL finally came to the conclusion that however much the LDF may want the INL’s support, it was not prepared to grant the INL partnership status. Strangely, the LDF seems to use different yardsticks for different parties. It has no hesitation in admitting a former BJP ally who heads a Christian-dominated party into its coalition but is reluctant to give equal status to the Indian National League which it has suddenly discovered is communal too. n

(Navaid Hamid is general secretary of the Movement for Empowerment of Muslim Indians, MOEMIN, and a member of the National Integration Council. He can be reached at [email protected].)

 


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