The Bharatiya Janata Party is back to doing what it does the best — establishing its saintliness by resorting to “Miya politics”. “Miya” is an honourable term but especially since 2014 it has become a pejorative reference to Muslims; if one talks about Northeast India, Miyas are Bengali-speaking Muslims. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma shot off his mouth lately on the vegetable price boom, saying, “Vegetables are not priced so high in villages, here the Miya vendors charge us more. Had it been Assamese vendors selling vegetables, they would not have fleeced their own people. I will clear all the footpaths of Guwahati and I urge our Assamese people to come forward.” Sarma knows that the communal rhetoric will not only divide the Hindus and Muslims ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, but the pitch will deftly help divert attention from the core issues on which the government has no answers. How will the government control the skyrocketing prices of tomatoes, potatoes, spinach etc? Some cosmetic measures are in place but the prices are still beyond the common man’s reach. Hyderabad MP Asaddudin Owaisi taunted Sarma, saying, “There is a such a group in the country who will blame Miyaji even when the buffalo does not give milk or the hen does not lay eggs; perhaps they blame their personal failures also on Miya bhai.”
Many would laugh off Owaisi’s remark as a wisecrack, but the sneer and his jibe epitomises the BJP’s political expediency over Miyas and Muslims. The saffron party seems to be blaming the Muslims for all ills in the country. The unremitting and sustained echoes against the community seemingly is BJP’s survival mantra, or the thumb rule of its politics. Be it the Babri Masjid demolition, or the Godhra riots, when the BJP gropes for answers, it always turns back to the same Muslims it spreads venom against. All its actionable agendas are directed towards targeting the 20% population and in this process in the last nine years it has resurrected the past, vilified the invaders, deleted references to Muslims and Mughals in NCERT textbooks, dug up mosques to find Shivlingas, brought in CAA and NRC mindlessly, removed Article 370 in Kashmir and now is all geared up to bring in a Uniform Civil Code. When questioned by the probing media, the of-heard response is sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas which means zilch as it has given rise to massive social alienation of the Muslims.
Let’s jog down memory lane to Covid times. The discovery of Covid-19 cases among Tablighi Jamaat members led to a vicious hate campaign not only against the organisation but Muslims in general, who were accused by a large section of mainstream media of being solely responsible for the Covid outbreak in India.
In TV and newspaper reports, Tablighi Jamaat members were dubbed as “super spreaders” and accused of carrying out a “corona jihad” to deliberately spread the virus. Several media reports also falsely accused them of misbehaving with medical staff at various quarantine facilities. So quintessentially when BJP has no solutions, the most facile answer is to communalise and use it for its electoral gains as well.
Whether it’s epithets like “Abbajaan”, “Taliban” or “rioters” hurled by Yogi Adityananth or his bulldozers tearing down houses of Muslims, the supplicant media dilates and fattens the narrative which politically suits the BJP. The saffron party has been chest-thumping about its development journey in the last nine years; party president JP Nadda recently told the PM after he returned from America that BJP workers are carrying the government’s report card door to door and informing the people about the vikas yatra. It seems though that the party is not sure of development, and even the RSS is not sure that BJP might win elections on the basis of Modi's charisma alone as spelt out by their mouthpiece The Organiser. Despite Modi's charm, and the development card, BJP is not sure if ten years of anti-incumbency can be translated into pro-incumbency. This is where the vacuum is filled up and amplified by the media with Miya politics. I want to highlight a few headlines in the last one year.
* BJP worker Dinesh Kushwaha assaults a man he thought was a Muslim
* ‘Muslims should be set ablaze’: Haribhushan Thakur Bachaul
* ‘If Hindus wake up, we will pull your beards and make a chotia‘: MLA Mayankeshwar Singh
* ‘Hindus who don’t vote for me have Miyan blood in their veins’: BJP MLA Raghvendra Pratap Singh
* ‘Vote for Yogi or face bulldozers’: BJP MLA T. Raja Singh
* BJP MLA Gurjar: “Na Ali, Na Bahubali, Keval Bajrang Bali”
The BJP unapologetically supports anti-Muslim politics and rhetoric; it isn't scared of bad international press either because Modi's red carpet rolled out in nations across the world has given a major liftoff to the hubris and vanity associated with “Miya politics”. Prime Minister Modi was questioned about hatred for Muslims in the American press; the same thing was seen in various newspapers in France; but the BJP remains unfazed. Riding high are the geopolitical and strategic compulsions of developed nations to keep India or its government in good humour because the reality is that India is one of the strongest and most powerful consumer markets in the world. This market scape would give a bigger licence to “Miya politics” which will not only be blaring but thunderous and deafening as well. Whether the citizens like it or not, be ready for more venom and toxin against Muslims in the runup to the 2024 elections as BJP is at pains to give answers on jobs, economic inequity, rising prices, unfulfilled promises in every sector. Who knows, BJP might again hit a jackpot with communal politics against the Miyas in 2024. BJP needs Muslims as much as it hates them. One cannot dismiss PM Modi's love for Muslims in the Arab world; the timeliness and the promptitude is purely out of business interests, but it does drive home the message that international Muslims are on a higher pedestal whereas Miyas in his country will continue to remain in subjugation.
(Neelu Vyas is a senior television anchor and consulting editor with Satya Hindi)
