Muslims’ Voting Patterns Show They do not Constitute a Vote Bank

Irrespective of how Muslims are perceived by political parties, they do not vote as a bloc, writes Hilal Ahmed.

As the BJP approaches the UP Assembly election, scheduled next year, with its divisive brand of cow politics, other parties will understandably rush to protect their so-called Muslim vote bank.

In India, the Muslim vote bank is often associated with an established political template by which the voting behaviour of the community is understood and analysed. The minorities are considered to be very decisive in electoral politics because the winnability of a candidate at the constituency-level and the sustainability of any political coalition at regional/national level are inextricably linked to Muslim support.

Although these oversimplified and straightforward conclusions have often been touted as an imagined phenomenon, the Muslim vote bank is often imposed as an explanation for interpreting engagement of the Muslims in electoral politics.

Not a Monolithic Vote Bank

Broadly speaking, the notion of Muslim vote bank is based on a strong conviction that Muslims of India as a political community are fully conscious of their political interest and legal rights, and as a result, they are sincerely involved in political action. This portrayal of Muslim political identity simply goes against the actual sociological-cultural composition of Indian Muslim communities.

Muslims, like any other social group in India, are divided across caste, language, region, class and even religious lines. This internal diversity actually determines the nature of political engagement of Muslims at various levels. For example, the response of the Muslims to regional politics in Kerala cannot be compared with Muslim politics of UP — partly because of the incomparable caste-class configurations and partly because of state-specific political dynamics.

Age Old Formula

But the discourse of competitive electoral politics does not entirely relate to Muslim sociological plurality. Instead, this discourse revolves around three different formulations:

(a) Identity: The Constitution recognises the Muslim community as a ‘religious minority’. Therefore, legally as well as politically, it is appropriate to describe the Muslims of India as a homogeneous entity.

All political parties subscribe to this position. Even the BJP (which argues for a ‘secularism of equality’ and oppose special privileges given to religious minorities) and the Communist parties (which used to believe in the centrality of class thesis) tend to define Muslims as a closed community.

(b) Issues: There are a few specific pan-India Muslim issues which can either be transformed into electoral promises or denied as ‘Muslim appeasement’. 

This formulation has evolved gradually over the years. Jawaharlal Nehru’s reassurance to Muslims that they were legitimate political stakeholders in India in the mid-1950s; the appeal of non-Congress parties, including the Jan Sangh (the predecessor of the BJP), to create a social alliance of Muslims-Dalits and backwards in the name of anti-Congressism in the late 1960s and early 1970s; the rise of a ‘secular camp’ in the wake of the Shah Bano and Babri Masjid controversies in the late 1980s and 1990s; and finally the proposal for Muslim reservation by UPA I and II have contributed to the making of a few ‘Muslim issues’.  

(c) Expectation: Muslims of India are more concerned about those common issues and concerns that affect them as a religious minority. Therefore, their voting behaviour is contingent upon the adequate packaging of ‘Muslim issues’.

This expectation is not completely imagined. Political parties approach the minorities as well as institutions as if they are ‘intermediaries’ to create a favourable equilibrium. The presence of a few ‘Muslim faces’ in almost all the parties is a fair example to illustrate this point.

Vote Bank Politics

• It is an established fact that Muslims are not a monolithic vote bank, instead they are divided on the basis of caste, class, region and religion.
  
• Political parties however have chosen to turn a blind eye to these divisions.
  
• Issues such as backwardness and reservation have been reduced to a political ploy that parties deploy ahead of elections.
  
• Some sections such as Pasmananda Muslims, the artisan class, still fails to find echo among the political class.
  

Bargain for Votes

The ‘Muslim vote bank’ thus turns out to be a logical outcome of these three formulations. Politically, parties evoke the constitutional identity given to Muslims to make a few political proposals. Issues such as violence against Muslims, backwardness and reservation, which are related to administrative discourse, find a clear political overtone. Muslim voting eventually becomes merely an object of political ‘bargain’.

The voting patterns, on the contrary, demonstrate that there is no Muslim vote bank. The Muslim participation in electoral politics primarily depends on issues such as employment and education. However, the political parties are not keen to recognise this fact.

The BJP wants the Muslims to vote as Indians as if these are the only two ultimate identities. The BSP is not interested in Pasmanda Muslim politics as if the question of Muslim caste is politically irrelevant. The Left parties have not yet taken up the question of Muslim artisan classes as if Muslims need to vote for them only for the sake of secularism. And the Congress and the Samajwadi Party are misleading the question of OBC reservation, as if reservation is given on religious lines.

The notion of Muslim vote bank, it seems, will continue to survive, until and unless Muslim plurality is not recognised as a political reality.

(The writer is assistant professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, and Rajya Sabha Fellow 2015-2016. He can be reached at @Ahmed1Hilal)

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