The fraying frame of Muslim political representation
7 months, 4 weeks ago

The fraying frame of Muslim political representation

New Indian Express  

The debate on Muslim political representation has found a new overtone in this Lok Sabha election. This reluctance of the political class to address Muslims as legitimate political stakeholders makes the idea of Muslim representation much more complicated. Muslim representation was one of the most contentious political issues in colonial India. Various comprehensive sets of laws—such as the Government of India Acts of 1909, 1917 and 1935—were passed by the colonial state to deal with the question of adequate and effective Muslim representation in legislative bodies.

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History of this topic

Respite may still elude a beleaguered community
5 months, 3 weeks ago

Respite may still elude a beleaguered community

The Hindu  

In November 1888, Lord Dufferin wrote, ‘Muslims of British India, a nation of 50 million reigned supreme from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin’. There is optimism that regional parties could act as a check on the propaganda machinery of the Hindutva right and its anti-Muslim biases, potentially curbing the Narendra Modi government’s pursuit of discriminatory policies against Muslims. No Muslim …

Muslim outfits in Kerala lash out at Vellappally Natesan
6 months, 1 week ago

Muslim outfits in Kerala lash out at Vellappally Natesan

New Indian Express  

MALAPPURAM: Various Muslim organisations on Sunday lashed out at SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan for his statement that five of nine Rajya Sabha members from Kerala were from the Muslim community, while the Hindu community, which constitutes more than half of the state’s population, had just two representatives in the upper house of the Parliament. Natesan should have considered …

Lack of Muslim representation in Modi cabinet does not mean marginalisation
6 months, 2 weeks ago

Lack of Muslim representation in Modi cabinet does not mean marginalisation

Op India  

On Sunday, 9th June, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took oath for the third consecutive term and became the second ever Prime Minister to do so after India’s first PM Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Congress supporter Dhivya Marunthiah posted, “293 MPs 72 Ministers ZERO Muslims Sums up NDA.” Source: X Rajdeep Sardesai, who is a Journalist and husband of Trinamool Congress’s journalist-turned-Rajya …

Election results 2024: A key vote bank yet Muslim representation will remain low in the new Lok Sabha
6 months, 2 weeks ago

Election results 2024: A key vote bank yet Muslim representation will remain low in the new Lok Sabha

The Hindu  

The 18th Lok Sabha in 2024 will see only 26 Muslim MPs, a number equal to 2019, which was the second-lowest tally ever in the House of 543 members. The 2014 General Election saw the lowest Muslim representation in the Lok Sabha at 22, while the community had its highest ever presence in the Lok Sabha, at 49, in 1980. …

Why are there fewer Muslim candidates?
6 months, 3 weeks ago

Why are there fewer Muslim candidates?

Hindustan Times  

First, political parties, it seems, have become truly professional and the idea of winnability has been accepted as an unwritten norm of electoral engagement. Second, the emergence of Hindutva-driven nationalism as the dominant narrative of politics has forced the non-Bharatiya Janata Party parties to avoid any direct reference to Muslim identity, especially in political terms. Political parties were guided by …

BJP indulging in Muslim appeasement: former MP
7 months, 3 weeks ago

BJP indulging in Muslim appeasement: former MP

The Hindu  

GUWAHATI The Bharatiya Janata Party has adopted the Muslim appeasement template from Congress to win the Lok Sabha elections in Assam, the BJP’s former State unit president and four-time MP Rajen Gohain said. The electoral battle appears tough this time because the demographic changes due to the delimitation, forcing our party to indulge in Muslim appeasement,” Mr. Gohain said. “Our …

The tactically silent Indian Muslim voter
8 months ago

The tactically silent Indian Muslim voter

Hindustan Times  

Uttar Pradesh has just finished its first phase of Lok Sabha elections and several recent reports have shown that Muslims have observed a “tactical silence” in this election. First, we must reject historical essentialisation — a view of the community that assumes a special historical continuity between the Muslim monarchs of India and Muslims in India today. This view of …

This election crucial for protecting community's rights, pluralism, say Muslim voters in Aligarh
8 months ago

This election crucial for protecting community's rights, pluralism, say Muslim voters in Aligarh

The Hindu  

Campaigning in Aligarh is subdued with major parties focusing on their core support bases. In the Muslim community, views on this Lok Sabha election seem to vary, with some seeing it as crucial for India's pluralism while others feel neglected by political parties. "For me, this election is about safeguarding the Constitution, which grants me and everyone else in this …

Lok Sabha election: Muslim candidates get minimal representation in Bihar’s political fray
8 months, 1 week ago

Lok Sabha election: Muslim candidates get minimal representation in Bihar’s political fray

The Hindu  

The politics of Bihar has always torqued around the so-called ‘MY’ combine, referring to the Muslim and Yadav political combination. Mr. Alam, the son of former Union Minister and veteran Muslim leader Mohammed Taslimuddin, had won the last Assembly election on an All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen ticket but joined the RJD in June 2022 along with three other AIMIM legislators. …

Assam BJP aims for Muslim votes, highlights development in Muslim areas
8 months, 3 weeks ago

Assam BJP aims for Muslim votes, highlights development in Muslim areas

New Indian Express  

UDALGURI: The BJP in Assam is pinning hopes on getting Muslim votes by riding on the prevailing peace and “equal treatment” of communities by the government. Talking to journalists after attending an event of NDA constituents here on Saturday, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told journalists he does not find any reason why the Muslims would not vote for the …

What is it like to be a Muslim in India?
1 year ago

What is it like to be a Muslim in India?

Hindustan Times  

It’s, arguably, one of the saddest indictments of our country that today we increasingly ask the question “What is it like to be a Muslim in India?” The answer ought to be no different to being a Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or atheist. Ziya Us Salam’s new book, Being Muslim in Hindu India: A Critical View, explains in …

Dilemma of Muslim community: How minority politics in India has prioritised 'identity' over issues of actual concern
1 year, 11 months ago

Dilemma of Muslim community: How minority politics in India has prioritised 'identity' over issues of actual concern

Firstpost  

This year has been dubbed the year of electoral “semi-finals” with as many as nine states set to go to the polls over the next few months ahead of the 2024 general elections, the so-called “finals”. The enthusiastic Muslim embrace of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra is a classic case of clutching at straws to feel “included” swayed by carefully …

Changing features of Muslim representation in India
1 year, 11 months ago

Changing features of Muslim representation in India

The Hindu  

The meaning of representation in any representative-democracy is necessarily a contested concept; a productive force which shapes and reshapes the structure of political competition. While the descriptive representation of Muslims in the Congress period of dominance often lagged behind its population share, the Congress also offered symbolic representation: “standing for” the protection of a package of ‘Muslim issues’. These ‘Muslim …

The marginalisation of the Indian Muslim
2 years, 4 months ago

The marginalisation of the Indian Muslim

The Hindu  

Shortly after India gained independence, we gave ourselves a Constitution that guaranteed equal citizenship to everyone. From the 1960s, a category of ‘Muslim issues’ was established in the political discourse — official patronage of Urdu, minority status of Aligarh Muslim University, Uniform Civil Code, Babri Masjid — and secular parties fashioned themselves as the guardians of these special protections. The …

Assembly poll results and after: Why Muslims and the BJP need to talk, and talk fast
2 years, 9 months ago

Assembly poll results and after: Why Muslims and the BJP need to talk, and talk fast

Firstpost  

The effort should be to try and strike a balance between minority rights and the majority community’s sensitivities, which it believes have been ignored in the name of secularism In the run-up to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, a distant cousin of mine — an old Congress loyalist — who lives in a small town in eastern Uttar Pradesh, called …

Religious polarisation and electoral choices
2 years, 9 months ago

Religious polarisation and electoral choices

The Hindu  

Different shades of religious polarisation were reflected in the CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey in Uttar Pradesh. If the vote share of the 80% Hindu community voters is taken into account, the BJP secured a little over half the Hindu vote and the Samajwadi Party polled one-fourth of the Hindu vote. Thus while half the Hindu vote was garnered by the BJP, …

Uttar Pradesh Elections Phase 2: SP Hopes for Big Gains; These 4 Factors Are Key
2 years, 10 months ago

Uttar Pradesh Elections Phase 2: SP Hopes for Big Gains; These 4 Factors Are Key

The Quint  

Some of the districts voting in phase 2 have a sizable Muslim population: Rampur 50%, Moradabad 50%, Bijnor 43%, Saharanpur 42%, Amroha 41%, Bareilly 34%, Sambhal 33%, and Badaun 23%. Last time, the BJP managed to win some of the seats that in these districts due to a split of Muslim votes between the SP and the BSP. But when …

UP Next: Muslims Not a Homogeneous Bloc and Why a Section of Them Will Vote for BJP
3 years, 3 months ago

UP Next: Muslims Not a Homogeneous Bloc and Why a Section of Them Will Vote for BJP

News 18  

This piece may unsettle some notions about Muslim political choices in Uttar Pradesh. However, during my field study along with a team of researchers on the changing political choices among marginal communities in Uttar Pradesh, I found their political choices to be diverse. Among them too, we found similar trends in political choices—that they are not one bloc mobilized in …

Bengal is Learning a New Language—That of Hindutva-led Caste Identity Politics
3 years, 9 months ago

Bengal is Learning a New Language—That of Hindutva-led Caste Identity Politics

News 18  

The singularities of caste and Hindutva are combining with Bengali identity in the electoral game of West Bengal. These ‘chai-paan’ shop discussions in rural Bengal during election time made us realise that the form and craft of public conversations in OBC-Dalit dominant zones of rural Bengal developed similar Dalit-Bahujan discourse as Hindi-speaking regions, such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The …

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