Nearly Every State Has Religious Leaders Telling Their Flock Which Way To Vote
The church and state have assiduously been kept apart in India, but a similar firewall between religion and politics has been repeatedly breached to the point where using the religion card is now accepted as part of the desi system of vote garnering.
Gurus, mahants and maulvis existed around the periphery of power structures during the Nehru era. But the growth of Congress’s perceived minorityism under Indira Gandhi, when the term ‘vote-block’ (read Muslim votes) first gained currency, probably triggered the mushrooming of similar mechanisms across religious platforms.
Hindu religious organisations got a fillip with the dilution of the Supreme Court’s secular judgement in 1985 on Shah Bano when Parliament — under a brute Congress majority — overturned the SC verdict by passing the Muslim Women’s Bill that made it legally tenable for Muslim men to skip paying alimony to their divorced wives.
Today, whether it’s Gujarat with its dominant Hindu sects, or Punjab, home to hundreds of ‘Deras’ of localised gurus, or UP with its mahants and madrassas, or even Jharkhand, Orissa and Northeast with their Christian evangelists, nearly every state in the country has religious organisations and sects exhorting their flock to go out and vote. At times, they tell them who to vote for and, at others, make the choice implicit.
In Kerala, the Muslim League, which is a critical ally of the Congress-led LDF, has at its helm Syed Mohammedali Shihab Thangal, a spiritual leader with a following of his own. ‘Thangal’ is an honorific title that traces its lineage to the Prophet no less. Kerala Muslims flock to his meetings.
Through the 1980s and 1990s, with Uttar Pradesh seeing a spurt in madrassas which has taken Muslims away from modern education towards fundamentalism, Hindu ‘sansthan’ and ‘dharma raksha manch’ sprouted. Gorakhpur, which has Azamgarh in its neighbourhood, became a militant Hindu hub. The mahants and acharyas led by Yogi Adityanath, who calls for strident Hindutva, regularly clash with Muslim activists who they accuse of being ISI agents and worse. In 2005, riots broke out in Mau between supporters of Yogi and SP’s Mukhtar Ansari. But Hindu sects at times cut both ways: Just before the 2002 assembly elections in Gujarat in the aftermath of the riots, a high priest from Puri, Swami Adhoksjanand, camped with Congress’s CM candidate Shankersinh Vaghela and ran a surrogate anti-Narendra Modi campaign by telling religious gatherings to defeat the forces of Hindutva.
Mufti Shabbir Alam of Ahmedabad’s Jama Masjid issued a fatwa on the day of the Assembly elections in 2002, urging Muslims to come out and vote. Congress leaders believe the fatwa helped BJP because Hindu organisations decided to counter it. Mufti’s subsequent denials about never having issued the fatwa were of no use. In Punjab, the Dera followers, who number more than a crore, are an important consideration for non-Akali politicians. In the last assembly election, the Dera Sacha Sauda of Gurmeet Singh Ram Raheem, who faces multiple criminal charges (trumped up by Akalis, according to his followers), helped Congress get 25 out of 65 seats in Malwa, a traditional Akali stronghold.
In Jharkhand, Orissa and Northeast, Christian missions play a significant role in mobilising voters. But while in Mizoram the Christian missions involve the people in the democratic process — former CEC J M Lyngdoh once described Mizoram as a model state for elections — the ones in Jharkhand are known to harbour political preferences towards which they egg their supporters on. Christian missions in Orissa are unlikely to remain impervious to taking a pro-Congress and anti-BJP/BJD stand.
In Goa, Joaquim Loiola, secretary to Archbishop, said, ‘‘The Archbishop will be signing and publicising the message of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India on the elections.’’ While it’s unlikely to be a direct endorsement of any political party, the circular will tell its flock ‘‘how to vote’’. Though it’s anybody’s guess which way the religious heads will ask their flocks to vote.
Even the Reds seek blessings in Kerala
Given Kerala’s large minority votebank, both the Church and Muslim leaders have traditionally exerted considerable influence on the state’s politics, so much so that atheist Communists and ‘secular’ Congress leading the two coalitions have courted them with abandon.
Apart from Kerala Muslim League’s spiritual leader Syed Mohammedali Shihab Thangal, another Muslim leader who has carved out space for himself is the general secretary of Sunni Jum Iyyathul Ulema, Kanthapuram A P Aboobacker Musliyar. He attracts the state’s Sunni Muslims in droves.
The influence of the Church on Kerala’s politics is no less significant. Although fewer in number than the Muslims, the Church has the advantage of its followers spread evenly and backed by numerous institutions. The influential Catholic Church makes no secret of its political stakes. ‘‘We have discussed our position for Kerala and will soon declare it,’’ says Stephen Aalathara of the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council. Asked what would be the moving factor, Aalathara said, ‘‘There are a lot of problems we face from the Communist government especially in the social and educational sectors.’’
‘‘The Church has always been an invisible factor in determining candidates in at least seven LS seats in Central Kerala,’’ says C P John, a veteran political commentator.
In UP, parties petition mahants and maulvis
For two years now, the army of mahants and dharmacharyas in Ayodhya has stood silent. Last fortnight things changed when the mighty mahant of Hanuman Garhi, Gyan Das, launched the ‘dharma raksha manch’ for Hindu re-awakening. Around the same time, former CM Mulayam Singh Yadav met the 102-year-old rector of Deoband’s Darulul Uoom seeking to explain his party’s cosying up to Kalyan Singh, who was at UP’s helm when Babri Masjid was razed.
Polls have galvanised the akharas and madrassas as much as political parties. The bigshot maulvis and mahants will be petitioned, and they will then condescend to ‘bless’ this party and that candidate.
Das made headlines in 2003 when he went door-to-door to ensure participation of Ayodhya’s Muslims. Mahant Aditya Nath accused him of polluting the mandir and demanded his ouster.
The matter was settled after Faizabad civil court stayed all such future events. Meanwhile, Maulana Amir Rashdi Madni, who founded the Ulema Council, is in politics after the arrest of his son, Talha Amir.
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