DGP V Dinesh Reddy has said that the Interpol will be alerted if MIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi does not return to the city, but this may not be necessary at all. For the general feeling among people in Hyderabad is that Akbaruddin will return from London soon and face the new charges that have been slapped against him in his absence for his rabble-rousing speeches in Adilabad and Nizamabad recently.
In the meantime, there have been increasing demands to disqualify Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) and ban Akbaruddin from contesting elections.
The MIM has been embroiled in controversies since its birth in 1927. The founder president of the party was Nawab Mahmood Nawaz Khan who was succeeded by Bahadur Yar Jung in 1938. Initially espousing socio-cultural causes of the Muslims, the party slowly donned political colours much to the discomfiture of the last Nizam of Hyderabad Mir Osman Ali Khan. The last president of the MIM before Hyderabad state was merged with Indian Union was Syed Qasim Razvi. His militia of Razakars or volunteers became one of the most controversial groups with its excesses against the civilian Hindu population.
Razvi was arrested, tried and imprisoned. He was set free in 1957 by the government on the condition that he migrate to Pakistan. The government also gave tacit approval to the revival of the MIM. When it was reconstituted in 1958 it swore allegiance to the Indian Constitution. Abdul Wahed Owaisi, the grandfather of Akbaruddin, became the first president of the MIM in post-Independence India. While Abdul Wahed Owaisi busied himself in organizing the party, his son Salahuddin Owaisi became his first lieutenant. It was the time when the only main opposition to the Congress in Andhra Pradesh was the Communist Party which also enjoyed a strong presence in Hyderabad. The MIM took on the mighty Congress and the Communist Party in 1960 elections to the municipal corporation and won 24 of the total 64 seats. Two years later Salahuddin entered the Legislative Assembly by winning the Pathargatti seat. When all attempts by the Congress to finish off the MIM proved counter- productive in 1967 as the party had increased its strength to three in the Assembly, the Congress changed its tack. It began wooing the MIM.
After the 1967 elections the party received its first shock when two of its MLAs—Khaja Nizamuddin and Ahmed Hussain—deserted it. It was perceived that the MIM would not recover from this setback. The party recovered once again in 1972 elections and later survived several desertions. The 1978 elections saw the number of MIM legislators rising to four and in the following elections, to five. In 1984 Salahuddin Owaisi won the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat.
The MIM was hit by the most serious crisis in 1993 when Mohammed Amanullah Khan, a senior party leader, split the party and floated his own MBT. This party won two Assembly seats in 1994 leaving only one seat for the MIM. It was believed at that time that the MIM would not be able to regain its strength. But inherent resilience in the party brought it back to the forefront in 1999. It made friends with the TDP and carried on until 2004 when Y S Rajasekhara Reddy of the Congress offered an olive branch and roped in the MIM. Reddy became the first Congress chief minister to declare in public his alliance with the MIM.
The 2004 elections also saw Salahuddin Owaisi bowing out of electoral battles and deciding to send his eldest son Asaduddin Owaisi to Lok Sabha. At the same he made Akbaruddin the floor leader in the Assembly.
Even as the party was settling down for good, two leading Urdu newspapers—Siasat and Munsif—decided to oppose the MIM. Siasat editor Zahed Ali Khan stood against Asaduddin from Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat on TDP ticket in 2009 and lost. The newspapers and their editors are still opposed to the MIM and there are reports that Khan will oppose Asaduddin again in 2014 elections.
There are many who loathe Akbaruddin because of his unrestrained attacks on his opponents and consider him a demagogue. At the same time in the MIM he is considered ‘the star orator’ who has no equals. His followers in the Old City treat him as a celebrity and go into a frenzy whenever he addresses them in public rallies. Carried away by the public response, Akbaruddin attempts to fly higher, disregarding norms of public and political discourse. This time around in Nirmal, he went too far denigrating religious icons, daring the police and challenging the state again and again.
Observers believe that MIM will survive the ‘Nirmal effect’ but with difficulty. The prevailing political system will give the MIM the leverage required to overcome the crisis. There are also chances that with the all-round incessant attack against Akbaruddin, his core followers could grow in numbers.
If Akbaruddin has crossed the Lakshman Rekha, it means that our electoral system is allowing it to happen. Therefore, it is the electoral system which needs to be overhauled, nothing less.
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