On September 19, soon after filing a report on a Bharatiya Janata Party election rally, Imtiaz Jaleel, the Pune correspondent of the NDTV news channel, surprised his colleagues by putting in his papers. Two days later, he created a Facebook account, put up a picture of himself dressed Nawab-like in a sherwani, and posted this open letter.
"Dear Brothers, Assalam-alaikum, I am not sure how you are going to react to this development but you will be surprised for sure or rather shocked to know what perhaps is the most toughest decision of my life. Having completed 23 years in journalism ‒ 11 years with Lokmat and near 12 years with NDTV, I have quit this profession, only to take a plunge into active politics. I will be contesting for the Maharashtra state assembly elections on MIM ticket from Aurangabad. (I could visualise your shocked faces!!!)."
The MIM, or the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, is a Hyderabad based party led by the Owaisi brothers, suave practitioners of conservative modernity and strident Muslim politics. Asaduddin, the three-time Lok Sabha MP, won parliament's Sansad Ratna award award this year, while Akbaruddin was booked last year for a virulent hate speech.
Confined to Andhra and Telengana so far, the party has long wanted to expand its reach, starting with neighbouring Maharashtra, where early success in the municipal body elections in Nanded district prompted it to field candidates in 24 constituencies in the assembly polls last fortnight.
As it turned out, the move was well timed. Not only did the Indian National Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party stand discredited among Muslims after 15 years in power, the last-minute breakdown of the alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena resulted in a split in the Hindutva vote. Making the most of its opportunity, MIM fielded educated professionals from the Muslim community ‒ doctors, lawyers, journalists. English-speaking journalist Imtiaz Jaleel was a fitting example. Born and raised in Aurangabad, he was the son of a civil surgeon, the brother of a Jet Airways manager.
Muslim voters responded enthusiastically and MIM went on to pick up two seats, finished second in three constituencies and third in eight. The day the results were called, it had been a month since Imtiaz had quit journalism. A political greenhorn, with no money, muscle or exalted lineage, the 41 year old had been swept to victory in the Aurangabad Central constituency, beating his nearest rival, Pradeep Jaiswal of the Shiv Sena, by a margin of 20,000 votes.
From journalist to politician
“Life has changed” said Jaleel, as he jumped into the car on Friday, after attending the umpteenth meeting in a whirlwind thanksgiving tour through the city’s Muslim neighborhoods. Five days after his victory, he was still addressing corner meetings, joining in the namaz at masjids, shaking hands with countless people, waving at passerbys. “I have become a minor Shah Rukh Khan,” he said, with the childlike exuberance that I had first seen in him during the years we were colleagues in NDTV. Warm and affable, journalism had taught him to blend his disarming honesty with discretion ‒ but he was still nowhere close to speaking like a politician.
What had prompted him to dive into electoral politics, I asked. Disenchantment with the leaders of his community, he said. “People who seek to represent Muslims are such shady characters ‒ a person who used to sell tickets in black, another who made his fortune selling stolen scrap. You feel sorry, yaar. I mean in such a large community, aren’t there any good people who can come forward? A journalist friend said tum itna bolte rehte ho, aisa hai to tum kyun nahi jaate? ”
When Owaisi offered him a ticket, Jaleel decided to take it, even though, he claims, getting a ticket from NCP would not have been not difficult. "You won't believe the person from NCP who got the ticket was after me for past six months ki meri in se baat kara dijiye" (please put me in touch with this reporter).
But he choose not to join a party that styled itself as being secular. "They have been exploiting the community the most," Jaleel said. "They used to think that Muslims have no alternative, and so, by hook or by crook, they will vote for us. Their intention was to take votes but not to share power. They don’t want grassroots Muslim leaders. They would say “Don’t contest election, we will make you an MLC or send you to Rajya Sabha.’”
The weak representation of Muslims, said Jaleel, made it possible for the police to victimise Muslims in false terror cases. “If you take the case of Khwaja Yunus, or the Malegaon blasts, where the courts have established that the accused were innocent, at least in such cases you [the Congress-NCP government] should have sent a strong message by punishing the officers who made up the cases, but instead you gave them prime posts.”
Yunus, a software engineer, was arrested and charged with planting bombs in a bus in Mumbai in 2003. The police claimed that he had escaped while travelling in a police jeep but an inquiry found that he had died due to police torture. Three months ago, while editing an interview, Jaleel found himself reminded of the Yunus case. A resident of Aurangabad, Shaikh Abdul Naeem, a terror accused, was travelling to Mumbai in the company of four policemen to attend the final hearings of his case. The police claimed he escaped, but his mother told reporters she feared he would be bumped off.
“In the 20-minute interview, Naeem’s mother could not stop crying. She could hardly speak. I realised this could be the mother of Imtiaz Jaleel, of any innocent person…Somebody had to stand up.”
But was it not possible to stand up without taking recourse to a party that espoused hate? As a modern, progressive, cosmopolitan Muslim, what did he make of the speeches of the Owaisis? “I do not subscribe to those views, I do not endorse those speeches," Jaleel said. "The Owaisis know I will never stand on a stage and make communal statements…But however much we say we are secular people, we know that in India elections are fought only and only on the basis of caste and community. Mulayam represents Yadavs, Mayawati stands for Dalits, Marathas for Marathas. So why should people object if I chose to join a Muslim party?”
The burden of history
The tourism industry has branded the pale-looking monument in the heart of the city as the Taj of the Deccan. But for a section of Aurangabad’s Hindus, Bibi ka Maqbara, the masoleum of the queen of Aurangzeb, is a looming reminder of the ignominy of Muslim conquest. In the 1650s, the Mughal king used the city as a base to take on the Marathas, in process lending it his name. Subsequently, the city, and the surrounding region, came under the control of a general of Aurangzeb, who founded the Nizam dynasty that ruled from Hyderabad.
A Muslim state with a Hindu majority, Hyderabad resisted integration with India. The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, now a party that participates in elections, first arose as a proto-Islamist movement in 1920, dedicated to defending the autocracy of the Nizam through an armed militia called the Razakars. The militia caused terror among pro-democracy groups opposed to the Nizam’s rule, and even harrassed Hindus.
In 1948, the Indian government sent in the army to overpower the Razakars in what was euphemistically called a "police action", but which now stands revealed in a new book as a massacre that left several thousands dead. A few years after Hyderabad was annexed, Aurangabad was taken out of the state and merged into the state of Bombay, which later became Maharashtra.
In the eighties, the Shiv Sena brought its brand of militant Hindutva and Marathi chauvinism to Aurangabad, dredging up old animosities. Riots in 1988 left 27 people dead. In parliamentary elections that followed the next year, the Sena wrested Aurangabad from the Congress. “Since then, Sena-BJP captured power. No Muslim could get elected as MP, MLA or even the head of the municipal council,” said Dr Sudhir Gavhane, a professor at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University. “The emergence of the MIM is a reaction to three decades of denial of political representation to the city’s Muslims.”
The morning after Jaleel's victory, the front-page headline of the Aurangabad Express, a local Urdu newspaper, said, “After 25 years, Aurangabad comes under Muslim leadership."
The losing Shiv Sena candidate, three-time MLA Pradeep Jaiswal, assured his voters in a Facebook post that the party was around, and just because the MIM had won, “there is no reason for Hindu voters to feel scared".
Jaleel, meanwhile, stuck to his usual line on Facebook: "Please do not indulge in insulting other parties/religions/leaders through pictures, slogans etc. Keep it clean!”
Navigating troubled waters
Manned by his 17 year old son, Bilal, Jaleel’s Facebook page served as a vital tool in during his campaign. Galvanized by the promise of a radical leadership, Muslims were gathering in large numbers to hear the Owaisis speak. Akbaruddin, the hardline leader, was the big draw at election rallies. Even children were breaking into slogans, “Bachcha bachcha meem ka, Akbar bhai ki team ka”. (Every child is a supporter of MIM and a member of Akbar bhai's team). Keen to inject moderation, and prevent any eruption of aggression, Jaleel used Facebook to frequently issue appeals for peace.
On election day on October 15, when his car was stoned, it came in handy to quash rumours.
On the eve of results, Jaleel posted a video, asking his supporters to accept the verdict as “Allah ki marzi”, regardless of whether he won or lost, and to maintain peace at all costs.
But the most striking post in his Facebook campaign was what he called “an appeal to all our friends from other communities in Aurangabad”.
Most of you have known me, Imtiaz Jaleel, for many many years. We were either classmates at Holy Cross or college mates or neighbours. I may have worked with you or maybe you knew me because of my father or maybe we are just long time friends. And in all these years that you have known me, our friendship has only grown deeper, our association has always been consistent. Not once have you found me to display a communal streak, no matter what the situation, but you have always known me as a Muslim journalist, passionate to work towards the upliftment of his community.
In the many drawing room discussions that I had with you during your cherished Eid visits and otherwise, you have often questioned me about the lack of upliftment in the Muslim community, lack of literacy and its general backwardness. You have always shown concern about the growing Muslim population that is falling behind in many areas of development.
You have often beseeched me to do something about it. To lead by example, to imbibe the same sense of nationalism that I carry, to promote education and literacy just the way it is prevalent in my family. You have shown concern towards the corrupt leaders that represent the Muslim population and you have discussed on how Muslims like me would make for better representatives of this community.
So now that I have infact sought to become that representative, why is it that many of you are concerned about my choice of party. Why do you fear that I am here "play" religious politics. Why do you fear communalism?
The appeal might not have drawn many "likes" from non-Muslims, or for that matter, their votes, but it won Jaleel much respect.
“I used to think MIM is a communal party, but Imtiaz Jaleel has changed my view,” said Khushalchand Baheti, the assistant commissioner of police, impressed by the way the former journalist conducted his campaign.
Even Chandrakant Khaire, the Shiv Sena MP from Aurangabad, offered some grudging praise. “I like Imtiaz Jaleel as a journalist," he said, "but I don't like him as a MIM leader.”
Leading businessman Sachin Mulay was also optimistic. In 2010, his concern for the image of Aurangabad prompted him to mobilise an order of 150 Mercedes Benz cars for the city's rich. Only five of the Merc owners were Muslims. “He is a highly educated man," said Mulay. "He will represent the city better than school dropouts.”
The road ahead
“Kaun aaya? Kaun aaya? Sher aaya. Sher aaya.” As the day wound down, Jaleel’s thanksgiving tour reached its final port of call: Nawabpura, an impoverished Muslim neighbourhood, where a jubilant crowd erupted in triumphant slogans. Young Muslim men held up mobile phones to take pictures and record speeches. Speaker after speaker praised the "ittehad", or unity, that Muslims had shown, and spoke aggressively of the victories that lay in the future, most proximately in the municipal elections due six months later.
“I have been going to all media offices and telling the editors that politics ended on October 19,” Jaleel had told me, earlier in the day. “I am willing to go and meet any damn leader, be that of Shiv Sena, or any party, to appeal for help. Everyone should come together and work for the development of the city, of mankind, of humanity.”
But as he stood up to address the crowd at Nawabpura, Jaleel was forced to constrict his vision, focussing a large part of his speech on what MIM would deliver to the city’s Muslims, and what Muslims could deliver to MIM. Promises to the community brought on thunderous applause, but talk of the city at large was met with uneasy silence. “In the coming municipal elections, we will not just give tickets to Muslims," said Jaleel. "We represent Dalits, backwards, Sikhs, Christians, all minorities. We are here to work for the uplift of all.”
Watching him from the sidelines was his son, Bilal, acutely aware that his father was walking a tightrope over communal quicksand. “I had come to really like the Aam Aadmi Party,” he said. “But the day the party quit in Delhi, I told my father it was all over.”
It was not just the promise of clean politics in India that got shattered in the rise and fall of the Aam Aadmi Party, but also the possibility of an Imtiaz Jaleel getting elected without being reduced to a "Muslim" leader.
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