In some ways it was reminiscent of the background that eventually led to the formation of the Muslim League just over a century earlier in Dhaka. The mood amongst Muslims at the time was captured in  these words by Sir Percival Griffiths:

“…the Muslim belief that their interest must be regarded as completely separate from those of the Hindus, and that no fusion of the two communities was possible…”

I am seriously worried that we may be approaching that point again.

At the conference in Jama Masjid, some speakers went to the extent of saying that there is a “deep rooted conspiracy to eliminate Muslims”.

The fact these sentiments were publicly echoed amongst a large, influential gathering of Muslim leaders does not portend well for Indian democracy and the state of our society.  A lot of blame for the present situation can be laid squarely on the doorsteps of the Congress - which has ruled the country for the major part of our independent existence…Poor governance, criminalisation of politics and politicisation of the civil services has added to this volatile mix…

The list of Muslim grievances is long…and it can sometimes become difficult to separate the real from the imaginary…But the solution cannot be a separate party…What we really need are not Imams and criminals masquerading as “voices” of the community but a fresh Muslim leadership that truly cares for the community and the country. 

Will this leadership emerge? and will they be able to carve space for themselves in the cesspool of Indian politics? I don’t know…I am not optimistic but I remain hopeful…

What gives me hope? Commentators like Tarique  and Blogs like IndianMuslims.  Not that I agree with everything they say or write…but it is good to see that a distinct position (from the likes of Shahi Imam) is being formulated and a new view-point is being articulated…As right-thinking (no pun intended) Indians, we must support and encourage this trend.

The day we have clean, honest and genuinely concerned Muslim politicians, our challenges will begin to get more manageable.

Until then, we will all be hostage to shrill voices of alarm and prophecies of doom.  Sixty years after independence, the horrors and trauma of what happened post-Partition are still hard to erase…Something like that should not happen again…At least I hope it does not happen again.

I would like to close this post by some exceprts from an article written by Asghar Ali Engineer almost 8 years ago, titled - believe it or not - “Separate Muslim Party Not Needed“. I hope Mr Asghar still holds the same view.

*** Excerpts Begin ***

The newly appointed Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid Syed Ahmad Bukhari has announced recently that he will soon launch a separate Muslim party…to ensure that the “lost rights of the minorities” are regained.

The Shahi Imam told a news paper that “We did not accept Jinnah as our leader…but what have we got in return: only empty slogans and hollow promises”. It is for this reason, he said that we are forced to form our own political party.

It is, to say the least, a dangerous line of argument. Some ambitious political leaders themselves use grievances of minorities as empty slogans to grab political power. …It would not be wrong to maintain - and many Muslim intellectuals do - that it was Abdullah Bukhari and his un-thought of emotional outpourings responsible for strengthening of the Sangh Parivar and to an extent for demolition of Babri Masjid.

These so called elite leaders of minorities have no mass base among the minorities and have no genuine support from them except for occasional emotional upsurge and these leaders try to use the genuine grievances of minorities for their own ends. The whole history since nineteenth century is full of such instances.

The case of Jinnah is also a good example. Jinnah, himself a highly educated shrewd leader made use of poor Muslims’ grievances for either his personal politics or for the elite class of Muslims for whose benefit he ultimately created Pakistan. Pakistan did not solve any problem as far as common Muslims are concerned. They are suffering even more in Pakistan today…Thus it will be seen that politics of separatism on one hand, and, emotional hyperbole, on the other, does not solve any problem and, on the contrary, it aggravates them.

In a pluralist society like India separatism never pays. …There are no Muslim elite left any more in India and poorer and exploited masses are hardly interested in a separate nationhood. Secondly, the Muslims of the subcontinent have already paid a heavy price for partition and they would not opt for any such solution under any circumstances….Even though there can be no such danger, yet a separate Muslim party is not only a no solution but is also highly undesirable.

India is a pluralist country with bewildering diversity. Its strength lies in its pluralism and diversity…Secularism and pluralism being foundational stone of our political philosophy religion-based parties should not be encouraged in any case, be they then Hindutva parties or parties based on any religion. Religion based parties are very negation of our political system. Such parties rather than solving our grievances will only aggravate them. If minorities form religion based parties it will provide justification for majority community to form a religion -based party.

…This is not to say there are no genuine Muslim grievances. There are. However, their solution does not warrant formation of any new party.

Today it will also be a mistake to assume that throughout India Muslims have uniform interests and that they are a homogeneous mass. The Muslim League also made this mistaken assumption before partition. There are intra-religious differences among the Muslims on one hand, and, intra-regional and intra-cultural, on the other hand.

Mr.Ahmed Bukhari, if he is genuine in his intent to resolve Muslims’ problems he should play the role of Sir Syed rather than that of Jinnah. Today Muslims, particularly in the North, are poor and illiterate. There are some schemes available for economic and educational uplift of minorities….What is needed is to create awareness of these schemes among the poorer and illiterate Muslims and also to put pressure on the government through political parties and members of the Parliament to increase budget allocations.

Sincere commitment to secularism and the genuine cause of minorities can achieve much in its own ground through democratic polity.