Maharashtra Maladies

Image courtesy: ZIM/Offstumped.

The recent elections in Maharashtra which the secular parties won, brought out in full view the malignant tumor that is growing across the country. The poster above was used in election campaign by one Sayyad Abdul Qadir Aamir (Qadir Maulana) - who stood on a Cong/NCP ticket from Aurangabad. His message promises to bring back the era of Amanulla, erase the signs of Shiv Sena from the city (with "Hindus" in parenthesis to avoid any confusion). He also claims to have been sent by Allah to hoist the Islamic flag over the land of Aurang(abad) - perhaps the last point refers to the Mughal emperor after whom the city was named.

At this point the clueless types will ask: what was the Election Commission doing?

While Qadir Maulana did not win the election, another Imam did:

MUMBAI: The terror-struck Malegaon has rebuffed the overtures of the Congress. Mufti Ismail, the Deoband-trained chief imam of the Muslim-dominated textile town's Jama mosque won the seat by a handsome 17,000 votes, getting the better of Congress's Shaikh Rasheed and five-time MLA and Janata Dal (secular) leader Nihal Ahmed.

This is the first time an imam has won in Maharashtra. [link]

The electorate at Malegaon, terror struck or otherwise, certainly was not lovestruck with the secular party despite the party's constant overtures to them. Despite being Muslims, the candidates from two secular parties lost out.

Another way of looking at it is that the electorate chose a candidate who is fundamentally closer to religion, being an Imam and all that.

While the TV pundits etc. continue to peddle English press friendly analysis, the sad reality is that we may not really have the right conditions for the sort of secular society they have in mind. The secular party is just an interim arrangement of convenience -
 
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