Election 2024 and the politics of anti-Muslim discourse

For the BJP, discrediting the Opposition’s agenda and protecting its core constituency means relying heavily on anti-Muslim rhetoric

BJP’s aggressive electoral campaign has changed significantly in the last few weeks. The party, which has been claiming to follow the slogan of ‘Sab ka sath sab ka vikas’ to demonstrate its inclusiveness since 2014, seems to rely heavily on an anti-Muslim rhetoric to mobilise voters.

Senior BJP leaders do not hesitate to describe Muslims as a socio-economic threat. Muslims are demonstrated as unwanted infiltrators who will eventually harm the interests of Hindus and Indians.

The Opposition, especially the Congress, is criticised for adhering to a policy of Muslim appeasement. It is alleged that the Opposition wants to distribute available material resources to Muslims by restructuring the affirmative action framework. 

There could be two ways to look at this anti-Muslim election-centric discourse. One may evoke the secular-liberal values of our Constitution to reject this aggressive Muslim bashing as a form of communalism. It could be argued that the Hindutva project is interested in destabilising the socio-religious equilibrium to transform India into a majoritarian nation state. This liberal explanation draws its inspiration from what B R Ambedkar once described as constitutional morality. No one can underestimate the moral strengths of this line of reasoning. 

However, the actual electoral manifestations of the anti-Muslim discourse are not given adequate attention in this schema. That is the reason why we need to have a different and more nuanced approach to examine BJP’s present electoral campaign. In my view, we need to ask three basic questions: How do common Indians, especially Hindus, envisage India as a nation? Do Hindus oppose Muslim reservation? And, finally, what are the practical reasons or compulsion behind the BJP’s Muslim-centric electoral strategy, especially after the first phase of voting? The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) Lokniti’s Pre-poll Survey 2024, which was conducted just before the Lok Sabha election, is a relevant source to analyse these questions. 

Whom does India belong to?  

Demonising Muslim presence in India poses a serious challenge to the established constitutional principle of unity in diversity. 79 per cent of respondents in the survey asserted that India belongs to all religious groups, including Muslims. Only an insignificant minority subscribe to the idea of a Hindu India.       

A significant majority of Hindus (77 per cent) and Muslims (87 per cent) overwhelmingly celebrate religious diversity as a way of life. It simply means that religious diversity is recognized as an important marker of national identity.

It is important here to note that CSDS-Lokniti’s various national level surveys as well as Pew Research’s 2021 study, Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation, have also made very similar observations. It is found that common Indians strongly oppose the idea of ‘one religion, one nation’.      

Reservations for Muslims 

The emerging anti-Muslim discourse is revolving around a relatively new phenomenon — affirmative action. BJP leaders have strongly argued that Congress will give reservation to Muslims by depriving Hindu Dalits. An impression is being created that reservation policy is meant only for Hindus and the inclusion of Muslims in the SC list will be a direct attack on Hindu interest. 

This religion-centric portrayal of affirmative action is not correct. Socio-economic backwardness and caste-based exploitation are the established principles for providing reservation to a particular community. At present, backward communities from all religious groups are included in the Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) lists. 

Only the Scheduled Caste category is restricted to Dalit Hindus, Dalit Sikhs and Dalit Buddhists. The Muslim Dalits and Christan Dalits are not eligible for this category of reservation.            

Our study underlines the fact that a significant majority of respondents (57 per cent) support the idea that the scope of SC category must be expanded to provide reservation to both Hindu and Muslim Dalits. In fact, in addition to Hindus from privileged castes (who do not enjoy the benefit of SC reservation), OBCs and Hindu Dalits seem to be in favour of the inclusion of Muslims in the SC list.

These findings do not merely go against the perception that SC-based reservation was introduced primarily to reform Hinduism. Instead, one finds a greater support for complete secularisation of affirmative action policies.    

Nature of BJP’s campaign 

Despite supporting the inclusive idea of India and secularisation of affirmative action policies, 40 per cent of respondents in this survey also asserted that they might vote for the BJP. This attitude underlines a rather paradoxical equation. The voters are certainly not very happy with the present regime, especially when it comes to social relations and inter-group cohesion. At the same time, they are unsure about the promises made by the Opposition. 

From the BJP’s point of view, this political behaviour was somehow problematic. Despite successfully mobilising its core support base for the inauguration ceremony of the Ram Temple in January this year, the growing apathy of the voters towards the party was a serious concern. That could have been the reason why the BJP manifesto underplayed Hindutva agenda and focused entirely on Modi-centric welfarism. 

On the other hand, the Congress manifesto does not merely address the socio-economic unease but also highlights the need to have an alternative model of cohesive secular development. In a way, the manifesto has potential to pose a serious intellectual challenge to the Modi-centric development discourse that has helped the BJP in an unprecedented manner in the last few years. 

The BJP party establishment, it seems, was fully aware of two things. First, it had to protect its core constituency of voters to achieve the magic number in Lok Sabha. Second, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the only BJP leader who enjoys widespread acceptability. It was inevitable for the BJP to discredit the Opposition agenda, especially the promises made by the Congress manifesto. On the other hand, the party became more enthusiastic to reach out to its very core Hindutva voters. The conventional BJP criticism of Muslim appeasement was the best possible option for realising these two strategic objectives. 

The election campaign of BJP seems to be guided by this political impulse so far. It will be interesting to see how Indian voters react to this style of electioneering.   

(Hilal Ahmed is Associate Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi)