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An open letter to Asaduddin Owaisi from an Indian Muslim

Dear Asaduddin Owaisi Sahab,

I hope you are having a blessed time in the holy month of Ramazan. I am writing to you today given your recent statements on the plight of Muslims in India. 

While you keep projecting yourself as the flag-bearer of the Muslim cause, you as the leader of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) have often been accused of playing divisive politics and using victimhood as a tool to gain support from the Muslim community. This letter is to remind you about the need to read the writing on the wall. Electoral setbacks to your party in various elections across India suggest that Indian Muslims have become wary of your tactics and are rejecting your negative politics. I request you to kindly take notice and do a course correction if possible. 

A look at your recent statements makes it clear that your politics is entirely founded on amplifying the narrative of Muslim victimhood. In February, you misinterpreted the words of RSS Supremo Dr. Mohan Bhagwat to create an impression that Muslims were being asked to live at the mercy of the majority community. Speaking to News18 in March 2023, you said that Muslims were used as coolies and their empowerment was not the priority of the government. In the aftermath of a few incidents on Ram Navami and Ramazan across the country, you were quick to raise an alarm that Muslims across the country were being terrorized. 

This politics of alarm has become your ultimate selling proportion. From being a Hyderabad-based party, your AIMIM set out with pan-India political aspirations but with only one arrow in its armament which is a divisive narrative that aims to pitch Muslims against Hindus. It is a matter of record that you have rarely raised genuine issues of political, social, and economic development of the Muslim community. The only impact of your brand of politics has been that Muslims have been portrayed in a negative light. 

But despite the identity politics and the political use of religion, it is heartening that the Indian Muslim community has so far given no attention to you. I am sure that deep down you know that in the everyday life of an ordinary Muslim, religion may be one of the determinants while making electoral choices, but it certainly is not the main one. Like every other Indian, it is the developmental deficit that drives Muslims to the polling station. The party which presents the best vision for solving the educational, health, and livelihood problems of the Muslim voters gets their support. Electoral setbacks to your AIMIM despite running well-funded highly toxic and polarizing campaigns in various states are proof that Muslims are not getting swayed by your rhetoric. 

Let me help you with some figures. In the 2019 Maharashtra elections, your party contested 44 seats but won only two. In the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections, AIMIM fielded candidates from Jalangi, Bharatpur, Itahar, Sagardighi, Malatipur, Ratua, and Asansol North where a majority of the population is Muslims but could not win a single seat. In 2022 in Bihar, 4 out of five MLAs from AIMIM defected and joined RJD after realizing that there was no future with you. But the biggest setback was in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh polls when AIMIM lost its deposit in most of the 100 seats it contested. Out of 403 Assembly seats, your party got a mere 0.43% vote share when U.P’s Muslim electorate population is around 20%. I am sure you realize the enormity of these numbers. 

I must remind you that the absence of vision in your politics is rooted in the origins of your party. You might remember that you are the heir to an organization that was formed to mobilize Razakars against the unification of India immediately after its Independence in 1947. Kasim Razvi, leader of the AIMIM’s parent party MIM (Majlis Itihadul Muslimoon), was jailed from 1948-1957 for resisting the merger of Hyderabad Princely State with the Dominion of India despite an overwhelming veto from the majority of Hyderabad’s population. But after release and before seeking asylum in Pakistan, Razvi handed over the reins of the party to Abdul Wahed Owaissi who re-launched it as AIMIM. Abdul Wahed Owaisi’s son Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi, who is your respected father, became the President of the new party and he continued to lead the organization till you took charge in 2008. 

There is no doubt that your political success has thus been always dependent on the exacerbation of Hindu-Muslim divisions. But given the unique historical experience of Indian Muslims and the way they are integrated with the larger national mainstream, the fear-mongering has so far failed to give you commensurate dividends. 

You must be aware that India has a vibrant institution of dialogue between the communities, and efforts are being made to promote interfaith harmony and communal amity. Besides inclusive developmental schemes, the spaces where Hindu-Muslim divisions become irrelevant continue to be extremely relevant in today’s India. As the descendant of Garib Nawaz Hazrat Moinudeen Chisty (R,A), my everyday personal experience tells me that the Hindu community is large-hearted enough to embrace their Mulsim brothers every minute and every hour of the day. Like thousands of pilgrims from different regions and faiths, I get to witness it in the precincts of this holy shrine every day. The Indian way of life is inclusive by its very nature and there is no space for any distinctions or discrimination. 

That is where I come from and this open letter is my small effort to rebut the politicians who seek political power by dividing communities while we also make efforts to promote interfaith harmony and communal amity. 

As the country moves forward, it is important to remember that we are all Indians first and should work towards the common goal of building a prosperous and harmonious society. I hope you will read the writing on the wall and become a messenger of positivity and not a pied-piper who will lead Muslims to doom. 

-Syed Naseeruddin Chishti 

(Syed Naseeruddin Chishti is the chairman of the All India Sufi Sajjadanshin Council and successor of the spiritual head of Ajmer Dargah. Views are personal.) 

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