UP Muslims: Where Do They Go From Here?

The landslide that brought Adityanath to power in UP is being seen as a calamity for the state’s Muslims. What brought the community to its lowest EBB? A look at the path ahead and the lessons learnt.

- Shougat Dasgupta

A standard recommendation from talking heads in India to politicians who have lost elections is to “introspect”. This is delivered in the stentorian tones that typically signify ‘profound’ insight. But is it ever incumbent upon winners to introspect? For instance, what if you win a practically unprecedented mandate to govern a state in which nearly 20 percent of the population is Muslim, does it matter that you didn’t hand out a single ticket to a Muslim candidate? What if you then appoint as chief minister a man who for decades has made no bones about his disdain for Muslims? What if among the first things this chief minister does is create panic in an industry that disproportionately employs Muslims? 

What if a prominent figure in the winning party, one known for shooting his mouth off, introduces a member’s bill in the Rajya Sabha calling for the death penalty for cow slaughter?

And still the questions mount.

What if posters, in the wake of the sweeping election triumph, emerge in a village that warn Muslims to leave their homes or face consequences? What if a winning MLA from an area associated with a seat of Muslim learning celebrates his triumph with a banner that changes the area’s name from Deoband to Deovrind? What if one of the first public utterances of the new UP government’s new minister of minority affairs is to ask “rich Muslims” to give up their Haj subsidy, while the chief minister announces a doubling to Rs 1 lakh of the subsidy for Hindu pilgrims on their Kailash Mansarovar Yatra?