By Our Correspondent
JAIPUR – The campaign of political parties and their candidates for the upcoming Assembly election in Rajasthan, due on November 25, is witnessing a disturbing trend of Muslim bashing, which has increased to an alarming level. The Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have brought the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict to the election turf in the desert state and used it to target and ridicule Muslims and question their patriotism.
The BJP leaders from outside Rajasthan, such as Yogi Adityanath, Sudhanshu Trivedi and Manoj Tiwari, have praised Israel as well as its action of firing missiles at the Gaza Strip and described Hamas as a terrorist organisation in their election rallies while accusing the ruling Congress of supporting Hamas for its “vote bank politics”. In their election speeches, the BJP leaders’ explicit target is the Muslim community.
Taking a cue from the national politicians, the state BJP leaders are busy finding more pretexts to target Muslims and accuse the Congress of pandering to “unjust demands” of Muslims and appeasing them. The entire election campaign, laced with communal slurs and abuses, has changed the political landscape of Rajasthan, with the BJP expecting to reap political dividends from polarisation of the society.
In a highly provocative speech, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adiyanath praised Israel at a rally organised in support of BJP candidate and MP Baba Balak Nath in Tijara on November 1 and said its action had suppressed the “Talibani mentality” of Palestine. He asserted that Bajrang Bali Ki Gada (Lord Hanuman’s mace) was the only panacea for Talibani mindset which had been crushing the countries in the Middle East.
While affirming that terrorism was a menace to society, Adityanath said: Taliban ka upchaar toh Bajrangbali ki gada hi hai. He further said: Dekh rahe hai na is samay Gaza mein Israel Talibani mansikta ko kaise kuchalne ka kaam kar raha hai. Sateekk tarike se bilkul sateek nishana maar maar kar kuchal raha hai. (Have you seen how Israel has been crushing the Talibani mentality in Gaza? They take the right measures to ensure their targets are neutralized.)
Adityanath also highlighted the bulldozer action taking place in Uttar Pradesh and assured the people that the Taliban mentality would be defeated and nationalism would triumph. The Congress has fielded a Muslim candidate, Imran Khan, from Tijara, after he defected from Bahujan Samaj Party. Adityanath made a reference to the Israel-Hamas war while targeting Khan.
“Please remember that if Congress gets successful in the Assembly election, then Talibani mentality will dominate and they will start committing atrocities on sisters and daughters, exploit businessmen, and kidnap. They will take over the properties of the poor and do cow smuggling. They will damage monasteries and temples. They will not allow any festival to be celebrated peacefully. There is a need to put an end to all this. For this, the BJP is in front of you,” Adityanath said, without mincing words and in a clear indication that his target was the Muslim community.
At another public meeting, Rajya Sabha MP and BJP’s national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said that a video of a leader from Karnataka was going viral in which people of a particular community were being told to do the same in Rajasthan as they had united and defeated the BJP in Karnataka. “Kamal Nath says in Madhya Pradesh that the Congress needs 100% votes of Muslims, while Congress leader in Karnataka Satish Jarkiholi said that the word Hindu itself is dirty.”
“The same leader comes to Rajasthan and makes a direct communal appeal and talks about uniting and defeating the BJP. The Popular Front of India was allowed to hold rallies in Rajasthan a week before the ban. The slogan of Sar Tan Se Juda was not only raised here but it was carried out as well,” Trivedi said, referring to the murder of tailor Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur last year.
New Delhi MP and former president of Delhi State BJP, Manoj Tiwari, said in Jaipur that the Congress was a supporter of Hamas, which was a clear indication of the extent to which it could go for appeasement. “In Udaipur, a small shopkeeper, Kanhaiya Lal Tailor, is murdered by slitting his throat, and his video is made. It is from this time that Hamas-like terrorist activities started, but the head of the Congress government calls these incidents as sporadic and normal,” Tiwari said.
Adityanath’s open support for Israel encouraged a local BJP leader in the Tijara election rally to declare that the mosques and madrasas in the region would be uprooted after the BJP was elected to power in the state. BJP leader Sandeep Dayma, who was the party’s candidate from Tijara in the 2018 Assembly election, said in his speech that a large number of “Masjids and Gurdwaras” had come up in the area and they were going to become a big problem in future. “So it is our religious responsibility to uproot these open sores from here,” he said while seeking votes for Balak Nath.
Outraged over the remarks, the members of the Sikh community held protest demonstrations in Tijara and Jaipur and demanded action against Dayma. Dayma tendered a public apology by releasing a video in which he said he wanted to refer to Masjid-Madrasa in his speech, but somehow said Gurdwara. “I don’t know how I committed this mistake. I cannot even think of disrespecting Sikhs, who are known to have protected Sanatan Dharma,” he said.
However, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), a representative organisation of Sikhs, expressed dissatisfaction over Dayma’s apology and said his intention to speak against religious places of Muslims was equally condemnable. “He should be ashamed of this statement too,” the SGPC stated in a post on social media.
Khalsa Helping Hand’s general secretary Jagjeet Singh Suri, who organised the protest outside the Raja Park Gurdwara in Jaipur, said that Sikhs were outraged even after Dayma’s purported justification for his speech. “We respect the places of worship of all communities equally. How can we tolerate the BJP leader’s declaration to uproot mosques and madrasas?” Suri said.
Shiromani Akali Dal president and Firozpur MP Sukhbir Singh Badal said the Khalsa Panth outrightly rejected Mr. Dayma’s “qualified and weak apology”. “He seems to suffer from an arrogant and perverted mindset. He doesn’t understand that there is no difference among the shrines of different religions, be it a temple, a Gurdwara, or a Masjid,” Badal said.
The BJP has since expelled Dayma from the party’s primary membership, but it was only because the Sikh community was involved in the controversy. Dayma had tried to justify his remarks against mosques and madrasas even in his apology, but the party’s top leadership did not raise any objection to it.
Political observers in Rajasthan feel that the BJP’s attempts to polarise the voters just before the Assembly election would not only vitiate the atmosphere during the polls but also make a long-term impact on the relations between religious communities. Activists in the state have taken a pledge to counter the BJP’s divisive agenda, but their efforts will succeed only if the citizens reason and exercise their franchise prudently.
