It's not over: The real damage of the Khurshid episode

by Kartikeya Tanna Less than 48 hours ago, Salman Khurshid, the Union Minister for Law and Minority Affairs, was in the thick of things because of his election promises to a particular section in UP where his wife is a candidate. The matter seems to have died down with the Opposition crying foul and Priyanka Gandhi bizarrely condoning Khurshid’s speech and the EC deciding “not to take any further action in this matter.” Khurshid told NDTV “consider this episode as over.” By all counts, the episode seems to be over. As Salman Khurshid said, “In the democratic turmoil of elections, things do happen that you can reflect upon, take another view of it and then move on to new things”.  Indeed. Except that this turmoil has dangerous implications of sowing seeds of hatred and distrust in a community towards our constitutional institutions. In the sophistic arguments before an Election Commission hearing on the complaint brought by the BJP,  Khurshid primarily stated: (i) His promise at an election rally in Farrukhabad of carving out a 9% sub-quota out of the 27% quota for OBCs was for backward class minorities as a whole and not a reference to a particular religion. This contradicted newspaper reports where Khurshid was making promises specifically to the Muslim community. Khurshid did not deny these reports and the EC concluded that even if Khurshid’s appeal was to minorities at large, it violated the model code of conduct in as much as it influenced the minds of the minorities to vote for Congress. [caption id=“attachment_215248” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The erstwhile visionary has lost himself in the Muslim ghetto. AFP”]  [/caption] (ii) It is useful to point out here that specific mentions to a particular community are not per se a violation of the Model Code of Conduct if such promises have been a part of the party’s manifesto. Khurshid argued that his statements were only a reiteration of  the commitment contained in Congress manifestos for the Lok Sabha election of 2009. Rubbishing this argument, the EC stated that none of the Congress party manifestos mentioned any 9% sub-quota for backward class minorities so there was no question of “reiterating” it. (iii) Lastly, the argument was that Khurshid made these statements as a Congress leader and not as Union Minister for Law and Minority Affairs. In a stinging rejection, the EC again reminded Khurshid that the concerned District Magistrates and the police authorities in Farrukhabad and other areas were notified of the visit by the Union Minister of Law and Minority Affairs and were asked to make necessary arrangements to prevent “inconvenience to the Union Minister”. The striking part of this whole episode is that merely two days after the EC’s order censuring him, Khurshid bravely announced to his constituency that even if the EC hangs him, he would ensure the rights of pasmanda Muslims (roughly translated as marginalised Muslims). By this open challenge, Khurshid has incontrovertibly admitted that his 9% promise was for marginalised Muslims. This led a visibly helpless EC  to write to the President of India asking for “immediate and decisive intervention”. And, while Khurshid has expressed regret and said he is “bowing to the wisdom of the EC”, the NDTV interview also gave him the opportunity to be abrasive. On the one hand, Khurshid respected the ‘sub judice rule’ clarifying that he did not ever intend to go into the merits of the Batla House encounter case when reminding his constituency of how Sonia Gandhi reacted upon seeing the images. At the same time, he stated that while the court’s answer may be the law of the land, it is not the final answer. “When a court has to decide something, it does not mean you shut off everything else on the history or context of the matter … we should allow our imagination in a creative manner to look at issues as they arise and relate to the experience of common people”, said the Law Minister. Lastly, Khurshid, visibly miffed at the accusations of vote-bank politics, said that since an election is for candidates to get votes, you naturally appeal to people’s emotions, sentiments, preferences and feelings. Therefore, according to him, till the time imams of UP ceased to be an influence in elections, you had to “put up with it” however much you want to reform the system. This last statement unequivocally confirms how the erstwhile visionary Khurshid has lost himself in the Muslim ghetto. The confrontation between the executive and constitutional institutions in this episode is not as worrying for it pans out between two fairly strong entities with the equally strong judiciary acting as the arbiter. Khurshid’s bravado has resulted in something irreversibly dangerous. Whether or not there should be a quota for marginalised Muslims is a debate that has compelling arguments on both sides. However, by openly portraying the EC as a body eager to hang their messiah, he has set up the EC as a bogeyman – the imagined enemy of the pasmanda Muslims. And before his constituency knows of his bowing down to EC’s wisdom, he wants the chapter closed. The EC is merely concerned with monitoring promises during election time which may impair the level playing field rather than prohibiting parties from ever announcing promises to specific communities. In misrepresenting the EC as an obstacle to social equality, Khurshid has given his target community ready reasons to be wary of constitutional institutions.