Madhya Pradesh: Muslims trust Chouhan, don't care about Modi

Bhopal: Andhere ka samrajya? Ya roshniki sartaj!……phir bhajpa – phir Shivraj (the empire of darkness or the crown of illumination…again BJP, again Shivraj), says one of the BJP’s hoardings in Bhopal with Chief Minister Shivraj Singh offering a polite namaskar and a smile to the people looking up. Besides the minimalist and rather tasteful nature of the message what catches your attention is the colour combination. The hoarding is divided into two neat halves, one in green and the other in saffron. The green part talks about darkness and the saffron half about illumination. In the times of clever interpretation of every political communication and quest for hidden meanings in them, the choice of colours should be fodder for an acrimonious debate and communal tension. Doesn’t green, after all, represent the Muslims and the saffron Hindutva? [caption id=“attachment_1229109” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The Muslim community feels no ill will for Shivraj: Image from IBNlive[/caption] In Shivraj’s Madhya Pradesh, however, it raises no hackles. The Muslim community here has no love for the BJP, forget the talk of its members attending the Narendra Modi rally and endorsing his party by the gesture, but it trusts Shivraj. The chief minister may not have done anything remarkable for the community, but he has not caused any damage to its fragile existence by his actions. “Nobody is getting fooled by the drama of the participation of Muslims in Modi’s rally. The community has been voting for the Congress overwhelmingly all these years - this mostly because it does not have a choice beyond the party – and would continue to do so, but it does not harbour ill-will for Shivraj. He has not displayed a clearly anti-Muslim trait and is uninhibited while interacting with us. Moreover, there has been no big communal riot under him,” says Shahid Miyan, a book vendor who keeps track of developments in his community. Shahid’s observation finds echo in a cross-section of the population in North Bhopal assembly constituency, a Muslim stronghold. When it is about the Muslim community it is hard to avoid the Modi question. What does Modi mean to them? Is he perceived as a threat? Interestingly, the community is largely indifferent to him. “There’s absolutely no Modi effect. Unlike other states there is no history of lasting communal animosity here. Everyone in the community knows what he is and what he represents already. His arrival on the scene does not change the equation between the BJP and the Muslims, which is not a comfortable one in any case,’’ says Nusrat Ali, state general secretary of the Nationalist Congress Party. Haidar Yaar Khan, executive member of the state Congress committee, concurs. “Nothing changes on the ground because of Modi. Most of the talk around him is hype.” Many among the intellectuals believe that the hype would collapse if the party loses two states in the current round of assembly elections. They don’t see Modi and Shivraj as two sides of the same coin. They also don’t see the former causing damage to the acceptability of Shivraj among the Muslims. “Maybe some Hindu voters who have been voting for the local Muslim Congress candidate would shift to the other side because of Modi. But the overall impact would be marginal,” said a community leader who requested anonymity. Has the government failed the Muslims? The answer is no, it is for the simple reason that the community has stopped expecting anything from governments. “Both the Congress and the BJP have a similar approach to the Muslims. The only difference is under the former you can find access to the top and get heard. In case of the latter, the doors are closed,’’ says Abdus Salam, senior citizen and former corporate executive. He adds: “Both parties treat us as second class citizens, one openly, the other subtly. None is serious about jobs for the community’s youth and its economic growth in general. Of course, a part of the blame should lie on the community and its leadership too.” Do they see any hope in the horizon? The answer is an amused look that speaks a lot for itself. “Things are bad as it is. At least let there be status quo. Under Shivraj it has not changed. That for us is good enough,” says a fruit vendor at Emami Chouraha. And what about the choice of colours in the hoarding? No one seems to have noticed it.