(Repeats Friday’s story with no modifications to textual content.)
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BJP enlists 25,000 Muslim neighborhood leaders
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“Modi Mitrs” promote message on financial system, Modi’s management
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Rivals allege BJP is determined and anti-Muslim
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Analysts say BJP has probability to divide Muslim vote
By YP Rajesh
NEW DELHI, Nov 10 (Reuters) – Nafis Ansari, a college principal who’s Muslim, was enlisted this yr by the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) as a “Modi Mitr”, or good friend of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The resident of the central state of Madhya Pradesh promotes the occasion to neighbours and relations at occasions similar to weddings and tea periods at buddies’ houses. He speaks about how the BJP’s welfare insurance policies profit all communities, and talks up India’s standing as a rising international energy beneath Modi. Ansari is one among greater than 25,000 Muslims who’s volunteering to assist Modi win a 3rd time period in elections due by Could, BJP officers informed Reuters. The occasion seems to be for neighborhood leaders like educators, entrepreneurs, clerics and retired authorities workers keen to “objectively” assess Modi, stated Jamal Siddiqui, head of the BJP’s minorities unit. Reuters interviewed 5 Modi Mitrs and 6 BJP officers answerable for election technique, who stated the occasion hopes to make use of its financial document and its plans to introduce religion-agnostic legal guidelines on inheritance and gender rights to win over underprivileged Muslim voters, together with ladies, in 65 key seats.
Specifics of the BJP’s Muslim outreach technique, such because the messaging it’s utilizing to focus on voters in these seats, haven’t been beforehand reported. The marketing campaign is a component of a bigger push to woo India’s 200 million Muslims, with whom the BJP and Modi have a protracted and fraught historical past. Muslims and rights teams allege some BJP members and associates have promoted anti-Islamic hate speech and violent vigilantism, focused non-profits run by different religions with regulatory motion, and demolished Muslim-owned properties. Modi denies non secular discrimination exists in India. Violence between Muslims and the Hindu majority is “deep-rooted” however solely makes headlines now as a result of political rivals use it to focus on the occasion when it holds energy, stated senior BJP chief Syed Zafar Islam, who’s Muslim. The prime minister leads within the polls, however a newly unified opposition alliance and a latest loss in a key state election have left occasion leaders apprehensive about an anti-incumbent vote and fearful the BJP has maximised assist in its Hindu nationalist base, analysts and opposition leaders stated.
“Till you already know us, you will not recognise us. Till you recognise us, (we) will not develop into buddies,” stated Siddiqui of the occasion’s Muslim outreach.
ECONOMY-FIRST AND MUSLIM VOTERS
The BJP’s web site states that secularism in India has develop into “minority appeasement … at the price of majority”. Some analysts say the occasion has politicised faultlines between Hindus and Muslims to such an extent that Modi’s cupboard would not have a single Muslim minister.
The occasion sporadically sought Muslim assist in previous regional polls, however this nationwide marketing campaign is the primary and most widespread of its sort, in accordance with Siddiqui and Hilal Ahmed, an professional on Muslim politics on the Centre for the Research of Creating Societies, a Delhi-based suppose tank.
The BJP, which gained about 9% of the Muslim vote previously two nationwide elections, is focusing on between 16% and 17% subsequent yr, stated Yasser Jilani, spokesperson for its minorities unit.
Two officers informed Reuters the BJP is targeted on 65 seats within the 543-member decrease home of parliament which have a Muslim voter inhabitants of at the very least 30%, roughly double their share of the nationwide inhabitants. They shared particulars of inside occasion technique on situation of anonymity.
The BJP at present holds about two dozen of the seats, in accordance with occasion officers, who declined to offer particular particulars on the precise seats being focused.
Modi Mitr outreach focuses on spreading the BJP’s financial message particularly to “Pasmanda” Muslims, an Urdu time period for marginalised members that make up a majority of that non secular neighborhood.
Ansari, who’s Pasmanda, talks to Muslim buddies and neighbours at gatherings about new programmes similar to a 1,250 rupee ($15) month-to-month handout for underprivileged ladies from BJP-run state authorities and a 150,000 rupee housing subsidy launched by the central authorities.
“BJP’s welfare schemes are serving to everybody, together with Muslims,” he stated.
Ujir Hossain, a Modi Mitr businessman in West Bengal, additionally spreads an economy-focused message when he visits his neighbour Mohammed Qasim’s grocery store. Hossain stated he was interested in the BJP as a result of there’s a “sky and earth distinction” between Modi’s accomplishments and people of the earlier centre-left authorities.
“In fact, Muslims do not like Modi’s occasion however Hossain Dada tells us at the very least we should always hearken to what BJP has to supply too,” stated Qasim, utilizing a Bengali honorific for “elder brother”.
“The BJP has by no means revered and addressed the considerations of this part of society and as an alternative marginalized them systematically,” stated Ok.C. Venugopal, a senior lawmaker with the opposition Congress occasion that held energy instantly earlier than Modi.
Requested in regards to the allegations of minority appeasement, he stated that Congress would not pursue a technique of divide and rule: “Elections needs to be fought on financial and growth points not on the idea of faith and identification.”
BJP leaders similar to Islam, a former India head of Deutsche financial institution, stated the opposition has taken Muslim votes without any consideration and uncared for their welfare.
“Now we have a protracted solution to go, the hole is simply too steep nevertheless it’s getting bridged,” he stated. Amongst Muslim ladies, the BJP promotes its pledge to reform private legal guidelines. Supporters of the plan, together with some Muslim ladies’s rights teams, say it’s going to finish non secular practices on marriage age, polygamy and inheritance which are discriminatory towards ladies.
“You’ll be able to criticise BJP for lots of different issues however I do not suppose anybody aside from this authorities has the willingness to reform private legal guidelines,” stated Amana Begam Ansari, a feminine Pasmanda author and political analyst, who is just not associated to Nafis Ansari.
“EXTREMISTS EVERYWHERE’ Violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims have develop into much less frequent for the reason that BJP took energy, in accordance with authorities information, however tensions stay excessive. In authorities, the BJP has steadily used enforcement powers to attempt to forestall inter-communal tensions from spilling into outright violence resulting from considerations about its law-and-order message and India’s worldwide popularity, some analysts say. Many Muslims say they stay in concern of Hindu activists emboldened by the BJP’s politics of cultural nationalism, in accordance with neighborhood leaders and overseas researchers. Critics contemplate such nationalism a euphemism for Hindu supremacy.
Opposition leaders and analysts similar to Ahmed, the politics professional, stated the BJP is more likely to make features with Muslims subsequent yr except it’s countered by the opposition.
The BJP has a twin technique of “demonising Muslims” for its hardline base and wooing sections of the Muslim inhabitants, stated Ahmed.
“The demonisation of Muslim males will proceed however a mushy nook will likely be proven to Muslim ladies,” he stated. “Equally … (there will likely be) some positivity proven to Pasmandas.”
Ghanshyam Tiwari, spokesperson of the opposition Samajwadi Occasion, which has a big Muslim base, stated the BJP’s place because the ruling occasion offers it the flexibility to make insurance policies that may win over some Muslims.
“However it doesn’t matter what BJP does, it would not change its core colors, core parts, which stay an anti-Muslim, anti-minority method,” Tiwari stated.
Ansari, the Modi Mitr educator, stated the BJP ought to management extremist activists who “spoil” its picture however nonetheless backs the occasion.
“There are extremists all over the place,” he stated.
($1 = 83.2014 Indian rupees) (Extra reporting by Rupam Jain; Enhancing by Katerina Ang)
