Kolkata Muslims have voted for Modi

Courtesy: Times of India

KOLKATA: A quiet churning has taken place inside the ghettos of central and north Kolkata. Muslims, who have been CPM or Trinamool supporters, have switched to BJP and its frontrunner Narendra Modi.

They have also been able to inspire some of their brethren in the Rajabazar-Narkeldanga area, once identified as the CPM’s fief, and later the Trinamool’s. The age-group of the “NaMo fans” is predominantly between 25 and 35 years. But there are also buzurg (elders) and aurtey (women), who are openly rallying behind Modiji, defying popular conception that he had triggered panic voting among Muslims to defeat the BJP.

Talking to some of these Rajabazar Muslims, it is obvious that the emotional gulf between BJP’s PM-pick and sections of the Muslim community of Kolkata has narrowed. They seem to have put Babri Masjid and Godhra well behind them “to give Modi a chance”. The change of heart is driven by the need to revive India’s economy, with Muslims as one of the stake-holders. Some articulate their stance in no unclear terms, others have been influenced by the mohalla — in their resolve to press the button next to the “kamal”.

Rafat Maqsood, a first-time-voter at M N Chatterjee Road, believes this election is about looking forward. “I’ve read about Godhra and Babri Masjid. Yet I have voted for Modi. He will be able to improve the economy by the time I graduate and look for a job,” she said, adding, “We don’t want to remain under the shadow of the two black incidents. It’s time to be realistic. We are all secular and certainly not congenitally hostile towards the saffron party. This is the new generation that has shed their blind anti-BJPism.”
Said Md Ashfaque Alam (38), a former CPM supporter who had crossed over to Trinamool in 2010: “When Didi started exposing the CPM, highlighting the Sachar Committee report, many of us found in her a new hope. But she has also fooled us, the way the CPM did. So it’s time to try someone else this time. Modiji has been cleared of the Godhra case, and those in his ministry have been spelt guilty and punished by the law of the land,” explained Alam, who’s now an active member of the BJP Minority Morcha.

He has been circulating a CD released by the RSS. It projects all political parties as treating Muslims as a vote bank and not doing anything for the community. In the CD, RSS assures the community there’s nothing to fear under a government led by Modi at the centre. Not many know that RSS has a Muslim wing, the Muslim Rashtriya Manch.
According to Shah Alam, who runs a local meat agency, BJP is trying hard to re-brand itself as a party not wedded to anti-Muslim views: “Our neighbourhood has seen that despite initial fears of polarisation along communal lines, our election campaign has been secular, with developmental concerns trumping mandir-masjid like issues.” Alam used to be Didi loyalist until a year ago. He is now preparing to contest next year’s KMC elections with a BJP ticket.
Sixty-five-year-old Noor Alam admitted that much as the BJP has been trying, it hasn’t been able to refashion Modi as a consensus figure like Atal Bihari Varjpayee. “But there’s no harm in giving him a fair chance. Modi mustn’t let us down now that he knows that not all Muslims are electorally separated from the BJP anymore.” He referred to cleric Mahmood Madni’s recent warning to secular parties not to scare Muslims.
The dominant discourse at Rajabazar is as follows: Modi’s optimism is a better option than a stalled economy under the so-called secular parties. Md Ashfaque cited Mamata Banerjee’s efforts to pander the community by extending dole to Muslim clerics: “The imams are not poor. Let the dole go to the deserving – widows and handicapped etc. She has created a Hindu-Muslim divide with this kind of appeasement.”

Other voices suggested that parties keep indulging in the Hindu-Muslim polemics while ignoring the fact that the Congress government was at the helm during the Babri demolition. “What we really want is to be treated as citizens rather than a vote-bank. The Left and the TMC patronise us during election and forget us once it’s over,” said Md Hauzarul Huda, trader of plastic scrap.