Lok Sabha elections 2024: How will Muslims vote?

In popular analyses, Muslims are treated as a homogeneous voting bloc. In reality, they are as divided on economic and class lines as any other bloc.

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when the Muslim vote was considered as the power behind the throne A little vote swing here, a marginal shift there could be the difference between victory and defeat.

Prime Minister Modi subsequently held several events with notable Pasmanda Muslims later in the year. (AFP File Photo)

Not anymore.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi sounding the bugle for electoral battles to be fought in 2024, with his clarion call of `400-paar’, there are 400-plus battles lined up in New India, which will further underline the fate of this once powerful vote bank.

The establishment of Ram Rajya, the onset of Amrit Kaal and Treta Yuga and the emergence of Ayodhya- Dham are building blocks of this New India. It is leaving behind the political legacies of the Gandhi-Nehru era in the face of the rising tide of Hindutva.

Naturally, such a tectonic shift in the political paradigm has consequences. In popular election analyses, Muslims are often treated as a homogeneous voting bloc. In reality, they are as divided on economic and class lines as any other bloc.

So, how are the Muslims reacting to these new changes? Certainly, there appears to be some evidence of consolidation. Studies of Muslim votes in state assembly elections since the 2019 general elections, Modi’s second term, suggest that.

Surveys by the Lokniti Programme for Comparative Democracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) show that in the 2020 Bihar elections, about 77 per cent of Muslims voted for the anti-BJP Mahagathbandhan; in the 2021 West Bengal elections, 75 per cent of the community voted for the incumbent Trinamool Congress; and in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections, 79 per cent of Muslims voted for the opposition Samajwadi Party.

“There are at least two features of the doctrine of New India which are relevant,” says Hilal Ahmed, associate professor, at CSDS. “First, it offers a revisionist interpretation of the post-colonial history of Indian politics. The Congress’s emphasis on a socialistic pattern of society is described as an economic betrayal while accommodation of Muslim leaders in non-BJP parties is termed as a form of appeasement. Second, it is argued that the role of the state is to facilitate the smooth functioning of the market and, therefore, there is no need for old style identity-based affirmative action.”

Caste remains relevant to the Muslim community, even though it may not have a religious or ideological underpinning; it manifests socially in a hierarchical form like caste in Hindu communities. Muslim caste identity is divided into three categories: Ashraf, Ajlaf, and Arzal. The Ashraf are self-proclaimed descendants of Muslim immigrants who came to the Indian subcontinent from the Middle East and Central Asia. The Ajlaf and Arzal are primarily Hindus who converted to Islam and correspond to Backward Class (OBC) and Dalit subcastes, respectively.

These two backward formations have begun to refer to themselves collectively as Pasmanda, a Persian term for those left behind. And it is this grouping which has been the object of BJP's attention. It came in the form of the ruling party's outreach to the Pasmandas during its 2022 national executive meeting in Telangana’s capital city Hyderabad.

Prime Minister Modi subsequently held several events with notable Pasmanda Muslims later in the year. Feyaad Allie, a post-doctoral fellow in the Government Department at Harvard University, conducted a survey of 2,000 Muslims in 2022 in UP.

“When asked about state elections in Uttar Pradesh in 2012, a small percentage of Muslim voters reported that they voted for the BJP candidate. By 2017, 12.6 per cent of general Muslims and 8 per cent of Pasmanda Muslims reported support for the BJP. Interestingly, by the 2022 state elections, BJP support among general Muslims fell to 9.8 per cent while support among Pasmanda Muslims increased slightly to 9.1 per cent…the BJP’s recent inroads with the Pasmanda community—along with targeted 2024 election outreach – suggests that increased Pasmanda support for the BJP is entirely possible. But when this outreach occurs alongside efforts to mobilize Hindus on their collective religious identity, voting for the BJP can become a hard sell for Muslims, regardless of caste," he noted in an essay for Carnegie Endowment.

Yet, the comparison tells the story. “After the 2019 elections five per cent of Indian Members of Parliament are Muslim, while they make up around 15 per cent of the country’s population,” commented data journalist Katharina Buchholz.

“For comparison, the current Lok Sabha is more than 90 per cent Hindu, while Hindus make up just under 80 per cent of the Indian population.”

In the earlier 16th Lok Sabha, in 2014 when Modi was elected to power for the first time, Muslim representation had dipped to its lowest so far at 22. Its highest mark was in 1980, with the landslide victory of Congress under Indira Gandhi, which elected 49 Muslim MPs, the highest number, in the Lok Sabha.

When the Sachar Committee Report, Social, Economic and Educational Status of Muslim Community of India, was presented in 2006, it raised an age-old issue still haunting New India in 2024. “The general sense of unease among Muslims can be seen on a number of fronts — in the relationships that exist between the Muslims and other Socio-Religious Communities (SRCs), as well as, in the variations in understanding and interpreting them,” it reported.

Adding to this war of perceptions, says Hilal Ahmed, “It is worth noting that the doctrine of New India is religion neutral. This stated neutrality contributes directly to the Modi-led BJP’s attitude towards Muslims in an interesting manner. BJP leaders speak of Muslims in two distinct ways: Muslims of India are part of an international Islamic ummah, and for that matter they have to prove their patriotism.

Second, Muslims are an unimportant constituent of a larger national community, the citizens, and therefore, there is no need to address them as a specific social group/minority. In other words, Muslim identity is either defined as a visible threat to the nation or it is invisiblized to reproduce the nation as an undifferentiated collectivity.”

The paradoxes continue to grow as New India goes to the polls: Muslim participation in the electoral processes may not ensure Muslim representation in Parliament; diversity of Muslim population is adding to under-representation in governance; Muslims have seen their community leaders unable to meet voter aspirations. How can Muslims today work their way across these paradoxes and remain as rightful citizens of the Republic? The next few weeks may provide an answer.