Maulana Mahmood Madani’s recent sit-down with Sushant Sinha, a journalist-turned-YouTuber infamous for his anti-Muslim propaganda and Islamophobia, has been making a lot of Muslim youths angry. Small clips from the almost two-hour-long podcast have been making the rounds on social media and WhatsApp groups alike. At the outset, it appears that many Muslim youths are particularly frustrated with Maulana’s remarks on Hyderabad member of parliament and All India Majlis e Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi. This is not the first time Maulana Madani has commented on the Hyderabad MP, either. In a press conference given 7 years ago, Madani had said, “I am against anybody who being a Muslim is trying to become a political leader of Muslims. I am against this idea. Owaisi is a good person but he is trying to become the leaders of Muslims and I am going to oppose that”.
Madani, who heads arguably India’s biggest and oldest Muslim organisation, Jamiat e Ulama e Hind, was only reiterating what is almost public knowledge. His stance on the idea of politics that Asaduddin Owaisi represents, which loosely can be categorised as Muslim identity politics, is not unique to him and has historical precedence. Rather, Jamiat as an organisation since independence has maintained a similar position to what its leaders suggest—’Muslim-led politics’. Just after the Indian independence, the vice president of Jamiat and minister of education in the Indian government and perhaps the tallest Muslim leader of his time, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, in a speech, said, “If in the Indian Union there is a single Muslim or group of Muslims who think that Muslims should have a separate political organization it would be better for them to go to Pakistan. Here in India, we all sail in one boat and sink or swim together.” Azad’s insistence, in the background of partition, at the time might have made a lot of sense. However, in today’s time, the stand could be debated.
What is new this time, other than the often repeated allegation that AIMIM is the B team of the BJP, is Madani’s reference to the Razakars, the pro-independence militia of the erstwhile Hyderabad state, while criticising Akbaruddin Owaisi’s controversial 2011 speech. This is especially problematic and outrageous. Firstly, the Razakars, much like many other organisations of the pre-independence era, operated in a very different socio-political setting, and at a time when Hyderabad state’s integration with the Indian Union was still deliberated by both parties. The history of Razakars has to be placed in the unique historical context of the consequential political developments in the region amidst the decline of a Muslim seat of power and the arrival of democratic politics, which for many strongly represented the dominance of Hindu majoritarianism. Like the Razakar’s, the significantly powerful Depressed Class Association (DCA) with leaders like Shyam Sunder were also in favour of autonomous Hyderabad state.
Pramod Mandade in this insightful piece elaborates more on this. In this same piece, he mentions, “Shyam Sundar, BS Venkatrao, and DCA activists felt that the integration of Hyderabad Princely state signaled the onset of Hindu rule. They perceived greater opportunities for the welfare of Dalits in an independent Hyderabad state than in the Indian union. Shyam Sundar clarifies his support for Azad Hyderabad in his speech, saying, “We are cooperating with Muslims for political purposes. It does not mean that we are accepting Islam. Religious conversion will not change the social condition of the untouchable…We are trying to create resources for Dalits. The Razakars and MIM also supported the DCA’s demand for separate electorates.”
Secondly, the politics and aspirations represented by the Razakars and its parent body, the Majlis e Ittehadul Muslimeen, after the annexation of Hyderabad, transformed into a political entity, the All-India Majlis e Ittehadul Muslimeen, that sought solutions within the nation-state’s polity through democratic means. Simply put, like other people, groups, and factions of the pre-independent India who initially were skeptical of what the transfer of power meant realistically but accepted it after it came into being. Furthermore, the RSS and the BJP have a history of invoking Razakars against any Muslim political expression in the region to discredit leaders and question their loyalty to India. As such, it is inappropriate for Maulana Mahmood Madani to literally borrow the BJP’s vocabulary to criticise a fellow politician.
Akbaruddin Owaisi’s speech, particularly the part where he reportedly said, “What could these 25 crore Muslims do if you just take away the police for 15 minutes?” is to be understood in today’s socio-political context. From the perspectives of people championing communal harmony and peace or appearing to do so, the younger Owaisi’s dare and audacity for his choice of words might appear extreme. However, such perspectives of communal harmony are often code words for keeping the status quo, as the speech in question forces one to look at a common Muslim experience that is deliberately overlooked. In this case, and as it has been for the past several decades, the status quo remains the disproportional power balance, highly communal law enforcement, unwillingness or failure to keep the Hindutva groups in check, and negligible say in the overall politics. In this context, this particular speech reflects the meekness of the state to ensure fairness for Muslims over Akbar’s alleged aggression and, by extension, the legitimate anger of the Muslim community against the role of law enforcement agencies during incidents of communal violence. Akbar’s speech attacks the established status quo of the ‘accepted’ way Muslims are expected to express their concerns.
There is an argument to be made whether Akbar could have chosen better words to express his sentiment, which his elder brother now eloquently does. However, what cannot be overlooked is his moral right to express this anger. Akbar spent over a month in jail for his speech, when if at all a response was needed, could have been police reforms. Anthropologist and scholar Max Kramer, who contests against the categorisation of Akbar’s speech as hate speech, contributes enormously to this discussion. According to him, “the denial of being a constitutive and transformative element of Indian history forces most Muslims in India to become public through the nationalization of their articulation.” Because hegemonic history writing is either secular-nationalist or Hindu nationalist in India, claims suggesting larger Muslim solidarity are often read against the partition of British India and thus firmly placed within the discursive framework of “secularism versus communalism.”
This can be seen as a result of what Gyanendra Pandey has called “internal colonization”, “wherein they [Muslims] are not only perceived as second-class citizens but are also unable to assert any independent claims to history or to seek an identity outside of and without assimilating into the dominant culture.” Madani’s position and insistence on opposing Muslim identity politics is understandable, given Jamiat’s history, even though a growing population within the Muslim community is increasingly exploring and engaging with such initiatives. However, his ill-informed remarks straight out of Hindutva’s playbook are a serious concern as they pave the way for further criminalisation and censorship of independent Muslim voices.
This is not the first time Maulana Mahmood Madani has borrowed vocabulary from the BJP. Previously, at a time when the leading human rights organisations of the world were questioning the Indian government on its treatment of Muslim minorities, he said, “The condition of Indian Muslims is much better than Muslims of Islamic countries.” At a time when the Indian government has been increasingly hostile towards Muslims, with the Prime Minister himself being accused of delivering hate speeches, Madani’s attempt at whitewashing and downplaying the anxieties and fears of the Muslim minority is deplorable and undermines the rich legacy of the great organisation he leads. Instead, it helps the BJP, and some would argue Mahmood Madani himself.
