By M. Burhanuddin Qasmi:
Disunity, lack of genuine political and social leadership has been among the major problems for Indian Muslims in the post independent India along with other bunch of issues. Majority of the Muslim leaders be it religious, social or political have been selfclaimed without mass base. They are leaders, imams, heads et al mainly because their fathers, grandfathers or someone from their family had been so earlier.
In the present Lok Sabha, lower house of Indian parliament, there are at least three Muslim parliamentarains who are elected leaders and own elections one after the other on their own political and social strengths. They are leaders because they put themselves in the democratic process, worked hard, fought elections and won with marked margins.
Obviously these leaders will be better of as far as understanding of present socio-politico conditions of India is concerned, because they are in the Parliament, they have been fighting elections and campaigning for their respective political parties for decades on, against some one who could not won a Lok Sabha election ever in his life. They are of course stronger as political leaders because they have been standing against the negative storms and facing the real political game in real time, in comparison with one who is riding on family bonus only.
The irony of this community is that the one who was utterly failed in electoral politics, not once but twice, when he tried his luck from two thickly Muslim populated Lok Sabha seats in two different states on national party tickets but could not even gain contestable votes from Muslims to become an elected MP yet he braves to be the ‘leader’ and advices, rather warns those who are elected leaders at least from their respective parliamentary constituencies! He dares to give verdict on televisions that so and so is not a leader of Muslim Indians, so and so must stay at so and so places and if they dare to cross the boundary he marked, he would stop them!
It is as if in a race I lost, so nobody should win it. It is like I tried and failed, now I won’t allow anybody else to try it. This is similar to an order that I am suffering from diabetes so nobody can eat sugar in India. This is ‘I’, the Muslim leader in India.
