India’s Muslims rally behind opposition to deny Modi a clean sweep

New Delhi, India: India’s incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won the 2024 parliamentary elections, marking his stamp on the history of the world’s most populated country. He became only the second leader to win three terms in a row.

His Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured 240 constituencies in the 543-seat parliament called the Lok Sabha. That’s 32 short of the 272 needed to form the government and BJP will rely on coalition partners in the right-wing National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to make up the majority.

In the election campaign, Modi projected a strong-man image, boasting that the NDA would easily secure more than 400 seats.

What’s taken analysts and India watchers by surprise is the strong showing of the Indian National Congress-led INDIA coalition, which won 231 seats - far more than the 94 it secured in the last 2019 elections.

And the opposition’s success wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Muslim voters, analysts say.

While Muslims make up only around 14.2 percent of India's population, in a number of key states and constituencies they proved to be a significant voting bloc. These Lok Sabha elections stand out as a watershed moment in the chronicle of Indian democracy as the once-divided Muslim voters rallied behind the opposition candidates from the heartland of Uttar Pradesh to the eastern bastion of West Bengal and the northeastern frontier.

Zeyad Masroor Khan, a writer based in New Delhi who originally comes from Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, says the election results have debunked the notion that Muslim voters no longer have the power to shape the political landscape.

"A lot of the credit for this great showing by the opposition goes to the Muslim voters," Khan says.

Muslims came out to vote in large numbers “despite facing formidable challenges such as scorching heat wave, and police lathi charges in constituencies like Sambhal”. During the third phase of polling on May 7 in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal region, police baton-charged voters in four Muslim-dominated villages, leaving many people injured.

The scene was chaotic, with locals claiming that the police action was unprovoked and aimed at preventing them from casting votes for the Samajwadi Party, which is part of the opposition INDIA alliance.

Despite the police action or maybe because of it, a large number of people showed up to vote in Sambhal, which registered one of the highest voter turnouts at 62.82 percent.

Many locals lamented that the incident had deterred potential voters from participating. A palpable sense of disappointment descended among the residents, who say that the voter turnout could have been even higher if not for the heavy-handed police tactics. "The Muslims have proved that they are very, very, very politically relevant to Indian political scenarios," says Khan, adding that the results send a clear message to the BJP that underestimating the political significance of India's largest minority was a grave miscalculation. Uttar Pradesh, with its vast expanse and diverse demographics, emerged as a crucible of identity politics, where the BJP's Hindutva agenda collided head-on with the aspirations and fight-for-identity politics of minority communities, particularly Muslims.

Muslims constitute around 20 percent of the population in the state - India’s biggest - and their support was crucial in defeating the BJP. In Rampur and Azamgarh, constituencies with sizable Muslim populations, the opposition’s victory margin rose.

Ateeq Ahmed, a 45-year-old social worker from Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh, says while BJP consolidated Hindu votes through its Hindutva agenda, Muslim voters came together to have an impact on the final outcome.

A similar trend played out in West Bengal, long regarded as a stronghold of secularism and pluralism. The state saw BJP's aggressive campaign aimed at polarising communities along religious lines. But in the end, around 70 percent of the state's 27 percent Muslim electorate voted for the opposition Trinamool Congress (TMC).

TMC leader Mamata Banerjee's strong stance against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) law and outreach seems to have cemented Muslim support for his party, analysts say.

"The landslide victory of the TMC, securing over 29 seats out of 42 in the state, can be attributed in some part to the overwhelming backing from Muslim voters,” says Mayukh Biswas, the All India General Secretary of Students’ Federation of India (SFI).

He points out, "especially the Muslim-dominated districts like Murshidabad and Malda played a pivotal role in the TMC's electoral fortunes.” One of the most symbolic setbacks for the BJP happened in the Faizabad constituency of Uttar Pradesh, which includes the town of Ayodhya. Faizabad gained international prominence due to the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute. Babri mosque was demolished, and in its place, the Hindu Ram temple was built. Modi recently inaugurated the temple amid much fanfare, marking the fulfilment of an election promise.

In 2019, the BJP won a decisive legal victory after the Supreme Court handed over the disputed site for the Ram temple. However, the much-discussed “Ram Mandir” factor failed to sway voters. Two-time sitting BJP MP Lallu Singh was defeated by opposition Samajwadi Party's Awadhesh Prasad. Local journalist Sher Bahadur Sher says Modi’s rhetorical manoeuvres fell flat, and voters in Ayodhya prioritised more immediate concerns over religious and caste-based politics.

“It has been proved that false wordplay by Modi didn’t work. The voters in Ayodhya focused more on unemployment, poverty—than Hindutva propaganda.”

Social worker Ahmed also says that ground-level issues took centre stage in the elections. “Additionally, the BJP’s leaders’ divisive hate speeches during election rallies galvanised Muslim voters against the party.” The electoral dynamics played out in Manipur and Assam replicates the familiar pattern.

In Bihar and Kerala, where the Muslim electorate isn’t as sizable, their calculated move toward the Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) -Congress coalition and the incumbent Left alliance, respectively, had an indelible mark. These voters demonstrated unity and that their concerns extended beyond religious identity, emphasising practical governance and policy matters. “For Muslims, the 2024 elections took on an existential dimension as fears grew of further alienation under another strong BJP government which would push a Hindu nationalist agenda,” says Syed Ali Haider, a Muslim voter from Uttar Pradesh. "It was a game of survival for us." Dr Salman Imtiaz, a Congress leader from Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, provides more insight into the Muslim voter strategy.

"Before 2014, Muslims never had an existential worry, but after Modi came to power, the whole political system and media brought us into an existential crisis.”

He says that this time the Muslim voters united and voted strategically.

"This apparently coordinated move by Muslim voters to abandon the incumbent in favour of its strongest opponents constitutes a big factor, among several others, that has opened up the possibility of an opposition alliance forming a government at the centre.” This existential worry and sense of survival seem to have united Muslim voters across India, encouraging them to back opposition groups.

Imtiaz gave the example of Uttar Pradesh where Kumari Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had fielded some Muslim candidates. "The wisdom of the Muslim voters knew that giving the vote to Muslim leaders of the BSP would provide them no good, and hence they strategically gave their votes to the SP-Congress led alliance.” New Delhi-based writer Khan says that the unification of Muslim voters did help create a strong opposition against the BJP. "BJP's policies have been strictly anti-minority, be it Muslims, Sikhs, Dalits."

“The minorities seemed to come out in large numbers to punish the Modi government.” A lot of it also had to do with economic policies that impacted the poor - especially poor Muslims- who came out in large numbers to vote. "All I hope is that the election result leads to a reduction in the ongoing Islamophobic rhetoric in the political discourse," Khan says.

"It is a signal that Muslims are still a very relevant political force in India.”