In his recent blog titled “BJP systematically excluding Muslims, marginalized groups from poll process,” noted political commentator, Tufail Ahmad attempts to narrate the same old bigoted theory with a new twist. Though I am an admirer of both his courage and clarity of thought, which is fading away lately, this attempt of his is not only totally misplaced but a disservice to the community.

Tufail starts with saying "Democracies are governments of the majority: Of individuals, not communities," and then immediately doubts democracy itself by saying: "But in such a system, there runs the risk that the majority community can control the government and exclude the interests of minorities."

In the next sentence, he blames BJP of discarding the basic principles of a democracy (measures to protect the interests of marginalized groups) by citing examples of Gujrat, claiming "BJP has been implementing a policy of systematic exclusion of Muslims from the nation's political life."

To back his aspersions, Tufail quotes several Muslim voices from Gujarat, many NGO friends, and well known Modi haters like Aakar Patel claiming that "BJP denies electoral tickets to Muslim candidates to eliminate the jan pratinidhitv (democratic leadership) of Muslims. All this to transform India into a Hindu Rashtra, which is their planned mission."

The misfortune that India has undergone after its independence lies in its flawed definition of secularism that ruled the roost and kept the majority marginalized. The Congress party, since 1947 has created a version of secularism that is based on bashing the majority, aided by a crooked media. Lately, this was adopted by other regional so-called secular political parties.

Now, India is in the process of defining a new ‘center’ for itself, in political, societal and cultural discourses as well as in policies which are leaving the past opinion makers very nervous. Being such a vast country, it has taken several decades for this shift to happen. But this shift is here to stay.

I have noticed, in the celebration of being an intellectual, intellectuals sometimes unwittingly or otherwise echo the Left-liberal narrative and fall into their trap of lies, falsehood, lies, falsehood and some more lies and some more falsehood.

First of all, if BJP wished to marginalize Muslims they would not elect, even symbolically, as Rajya Sabha members, where only they had the sole discretion. Bharatiya Janata Party under Modi-Shah duo is a serious political party that goes into an election to win. Whether in Gujrat or Uttar Pradesh, a serious party should have the confidence of fielding a candidate only on the basis of his/her winnability.

I will cite a few examples here.

The youngest Cabinet Minister ever in the Government of India, Shahnawaz Hussein, was fielded by BJP from Bhagalpur (with sizeable Muslim population) in 2014, where he had represented the constituency as Member of Parliament in 2006 and 2009. But even during the Modi tsunami in 2014, he lost to RJD's Shailesh Kumar (Bulo Mandal) by less than ten thousand votes. Reason being the Muslim community voted en block in favor of a non-Muslim candidate of Lalu's RJD.

Take, another example, the town of Deoband that is home to the Dar-ul-Uloom, one of the tallest Islamic seminaries in the world. The BJP candidate won in the constituency where Muslims are a majority. How? BSP's Majid Ali secured 72,844 (31%) votes, SP's Mavia Ali secure 55,385 (24%) votes, BJP fielded a non-Muslim candidate Brajesh who cruised to victory with 102,244 (44%) votes taking advantage of the First Pass The Post.

I can analyze each such constituency, proving why every selection of the candidate is primarily based on the winnability, than any other bigoted theory.

The most pertinent question that comes to mind is why Muslim as a community do not feature in the winnability formula of Bharatiya Janata Party? This needs serious introspection. At the root of this problem is the game of appeasement played by the so-called intellectuals, peddled by the left-liberal media on behalf of their political masters.

The answer to the question "who was the last Muslim candidate contested from BJP," inherently lies in the question "in which constituency, Muslims voted BJP's candidate to victory?" None.

Tufail further quotes Khedawala saying: "In Gujarat, there is no third front. So, Muslims end up with the Congress." In fact, this sums it up. So it is not the BJP who is looking for a non-Muslim winnable candidate, it is the Muslim community that is looking for a non-BJP candidate.

The fact is that our rural India is still Caste ridden societies where majority voters prefer to vote as per the wish of their local caste/community leaders. In my opinion, this problem has never been that of the minorities per se but that of their leadership. All of them, all the time encouraging the Muslims to maintain their separate identity just because they want their bloc vote. 

At least a forest worth of pages and thousand terabytes of web space must have been used celebrating the undefeatable 'Muslim-Yadav factor' of secular messiahs Lalu Yadav and Mulayam Yadav. The latest being the 'Dalit-Muslim' combination to STOP-MODI.

Then Tufail subtly quotes senior journalist Tavleen Singh saying: "The prime minister never once used his Mann ki Baat to condemn the lynching of Muslims or the ludicrous love jihad movement. He has shown disapproval of vigilante violence only twice. In both cases, the victims were Dalits. Not once has he indicated that hacking Muslims to death or burning them alive and posting videos of this on the internet is something that revolts him".

How many times and from how many forums should Prime Minister Modi say this? Every time the Prime Minister would give a clarion call of 'Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas," he is responded with Award Wapsi, Intolerance, Lynchistan and what not.

A day before, the Beethoven of hypocrisy and dishonesty, Prof Ram Guha shared an article with the following tweet:

Isn't it sick? The whole aim of this bigoted narrative that the community leaders, their mainstream voices, the so-called left-liberal intellectuals peddle, is to keep the minority (especially the Muslim populace) frightened - and hence clamorous to be led to safety (by defeating Modi led BJP) - by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

The irony is that at the same time they also seek their representation in the BJP led Government. Dear fools, first stop antagonizing Muslims from mainstream as a separate identity to claim their block vote.

Tufail then quotes Dr. JS Bandukwala of Vadodara saying: "Muslims today need a top-level leadership to cope with this type of assault. Unfortunately, our community hasn't been able to produce mature leadership". I completely agree. We lack leaders from the Muslim community whose voice resonates with the community that India is their home and each one of them must own the country and its ancient culture as theirs.

The intellectual bigotry peddled by the left-liberal media of India becoming, a Hindu Pakistan, is the worst damage they’ve inflicted on the public discourse yet