Muslims hope for a peaceful end to row
The movement underlined the Karachi-born politician’s emergence as a mass leader. Advani’s 1990 Rath Yatra propelled BJP to 2nd position in the 1991 LS elections.
The temple movement helped him step out of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s shadow.. His stature grew within the RSS and the party and he groomed a new generation of leaders as party chief from 1993. He took over as deputy PM in 2002 and his authority was unquestioned even when BJP lost in 2004. His slide began in 2005 when he called Mohammad Ali Jinnah secular. The RSS was angry and his loyalists remained quiet. His marginalisation grew after the 2009 poll loss. The rise of Narendra Modi – once his protégé -- pushed Advani to the fringes. He is now part of the BJP margdarshak mandal, which hasn’t met since its setting up in 2014. remained loyal to him ever since,” said AK Verma, director at the Kanpur-based Centre for the Study of Society and Politics. Was there a nationwide impact on the Muslim community’s vote? Verma says there is no data to show that Muslims across the country moved away from the Congress.
But In Uttar Pradesh, Muslims, who form nearly a fifth of the state’s population, have since remained largely loyal to the Samajwadi Party, despite some attrition because of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, where about 60 people were killed and thousands displaced.
The support helped Yadav form his famous Yadav-muslim formula that helped his party come back to power three times after the Babri Masjid demolition. The then BJP president was a few meters away from the mosque when it was demolished . If Advani was the ‘face’ of the movement, Joshi, a Brahmin leader from undivided UP, was an important pillar. PM Narendra Modi was a mobiliser for Joshi’s Ekta Yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir between December 1991 and January 1992. Joshi’s involvement in the temple movement and aggressive championing of nationalist causes earned him laurels in the RSS. Joshi was part of the powerful BJP troika along with Vajpayee and Advani. He gradually lost relevance in organisational matters and reluctantly vacated his Varanasi Lok Sabha seats for Narendra Modi in 2014. Now, Joshi finds himself completely marginalised in the party, with a new generation of leaders coming up to the centrestage. He is also part of the margdarshak mandal.
Imtiyaz’s locality, for example, is known as Dargah because of the famous shrine of the Muslim saint Sayed Salar Masood Ghazi. It falls under the Bahraich assembly constituency, which the SP dominated for 20 years. But things are slowly changing.
The seat was won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the first time in the 2017 assembly polls. The saffron party won five of six assembly constituencies in the district, while the Samajwadi Party could only gain one.
The mood is reflected on the ground in the districts as well as in the Muslimdominated neighbourhoods in the vicinity of Ayodhya. Many Muslims now say that they have faith in the law or that the dispute no longer is of such pressing importance.
“We will respect the court’s order, whatever it may be. But we really want this to end now as we cannot live with such a burden anymore,” said Aleem Khan, 62, village head of Wazeerpur, which falls on the main Bahraichbhinga highway.
Khan said he wanted the issue to end before his death. “It’s been quite a long time since we are facing this issue and living in fear. I cannot bear it anymore.”
In Gonda and Faizabad districts, people blamed the BJP for raking up a matter they said was no longer relevant to their lives.
“People should understand that political parties are still following the divideand-rule formula,” said Mehmood Hasan, a villager from Gandhariya village in Gonda district.