DOST KHAN
JAMMU: Having tested the minority vote prowess in shaping the political destiny of exploitative anti-majority politicians across the country-more recently in West Bengal-the Urdu poet Munawwar Rana has challenged that if Yogi Adityanath again becomes the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2022, he will leave the State.
The challenge is manifestation of the machinations being employed to ensure that minority vote is diverted in a systematic and well thought-over way against the BJP, which is seen as a pivot of Hindu and nationalist resurgence-something that has not only discomforted the Indian pseudo secularists but anti-Indian forces globally as well.
Munawwar Rana is not a political strategist like Prashant Kishore, who is credited with the massive victory of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. He had vowed to quit his profession if the BJP crossed 100 mark in West Bengal. Munawwar Rana is imitating Prashant. It is different that more than any strategy, the poll managers created a threat perception about the BJP juggernaut bulldozing the Bangladeshi-Rohingya and radical bastion in West Bengal. The result was as expected. The minorities came to vote to defeat the BJP. They had the mission to uproot the saffron party that had made an impressive mark in the Lok Sabha polls of 2019. On the contrary, the majority community could not read the arithmetic of the radicals and either didn’t vote or scattered their choice to make the radical-mission a success. This has now become the formula in Indian election lab and to that extent the confidence of Munawwar Rana is understandable. However, he, like many others, is unaware about the growing realization among the majority population of the impending danger of ‘political disempowerment due to demographic reasons’. Hopefully, this concern and successive reforms and the bold decisions by the Yogi will see his BJP getting through in the 2022 elections. Munawwar Rana, in that case, will have to leave Uttar Pradesh.
Munawwar Rana need not worry about his future settlement. The radicals and bigots are welcome in Jammu and Kashmir, the coziest second home for illegal immigrants like Rohingyas and Bangladeshis. They overcame the initial hesitancy when the political actors facilitated their influx and stay in the so-called City of Temples. The scenario is such now that the Rohingyas have become part of the Jammu life. Many of them hold Aadhar, ration cards, Sims and other documents, which give them the right to be as good citizens of this City as any Jan Sanghi or Congressi. They can be seen working at construction sites, in factories, in business establishments, as vendors or picking rags. They are omni-present everywhere notwithstanding the concerns of the security agencies about threat to national security. The erstwhile coalition partner in the Jammu and Kashmir State’s last political dispensation-the BJP-despite making a lot of hue and cry over the issue, failed in realizing what the party was exploiting before marching inside the power corridors. Presently as well, nothing is in sight with the BJP ruling the Centre and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir being under President’s rule.
After discreet silence over the years, a beginning was made to start ‘Biometric verification of Rohingyas ‘, which witnessed ‘some settlers sent to the Hiranagar Centre. Nothing was heard thereafter. Was it enough to address the concerns of Jammu people over the overt and covert attempts of changing the demography of Duggarland? The initiative virtually ended up after hogging a few headlines.
Watch the words of a Rohingya Muslim, who is reported to have stated, “I crossed into Bangladesh from Burma (Myanmar) when persecution of Muslims became unbearable. From Calcutta I shifted with my family to Delhi where I begged for food to keep myself and my family alive. It was in Delhi that I met a Kashmiri who told me J&K was a state in India where Muslims live in majority”.
Who was this Kashmiri and why didn’t he lead Rohingyas to the Valley instead of giving them a Jammu address? The threat of their illegal settlement here was picked by some NGOs, one of them from Srinagar, which provided succour to illegal settlers. The then Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti admitted this in Legislative Assembly in January 2017 that some NGOs namely ‘Shikawat’ run by Mohammad-ul-Umar of Srinagar along with Rashid, SR Institute of Development of Rambagh (Srinagar) and Delhi based NGO Daji were helping Rohingyas in cash and kind from time to time. What she did not tell the Legislative Assembly was the action proposed by her government, ironically in coalition with the BJP, to free Duggarland from these unwanted settlers. Jammu’s concerns over criminalization of the atmosphere by their presence are not out of place. Rohingyas use in anti-national activities also remained a real time threat, especially after their sympathizers in the Valley resorted to widespread protests in 2019 which witnessed torching of police vehicles and stone throwing on the security forces.
This being the backdrop of how Jammu is safe heaven for all sorts of people-radical being the qualification– Munawwar Rana will not find himself in the wilderness after the Yogi wins UP again in 2022. Munawwar Rana should feel doubly assured of being a most ‘honourable’ settler in the Sarai called Jammu.