There is little doubt that India’s estimated Muslim population of around 200 million is poorly represented in politics. It is also poorly represented in the public sector and government jobs, and its general standard of living is said to be lower than most other religious groups in India.
2 important reasons for this alleged “alienation”: media and secular portrayals of Indian Muslims as victims, and Muslim self-alienation from the mainstream. There is constant refrain in media and Left-liberal circles that the Muslim can only be shown as a victim under any circumstances.
This was more than apparent when the entire Left-Liberal lobby and the mainstream media went overboard in criticising the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which had nothing to do with Indian Muslims, as somehow being anti-Muslim. Apparently, the attempt of the CAA to show that Hindu minorities were victims in Islamist regimes in the neighbourhood does not go down well with Indian Muslims.
Javed Akhtar compared the Sangh to the Taliban. This again is possibly an effort to save Indian Muslims from the embarrassment of having to condemn an Islamist force that gets it legitimacy from the same Quran they too revere. When it comes to protecting Indian Muslims from having to make hard choices and confront their own radicals, secularists rush to provide protective cover. It is, however, the second reason Muslim self-alienation — that this article will focus on. This, broadly speaking, was the pattern established from the time of the Prophet, where he led his followers out of Mecca when he had to reckon with a majority opinion that was not in his favour.
The vote for Muhammed Ali Jinnah’s Muslim League was highest in United Provinces and Muslim concentration areas even in the south, and less enthusiastic in the Muslim majority zones or undivided India. It was the forefathers of Indian Muslims today who essentially enabled Jinnah’s rise before partition. They accepted the reality that in order to win ultimately, Muslim majority areas should be separated first even though Muslims would become an even smaller minority in post-partition India.
Post-1947, it suited both the 'secular' Congress and other regional parties to let this ghettoisation continue in order to reap a bulk minority vote during elections.
The secular parties could not have done this without Muslims themselves being vulnerable to the Medina complex, a project for self-alienation when not in a majority.