by DHIRENDRA K. JHA
Good Muslim, bad Muslim. Such labels are common nowadays. Raoof Bangali has become “a good Muslim”, one hears. He has become so by embracing Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the Hindutva icon widely seen as the perpetrator of the state’s worst ever communal carnage that took place a little less than a decade ago. Since 2009, on 17 September every year, Raoof has publicly been cutting a cake to celebrate Modi’s birthday.
For Raoof, the cost-benefit calculation may have included a BJP election ticket, but he and his Manik Chowk followers are not alone in doing such arithmetic. No different has been the stance of many Muslims of Gujarati origin. Bohras and Khojas, the state’s two biggest groups of traders who profess Islam as their faith, have always tended to support whichever regime has been in power. As observers recall, in the pre-1947 days, many of their leaders tilted towards the British, after Independence towards the Congress, and, of late, they have leaned towards the BJP. They have been among the first to look past allegations of the Modi-led government’s complicity in the post-Godhra pogrom of March 2002. Today, many of them, especially the wealthy, are vocal members of the Modi fan club in Gujarat.
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(Thanks to Robin Khundkar)