Sanjay Raut's Demand To Cancel Muslim Voting Rights Isn't Surprising - Bigotry Is in The Sena's DNA

3/19/2017 SanjayRaut'sdemandtocancelMuslimvotingrightsisn'tsurprising:BigotryisintheSena'sDNA
Home Video The Latest The Reel The Field Magazine Pulse In Pictures Bookshop
Trending Sections Sunday, March 19th 2017
NEWS ANALYSIS
Sanjay Raut's demand to

cancel Muslim voting
rights isn't surprising:
Bigotry is in the Sena's
DNA
In 1999, the party's founder Bal Thackeray was himself disenfranchised
after being convicted of corrupt electoral practices.
Smruti Koppikar
Published Apr 14, 2015.
Sanjay Raut via Facebook
https://scroll.in/article/720302/sanjayrautsdemandtocancelmuslimvotingrightsisntsurprisingbigotryisinthesenasdna 1/17
Apr 14, 2015.

Smruti Koppikar
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Sanjay Raut must know what fallacy is. He demonstrated its useon Sundaywhile
writing in Saamna, the Marathi daily of the Shiv Sena, the political party that he
represents in the Rajya Sabha. In his weekly columnRok-Thok, Raut propagated the
idea that Muslims must be stripped of their voting rights in order to end vote-bank
politics. Whats more, he even called upon Muslims to take the initiative in this
regard.
Raut told some journalists later that he felt awfully sorry writing all this but likened
the harsh, provocative, unconstitutional and illegal suggestion in the column to a
surgery [which is] often needed to restore ones health. Irrespective of what his
emotions were while writing, what shines through is that Raut a Member of
Parliament, and executive editor of a paper by which lakhs of Shiv Sainiks and Sena
sympathisers are swayed used logic in his argument in a way that primary school
students would not.
To paraphrase Raut: Muslims have been used as a vote-bank for years both by parties
who claim to represent the community and by secularists; petty politics has
manipulated their voting power; if their numerical strength continues to be misused
by political parties, they will not be on the path of development and they will have no
future;
Hometherefore,
Video they must be
The Latest Thedisenfranchised.
Reel The Field Magazine Pulse In Pictures Bookshop
Trending Sections
The fallacy in the argument is stark. Its like saying the main water pipeline to an area

must be cut because the water supply there is contaminated. The solution is to treat
the water to de-contaminate it, not to cut the pipeline. But a logical nuanced argument
is hardly the strong suit in the Sena leaders repertoire.
Rich irony
Nor does he comprehend the meaning of irony. Why else would Raut, who has
displayed ferocious allegiance to a party whose core political philosophy is to
represent the Maharashtrian, a geographical-linguistic community, rail against a
religious community being used as a political tool by rival parties? By Rauts reading,
Maharashtrian vote-bank politics is perfectly acceptable, Muslim vote-bank politics is
not.
Vote-bank politics, caste and sub-caste driven political arrangements and

appeasement of core support base of a party is the bane of Indian politics. Political
scientists offer reasonable sounding theories to explain the phenomenon of vote-bank
politics and how these arrangements may even serve a marginalised community in
the initial phase. On the ground, it has been reduced to appealing for votes on the
basis of identity religious, geographical, linguistic or any other.
The Shiv Sena has practised vote-bank politics since 1967, a year after it was formed,
when it fought its first election. In 2015, Rauts rant pointed to the All India Majlis-e-
Ittehadul Muslimeen, the Hyderabad-based party seeking to represent Muslims,
which put up a candidate in Saturday's by-election to the Maharashtra assembly in
Bandra (East). Its where the Thackerays live. Its also an area long considered the Shiv
Senas citadel.
The MIMs
Home Owaisi
Video brothers,
The Latest Asaduddin
The Reel and
The FieldAkbaruddin,
Magazine represent
Pulse a particularly
In Pictures Bookshop
vicious brand
Trending ofSections
Muslim vote-bank politics but have tasted moderate success in a
series of local and state elections in Maharashtra in the last few years. Their

candidate in the by-election to the prestigious seat meant that the party was throwing
a direct challenge at the Shiv Sena. It was enough for the barely-concealed
viciousness in the Sena, which turned Muslims into the despicable rivals in the late
1980s and '90s, to be put out on display.
Routine insults
Muslims are the people the Sena's founder and cartoonist, the late Bal Thackeray,
routinely insulted with a derogatory local term for circumcised people, blamed for
many ills in the state and nation, and snubbed for having built housing communities
that were mini-Pakistans in Mumbai and elsewhere. Thackeray was the original
Hindu Hriday Samrat the Emperor of Hindu hearts long before the fan-boys of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi anointed him with the title.
The fact that the Thackerays personal physician for many years was a Muslim was
often touted as testimony that he held no personal animosity towards the community.
Wrong logic, again. In speech after speech in the late '80s, Thackeray heaped so much
scorn on the community that it became the trademark of his public addresses. The
distinction between patriotic/nationalist Muslims and anti-nationalist Muslims
was yet to be made.
While campaigning for Ramesh Prabhoo in the 1987 Maharashtra assembly election,
Thackeray so vividly invoked the Hindu identity and criticised Muslims that a case
was filed against him for violating provisions of the Representation of the People Act.
This resulted in Thackeray being convicted of corrupt electoral practices and
punished by having his voting rights susended.
On December
Home 11, 1995,
Video the Supreme
The Latest The Reel Court advised
The Field the President
Magazine Pulse Into debar Thackeray
Pictures Bookshop
fromTrending
contesting
or voting
Sections in elections for a period of six years. President KR
Narayanan, however, referred the matter to the Election Commission. A two-member

bench of the commission conveyed its opinion to the President on September 22,
1998. On July 17, 1999, the President finally decided to debar Thackeray, but with
retrospective effect from the date of the Supreme Court order, December 11, 1995.
Therefore, Thackerays disfranchisement lasted only till December 10, 2001.
For those two-and-half years, Thackerays name had been deleted from the voters list
in Bandra (East). What were his statements that got him disenfranchised? Here are a
few (from the court documents):
I appeal to all my Hindu brothers, sisters and mothers gathered here to

please send the Shiv Sena to the Legislative Assembly; otherwise, he warned, it
would be difficult for us to live because there would be (a) war of religions (and)
Muslims will come November 29, 1987
*We win an election with such votes he said, likening Muslims to snakes and
asked Who are these [expletive deleted]?...They should bear in mind that this
country is of Hindus, the same shall remain of Hindus. November 29, 1987
*Whatever masjids are thereif one starts digging the same, one will find Hindu
templesA person by the name of Prabhoo who is contesting the election in the name
of religion [should be] sent [to the Assembly]. December 9, 1987
*It will do if we do not get a vote from any MuslimIf anybody from them is present
at this place he should think for himself. I am not in need of their votes. But I want
your votesYou must send only Dr. Ramesh Prabhoo of the Shiv Sena, otherwise
RELATED
Hindus will be finished[and] it will not take much for Hindustan to be green [i.e.
Islamised]. December 10, 1987
Violent history
Trending Sections

As justice proves elusive, Kashmiris draw solace from recording brutalities they have suffered
A few years later,, during the 1992-'93 riots in Mumbai, Shiv Sena leaders offered the
excuse that the spate of violence in January 1993 was a spontaneous response to the
TRENDING
killing of four mathadi workers [porters who carried loads on their heads] and
burning of six Hindus in the northern Jogeshwari neighbourhood. But that contention
was refuted by the government-appointed Srikrishna Commission, which produced
an official inquiry report into the violence.
That1.they were criminals was underplayed by Hindus and that they were Muslims
was all that mattered, and a cry went up that the Muslims were bent upon a second
round of riots, the Commission observed, placing these horrific incidents in the
context of communally provocative propaganda in those weeks. It further noted that
such propaganda, reinforced by local rumours that attacks by Muslims using
sophisticated arms were imminent, turned some irresponsible and hot-headed
The age of trolls: What the BJP's new spokesperson signifies for Indian politics
Hindu elements violent.
The commission said:

From January 8, 1993 at least, there is no doubt that the Shiv Sena and Shiv
Sainiks took the lead in organising violent attacks on Muslims and their properties
under the guidance of several leaders... from the level of shakha pramukh to... Bal
Thackeray, who, like a veteran general, commanded... Shiv Sainiks to retaliate by
organised attacks against Muslims.
Statements and acts of Sena leaders and Thackeray's writings and directives kept
building up communal tension, the Commission stated.
The dog whistle
2.
When Raut Video

Home wrote his prescription
The Latest The Reelagainst vote-bank
The Field politics,
Magazine Pulse heIn
invoked
Pictures Thackeray.
Bookshop It
served to hit allSections
Trending the right
notes for a readership that is familiar with the late leaders
stridently anti-Muslim ideology. It remains, to this day, a persuasive and powerful

talisman of the party. Thackerays successor son and president of the party, Uddhav
Thackeray, has sought to draw lines between the nationalist and the anti-
nationalist Muslims,
Hindutva spelling
unmasked: out the BJP's
Yogi Adityanath, difference in his
most strident interviews
face, andminister
will be its chief speeches
in UP
during the elections last year.
The Shiv Sena will continue to oppose the anti-national Muslims who do not respect
the country's laws and create problems for people, Uddhav Thackeray told his own
paper, Saamna. Like my father Bal Thackeray used to say, those Muslims who
3.
consider India their motherland, respect the laws of this country, don't ignite riots and
live amicably, we have nothing against them as far as the others, they have no right
to live in India, he explained.
He went so far as to recommend revocation of Indian citizenship for those Muslims

who do not fit the Senas description of what an Indian Muslim should be. Rauts
Tempest in a teapot: A rebuttal to Reza Aslans critics from someone whos lived with Aghoris
suggestion of disenfranchisement is part of the piece. Such stridency helps to keep its
flock together and demonstrate that the party has not in any way softened on the
issue, especially when political challenges must be faced. In fact, he would be pleased
that Sakshi Maharaj, another Member of Parliament, elected from Unnao, promptly
backed the disenfranchisement demand.
Such talk and demands are not new. They happened in the context of the MIMs
cynical exploitation of the Muslim identity. But they gained a seriousness and threat
value in a landscape replete with what the political scientist Shiv Vishwanathan
recently called the politics of anxiety and identity.
Raut generously tapped into that politics. His political opponents have called for his
Rajya Sabha membership to be revoked and criminal proceedings started against
4.
him.Home
The Aam Aadmi
Video Party has
The Latest The called
Reel forField
The Shiv Sena itselfPulse
Magazine to be de-recognised.
In Pictures Raut
Bookshop
had earlier
Trending suggested
Sections deleting
socialism and secularism from the Constitution.
This time, it was disenfranchisement of a community. Any ideas what his next anti-

Constitutional suggestion will be?
We welcome your
A Punjab comments
farmer at letters@scroll.in.
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FEMINISM IS FUN
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Trinidad and Tobagos
Carnival has gone

feminist (bikinis and
feathers included)
Some deride a Carnival trend in which women revel in the streets
wearing swimsuits and feather boas. But to feminists, 'bikini mas' is a
highly political act.
by Gabrielle Hosein, The Conversation

Published Yesterday 10:00 pm
REUTERS/Andrea De Silva
Yesterday 10:00 pm
Gabrielle Hosein, The Conversation

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Trinidad and Tobagos Carnival, which recently ended its 2017 rendition, is an event
as contradictory as it is extraordinary.
No mere mimicry of other such celebrations in Rio de Janeiro or New Orleans,

Carnival on this Caribbean island of 1.4 million people primarily descended from
enslaved Africans and Indian indentured labourers combines African traditions
with European pre-Lent festivities and Indian musical rhythms.
Given this syncretism, its perhaps unsurprising that, over the past 200 years, Carnival
has been not just two days of normal order turned upside down but also an annual
expression of female political resistance.
Beads and glitter and bikini mas

Caribbean womens takeover of Carnival is most evident during bikini mas. Each
year, tens of thousands of women participate in this Carnival mas(querade), playing
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periods, places and cultures (as well as some fantastical imagined characters), some
fear that Trinidad and Tobagos historic tradition is dying. New, imported masquerade
styles, say traditional

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The Latest The Reeldo The
notField
makeMagazine
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Sanjay Raut's Demand To Cancel Muslim Voting Rights Isn't Surprising - Bigotry Is in The Sena's DNA

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3/19/2017 SanjayRaut'sdemandtocancelMuslimvotingrightsisn'tsurprising:BigotryisintheSena'sDNA

Trending Sections Sunday, March 19th 2017

Sanjay Raut's demand to

Sanjay Raut via Facebook

Apr 14, 2015.

Vote-bank politics, caste and sub-caste driven political arrangements and

I appeal to all my Hindu brothers, sisters and mothers gathered here to

The commission said:

The dog whistle

When Raut Video

during the elections last year.

He went so far as to recommend revocation of Indian citizenship for those Muslims

How virtual reality is

Published Mar 14, 2017.

Mar 14, 2017.

A customer enters a well-appointed room with walls painted in a soothing grey

The conVRse room

Abhishek identifies the major challenges facing the widespread adoption of VR

Carnival has gone

by Gabrielle Hosein, The Conversation

Gabrielle Hosein, The Conversation

No mere mimicry of other such celebrations in Rio de Janeiro or New Orleans,

Beads and glitter and bikini mas

styles, say traditional

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