Hindutva’s Reach Out to Muslims in the 2014 Elections

Abstract

At the peak of the 2014 election campaign, Delhi was dotted with posters like ‘Na Doori Na Khaai, Modi Hamara Bhai’ (neither difference nor gap, Modi is our brother). These posters announcing Narendra Modi as ‘our brother’, were put up by Maulana Suhaib Qasmi of Jamaat Ulema-e-Hind, aligned to the BJP. Several such groups of BJP’s Muslims worked to mobilize Muslim votes for the right-wing Hindutva party. Drawing upon field reporting, covering the 2014 elections, and interviews with some of the political leaders and stake-holders of these organizations (and their literature), this chapter examines three key issues: contradiction between BJP’s outreach programmes towards Muslims and their condemnation of similar initiatives by other political parties as ‘Muslim appeasement’; perception of Muslim identity among leaders engaging in such initiatives; and whether such outreach programs had any impact in drawing Muslim voters towards the BJP?