The new strategy of the MIM in order to project itself as a developmental party and not a communal one is to give tickets to Dalits and make them contest the elections.
By this act, the MIM hopes to convince the general public that it is pro-poor and concerned about development rather than communalization. But this in fact only appears to be a well-thought out strategy.
In India, the primary targets for conversion have always been the Dalits as they have been at the bottom rung of the social ladder. The majority of converts to other religions have been Dalits for obvious reasons.
Today, cohesion with the Dalits would help the MIM to channelize their frustrations (that of the Dalits) against the ruling establishment and other political parties.
For all their so-called talk of development and standing up for the rights of the minorities, is it not a fact that the Owaisi brothers are filthy-rich while their Muslim brethren in old city sink further into poverty and misery?
The Dalits may feel that in the form of MIM, they have a genuine interlocutor for them but at the end of the day, they are just a bulwark for the MIM against other parties and organizations, principally the RSS.
And the biggest challenge for the RSS is that despite their best efforts to consolidate all the Hindus under one single umbrella, the caste system continues to remain the biggest stumbling block.
In fact, it was this point which was raised by Dr. Ambedkar too with respect to reconversion to Hinduism.
“If you reconvert a person to Hinduism, what caste will he be given? Hindus are born in a caste and die in a caste. So, what will be the fate of these converts? Given that casteism is the basis of Hinduism, there is no way for these converts to gain an identity for themselves in the Hindu social ladder.”
Whatever be the solution to the query posed by Dr. Ambedkar, the situation is certainly working out to the advantage of the MIM.
