Ajit Pawar's Balancing Act With Muslims

Ajit Pawar became a ray of hope for Muslims, the only man in power who could resolve their grievances.

As talks about a merger of both factions of the Nationalist Congress Party gather momentum in Maharashtra, the elephant in the room is the question: At the fag end of his political career, will Sharad Pawar give up his secular ideology?

Or will he, like his late nephew Ajit Pawar, be the lone secular face in a government of Hindutvavadis?

When Ajit Pawar joined the Mahayuti government in 2023, he made it clear that his belief in 'Shahu-Phule-Ambedkar' thought, a uniquely Maharashtrian progressive anti-caste ideology, would not change.

As an NCP leader, Pawar had substantial Muslim support. Among his first decisions as finance minister under the Mahayuti government was to financially strengthen the Maulana Azad Minorities Financial Development Corporation, a demand that the community had often raised before him.

"As a result, many who were unable to get loans under the old budgetary provisions managed to do so, specially in the districts, including a new category of minority students wanting to pursue studies abroad," said Jalna-based school teacher S K Mujeeb, also a secretary of the Jamaat e Islami.

"These decisions could not have been taken without the consent of the cabinet," added Mujeeb. "Obviously, he could convince (Maharashtra Chief Minister) Devendra Fadnavis that these were necessary."

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Despite this largesse, the 2024 Lok Sabha elections saw Muslims desert Ajit Pawar for the INDIA bloc, which emerged as the first choice for anyone opposed to the Bharatya Janata Party-Shiv Sena.

However, when the assembly elections were held six months later, the INDIA bloc was not as strong. While the BJP swept the state, Pawar's NCP managed to win 41 seats.

"These couldn't have been won only on the basis of Hindu votes," points out Mujeeb.

Indeed, before the assembly elections, a few Muslims had argued that it was necessary to support Ajit Pawar's candidates even though he was part of the BJP-Sena government, in order to strengthen "the only secular face in a very unsecular set up", as Sarfaraz Aarzoo, editor, Hindustan Urdu daily, put it.

Today, Sarfaraz feels his stand has been vindicated. "Ajit Pawar played that role successfully," he says, adding that it suited the BJP too, to have someone in front of whom Muslims could vent their feelings.

The deputy CM could not stop the wave of communalism that the BJP had brought to Maharashtra after it dislodged the Uddhav Thackeray-led government. But Ajit Pawar became a ray of hope for Muslims, the only man in power who could resolve their grievances.

A Minister Without Control of the Street

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While most of these grievances related to the onslaught they faced from Hindutva elements, others were economic outcomes of government decisions.

Sometimes, Pawar did what he could, and no more; other times, he pushed the envelope.

Thus, when a Hindu mob attacked an old Muslim settlement near the historic Vishalgadh fort, near Kolhapur in July 2024, Pawar was the only leader in power who visited the victims. Accompanied by the local superintendent of police and collector, he not only announced a compensation of Rs 50,000 each, but also assured the victims that the rioters would be punished.

But it was on high court orders, not Pawar's, that FIRs were filed against the rioters, and it took the police a year to arrest the main accused.

Again, when violence broke out in Mira Road, a township north of Mumbai, in January 2024 on the occasion of the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, Pawar did speak to the police commissioner about the alleged one-sided action being taken by the police.

But, just months later, according to the lawyer of the accused, Pawar's own party member played a negative role.

"We had filed a complaint against the Thane jail authorities for their treatment of the accused. But the Thane NCP chief met them in jail only to pressurise them to withdraw the complaint," claimed the lawyer.

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Hindutvavadis in his own party were not touched by Pawar.

When Sangram Jagtap, his party MLA from Ahilyanagar (formerly Ahmednagar) made headlines last year for his hateful remarks at rallies, Pawar asked him for an explanation. Yet, a few months later, Jagtap went on to exhort Hindus to patronise only Hindu shops during Diwali.

The party then issued him a show cause notice.

As of now, Jagtap continues to be an NCP MLA.

Taking On the Gau-Rakshaks

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However, there were occasions when Pawar did act, actually going out of his way to help. Interestingly, it was the Qureshis, traditional butchers and cattle transporters, who found him most responsive.

Fed up of the frequent assaults by so-called gau-rakshaks on vehicles transporting cattle across the state, 1 million transporters went on strike in July last year. As the strike dragged on for more than a fortnight, cattle markets came to a standstill, and farmers left their old unproductive animals on the roadside.

But nobody from the government intervened.

That was when a delegation of Qureshis met Pawar.

The meeting worked: Pawar summoned the director general of police and the Mumbai police commissioner, and got them to issue a circular making it illegal for private individuals to intercept vehicles transporting cattle. They could inform the police, who alone could take action, said the circular.

According to a social worker present at the meeting: "Pawar told the officers to understand the issue: The Qureshis were not flouting any law by transporting cattle. Was the police not good enough that it needed the help of gau-rakshaks to nab offenders, he asked them."

Pawar's statement issued after the meeting read: "The Qureshi community is part of Maharashtra's agriculture-based economy, and no injustice will be allowed to be done to the traders of this community and the farmers who transport animals."

In August last year, when the Deonar abbatoir was shut after an outbreak of lumpy disease in cattle, a delegation met him to explain that buffaloes were not affected by lumpy disease, and since the 2015 beef ban in the state, only buffaloes were being slaughtered at Deonar.

The unnecessary closure of the abbatoir was affecting livelihoods, they pointed out.

"Pawar Saab immediately rang up the animal husbandry minister and explained the issue to him," recalls a member of the delegation, "the abbatoir was opened."

"Farmers were his constituency," added the member. "He knew that anything concerning cattle affected farmers the most."

The Missing Muslim's Brother

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But if farmers were his constituency, so were Muslims, and Pawar found a way to keep the community, which was becoming increasingly alienated by the heightened communal atmosphere in the state, on his side. Through words and gestures, he reassured them.

These reassurances were not fake; but they also cost him nothing.

Thus, he remained the only Mahayuti leader who never visited the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh headquarters, unlike BJP leaders and even the Shiv Sena's Eknath Shinde, who would pay their respects after every Nagpur essembly session.

Again, unlike the Sena chief, Ajit Pawar refused to adopt the BJP's slogans.

At the Mahayuti's last election rally before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, presided over by PM Modi, Shinde, like Fadnavis, raised the BJP's standard slogans: 'Jai Sri Ram, Bharat Mata ki Jai, Vande Mataram.'

Without raising any slogan, Pawar started his address not only by invoking the name of Shivaji Maharaj and Ambedkar, as the others had, but also of Shahu Maharaj and Jyotiba Phule.

When UP CM Yogi Adityanath introduced the slogan 'Batenge toh katenge' in the run-up to the Maharashtra assembly polls in 2024, Ajit Pawar spoke out against it.

What Muslims remember most vividly is Ajit Pawar's speech at his iftar party held in Mumbai's Islam Gymkhana last year. Wearing a white fur cap, the Deputy CM thundered: 'Your brother Ajit Pawar is with you. Anyone intimidating my Muslim brothers and sisters will not be spared.'

Just three months later, 21-year-old Suleman Rahim Khan was lynched after he was seen sitting with a Hindu girl in a cafe in Jalgaon. In December, four of his alleged assailants got bail, forcing his parents to flee their village.

Where was the 'brother' who had sworn to protect Muslims?

Similarly, despite reassuring Muslims when the Wakf Amendment Bill was being discussed, that he 'would not allow any injustice to them', the NCP voted in favour of the Bill in Parliament.

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"We must remember two things. One, Pawar was finance minister; he could not encroach upon the functions of the home minister Devendra Fadnavis, who controlled the police," pointed out a community activist.

"Secondly, Pawar was fighting for his own survival; he knew the BJP could get after him any time given the cases against him. How can a man out to save himself save anyone else?"

Despite these limitations, Ajit Pawar performed an essential role: of a bridge between the Muslim community and an administration indifferent, if not hostile to it. "We could approach him anytime, and with confidence, as equal citizens," said Mujeeb. "The best thing is that he never once asked us to get him the community's vote in return."

That bridge is gone.

Interestingly, Pawar's wife Sunetra has been given the minority affairs portfolio. Perhaps there's hope yet.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff