Whatever the CPI(M)’s campaigning faults in the 2021 elections in West Bengal, can failing to garner popular support from liberal Bengalis also be one? Much of the blame has been levied to Abbas Siddiqui and CPI(M)’s alliance with Indian Secular Front (ISF).
After a decade of losing power, the Left Front, in alliance with the Congress and ISF, has projected itself as the third alternative to the false political binary of the TMC and the BJP that is being created by the media. ISF has been branded a communal outfit by BJP party members and has been painted as the discordant note in the alliance, accusing the Left Front of surrendering to a communal force.
The problem arises due to Abbas Siddiqui’s entry into politics. The Furfura Sharif Pirzada’s presence has given birth to many questions: Will Siddiqui be able to rescue the Left from floundering in its ever shrinking political space? Will he be able to draw Muslim votes from the TMC? Will he polarise the voters? More importantly, will Bengal be able to look at him as a secular candidate? A Muslim man entering politics in India is always a subject of speculation in itself, as opposed to the Hindu man entering politics.
A section of Left sympathisers have criticised the party’s decision for making ISF their electoral partner. Many believe that walking alongside a religious leader on campaign goes against the fundamentals of Marxist ideologies. There have been many shared videos of his past sermons and speeches. Siddiqui’s speech against Mamata Banerjee and his promise to turn her poll tally to zero has also garnered much attention. Anand Sharma, deputy leader of the Congress in Rajya Sabha, tweeted “Congress’ alliance with Parties like ISF and other such forces militates against the core ideology of the party and Gandhian and Nehruvian secularism, which forms the soul of the party. These issues need to be approved by the CWC.” There have been concerns raised that the Left and the Congress’ alliance with ISF is aimed to weaken Mamata Banerjee’s Muslim support base, but it may help the BJP’s narrative of Muslim appeasement by other parties and the purpose of Hindu polarisation. Siddiqui’s regressive and controversial comments in the past also helped paint him as a communal force. There are many who believe that this alliance hinders the Left’s secular image in the public perception.
Siddiqui’s participation has also caused discomfort amongst his own family members who believe he is a religious leader and should not partake in politics, nor oppose TMC. Siddiqui’s status as Pirzada secures him in the public eye as a religious leader and thus confines him to one particular ideology, despite his completely secular campaigning for the Left and ISF.
In a speech he gave in Metiabruz, Siddiqui spoke about rights, about employment, about the ordinary needs of the ordinary people. He asked poor working-class people to mobilise and to assert their right by voting for the Left-ISF-Congress candidates. Most of his attacks were targeted against the BJP and the TMC, and the culture of fear surrounding current politics. He was forming an united front favouring people irrespective of their religious and caste identities. This is not the narrative that has surrounded him, nor the popular image of him created by the media. He has not appealed exclusively to the Muslim vote bank. Siddiqui’s forward looking and progressive campaigning does not fit the expectations of a fundamentalist cleric that his many videos have generated. ISF’s candidates include Muslims, Brahmins, tribal people, and Dalits. Perhaps it is this image of a man addressing poverty, unemployment, social exclusion, deprivation, and indignity within a political paradigm that includes members of all social and religious backgrounds that has so threatened the power and the privilege of the urban middle-class liberals who have long since othered the working-class Bengali.
The inconsistency between Siddiqui’s image meticulously created by an openly Islamophobic media, and the truth of his campaigning has generated a lot of anxiety among the urban middle-class. The emerging image of a well-received progressive leader sharing stage with the Left-Congress leadership perhaps renders their idea of a religious minority hollow and inconsequential. He stands against the status quo and the hegemonic ideals of a social narrative controlled by the urban middle-class liberals.
It is also important to remember that the same rhetoric has been used against Mamata Banerjee by the BJP and the RSS. Most of BJP’s attacks against Banerjee has been on grounds of her alleged Muslim appeasement; taunts of Mamata Begum have also been very commonly used. This is purely Islamophobic cultural propaganda being thrown around to pit Muslim and Hindu voters against each other and create an atmosphere of distrust and violence.
More importantly, ISF is not simply Abbas Siddiqui, although he has been touted as such by the media. ISF is a broader collective of minority and tribal people’s organisations merged into a larger platform. All of this refutes the allegations of pampering to one community and the fear of polarising voters across the political spectrum. This new-found political stimulation, as well as a good number of young candidates under the Left Front flag might be what the Left was lacking for the past decade.
(cover image courtesy: Outlook India)
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