Has Pahalgam turned rabble-rouser Owaisi into a nationalist Muslim?

medium120890335Cometh the hour, cometh the man.Enter Asaduddin Owaisi, who has suddenly emerged as an unlikely poster-boy for inclusive Muslim nationalism in the wake of the Pahalgam massacre.Gone is the image of a fire-and-brimstone demagogue relentlessly plugging an agenda of Muslim grievance and victimhood.His party, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM)’s narrow campaign focused almost entirely on issues of Muslim identity, means that it has few allies among mainstream national parties.But the ‘new’ Owaisi speaks the language of a secular and proud Muslim patriot — echoing the “India first” philosophy propounded by the likes of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.The central theme of his public utterances in recent days has been a plea to all Indians, regardless of their religion and politics, to set aside differences and close ranks against Pakistan and its terror proxies.Regular readers of this column would know my opinion of Owaisi. I have called him a fundamentalist and a provocateur — and his politics an impediment to the Muslim community’s progress.He has been an anathema as much to the liberals (both Hindu and Muslim) as to the Hindu Right with his neurotic obsession with Muslim identity and “Islam-in-danger” war cry.He has been in the forefront of every Muslim populist cause, from little school girls’ insistence on wearing hijab to classroom to saying “no” to any reform of Muslim institutions and practices.But all that seems like history now.Post-Pahalgam, Owaisi has become arguably the most vocal of all non-Kashmiri Muslim voices in denouncing the terrorists, holding Pakistan squarely responsible for the massacre of innocent tourists (all but one of whom were Hindus shot dead after ascertaining their identity) and appealing to Muslims to throw their full weight behind the government as it prepares a response.Immediately in the aftermath of the attack, he urged Muslims to wear black armbands to demonstrate their anger and grief. medium nocaptionhttps://nb.tgsession.com/3sw658_7hzteqpqoj/1kawh1Y2l90tIx?2qxpm=8mdJB0J_a2_IqM8tgyVSe a video message, the Hyderabad MP stressed the need to send a strong message to “foreign forces” that Indians will not let them weaken the country’s peace and unity.“By doing this, we will send the message that we Indians will not let foreign forces weaken the peace and unity of India,” he said, urging all Indians irrespective of their religion “not to fall prey to the tricks of the enemy”.His riposte to Pakistan People’s Party leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari threatening India with bloodshed if it stopped water-sharing under the Indus Waters Treaty went viral. He reminded the young man that he must not forget that his mother, Benazir, was assassinated by homegrown terrorists.“He should first think about who killed his mother. His mother was killed by homegrown terrorism. If he cannot understand that, how can anyone reason with him? If terrorism killed his mother, then the attacks that took the lives of our mothers and daughters are also terrorism. He needs to understand this,” Owaisi said.In his public speeches, press statements and media interviews, he has minced no words in slamming Pakistan’s political and military leadership — accusing it of instigating a religiously-motivated attack and questioning their understanding of Islam.“By killing our people on our land, and targeting them based on religion, what ‘deen’ (faith) are you talking about?... You have acted like ISIS (Islamic State),” he told them while addressing a public meeting in Parbhani, Maharashtra.He has even advocated that India militarily take back Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).“BJP says ‘ghar me ghus ke maarenge’. If you (central government) are taking action this time (against Pakistan), ‘toh ghar mein ghus kar baith jana’ (break into their home and occupy it). It is the resolution of the Indian Parliament that PoK is ours,” he told reporters in Telangana.But perhaps his best performance came through this long TV interview in which he lambasted Pakistan Army chief Gen Asim Munir for resurrecting the discredited two-nation theory; questioned the nature of the Pakistani state; and accused its leadership of giving Islam a bad name. medium nocaptionhttps://nb.tgsession.com/3sw658_7hzteqpqoj/1kaKhIje01LHdx?2qxpm=8md6yguDEFpysNbFh_8Fc urged New Delhi to push for Pakistan’s inclusion in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)’s terror-related ‘grey list’ and to seek international sanctions against it.Asked if he were to come face to face with Gen Munir, what would he tell him, Owaisi said: “I would tell him that… the two-nation theory you are touting is complete nonsense. And that you cannot put a question mark over Indian Muslims’ loyalty.”There was more in the same vein as a visibly angry and emotional Owaisi extended support to “whatever military action the Indian government decides to take”.Whether it’s simply a smart “performance” to refurbish his image or a genuine change of outlook, it has boosted Owaisi’s stature.TV channels that once lampooned him as a latter-day Jinnah are now giving him star billing with “exclusive” interviews.It has been reported that he was not originally on the list of invitees to the all-party meeting on the Pahalgam attack, but was included at the last moment on the back of his new fame.A far cry from when he was almost universally disliked, with the Sangh portraying him as a relic of Jinnah’s Muslim League and “secular” parties calling him the BJP’s ‘B’ team.For now, however, they are all cheering him.But the real test of his new avatar will come once the present crisis is over. Will his default Muslim-centric politics resume normal service? Or has the new Owaisi come to stay?Either way, it will be interesting to watch his political trajectory from now on, though don’t be surprised if it returns to pre-Pahalgam business as usual.Meanwhile, no comment on the Pahalgam horror will be complete without mentioning the rare show of unity demonstrated by Kashmiri Muslims in unambiguously condemning the attack and supporting the government in the steps it has announced to punish Pakistan. medium nocaptionhttps://nb.tgsession.com/3sw658_7hzteqpqoj/1kab-sr6iR2GFr?2qxpm=9nqeHoHwG-1ipPSlJbLMxh there’s a widespread sense of hurt that they are still being subjected to loyalty tests because of their religion — not least by jingoistic TV journalists who keep asking them awkward questions.Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter Iltija, a rather combative young woman, was so irritated by a prominent and otherwise sober TV interviewer’s line of questioning that she politely told him where to get off.“I think honestly every time an incident like this happens, it’s so normal to conflate Kashmiris with militants. Or to see us as terrorist sympathisers — or people who condone terrorism. We don’t. And I feel so bad that every time I come on a show like this, I have to prove that I’m an Indian, I have to prove that I’m human,” she said.Such insensitivity at a time like this will only deepen the mistrust that already exists between Kashmiris and the rest of India, while the need of the hour surely is to win the hearts and minds of every Indian irrespective of where they come from or their religious faith.Is this too much to ask?Read more from the author here.