In December 2013, I visited Muzaffarnagar as part of winter relief activities organized by a NGO. I spent time at relief camps and got an opportunity to interact with people, both the victims of the riots and the general Muslim population. The most depressing aspect of the whole visit was, lack of apathy & absolute cold-bloodedness of Muslim MPs & MLAs of Uttar Pradesh, who didn’t contribute anything to the relief activities. Instead, many of them chose to visit foreign countries when the women and children were dying due to severe cold. If any of them Muslim MP or MLA had chosen to raise funds for the victims, within a week, none of the victims would have stayed in open air camps.
It was the sheer arrogance & betrayal of the elected Muslim representatives that caused more deaths of Muslims than in the riots of itself. As per the official reports, more than 70 children lost their lives due to severe cold. On the ground, people mentioned that, over 100 children, women and senior citizens passed away fighting the winter cold in refugee camps.
Five months later, the Muslims of Uttar Pradesh has spoken out. Not a single Muslim MP from Uttar Pradesh has got elected in 2014 National Elections. Uttar Pradesh has around 20% Muslim population and it was expected that, out of 80 MP seats, at least 5 seats would be won by Muslims.
I recollect having this conversation with a Maulana at Meerut. I asked him, what’s the reason, why all the Muslim MPs & MLAs have distanced themselves from helping the people. He mentioned something very funny but profound. He said, ‘elections se pehle, yeh log ghulaam-e-Rasool bolte hain, elections ke baad, ghulaam-e-mayawati ya ghulaam-e-mulayam ho jate hain” (before elections, they call themselves slaves of Prophet (ﷺ) but after elections they become slaves of Mayawati or Mulayam). So, from the results, it has become apparent that, Uttar Pradesh Muslims neither want the slaves of Mayawati nor the slaves of Mulayam.
Another interesting point from this election results is that, BJP which has won over 280 seats, doesn’t have even a single Muslim candidate who has won the seat. So, the whole government doesn’t have even a single Muslim MP.
