audf chief interview

April.04 : Maulana Badruddin Ajmal is arguably the most significant Muslim political figure in the country, having pulled in impressive political gains in Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Mr Ajmal has a business base in Mumbai from where he runs his perfume industry whose products go to many countries. Mr Ajmal is also a Fazil-e-Deoband (equivalent to the MA degree), and a member of the advisory board of Darul Uloom, Deoband,
internationally famous centre of Islamic learning. In an interview with Manoj Anand he asks if Muslims can follow Hindu leaders from several parties, why can’t Hindus do the same.

Q. Your family has engaged in social work in Assam for long, but what made you launch a political party, the Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF), in 2006?
A. In Assam, the minorities are not only held guilty in the name of terrorism, but also face harassment and political blackmail with the charge that they are Bangladeshi. They have been facing an identity crisis which is more painful than poverty. This has a cascading effect. They are not able to clearly think about their problems and work for possible solutions.

Q. What do you mean by blackmail?
A. The ghost of Bangladeshi migrants appears just before an election and polarises the electorate on the religious line. The Congress has been the biggest beneficiary of this. Muslims were forced to believe that only the Congress can protect them. Instead of educating and empowering them with domicile certificates, the Congress used them as their votebank in elections. I can tell you that in Assam the minorities would henceforth support us.

Q. What has been the role of AUDF in dealing with the issues facing the minorities?
A. We launched the party a few months before the 2006 Assembly election. Coincidentally, the Supreme Court scrapped the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act shortly after AUDF was launched. The way the scrapping of the act was publicised among the Muslims led to a surcharged atmosphere. Again communal polarisation was attempted.
The ruling Congress Party was playing the role of a silent spectator, as if it was waiting for a volcano to erupt. We decided to intervene, met people from both communities, and consulted regional forces and students’ bodies to defuse the situation. This was a turning point. We won the faith of the people. In Assam the minorities will now support us. This is against the general practice of Muslims going with ruling parties.

Q. Your party did well in the 2006 Assembly election and the 2009 Lok Sabha election. However, AUDF has been accused of being a political party of Muslims.
A. This party is not for Muslims alone. We have named it the United Democratic Front. Yes, Muslims have their specific problems. But there are other minorities that are also oppressed. Of the 71 seats we contested in 2006, we gave tickets to 26 non-Muslims from other minorities. They belong to different classes and tribes.

Q. The pattern of population growth in Assam indicates large-scale migration of Muslims from Bangladesh. You can have a potential vested interest in that process.
A. I am not denying that there has been migration from Bangladesh. But let us not ignore the migration of Muslims from the neighbouring hill states in the same period. This also inflated Muslim population numbers. People don’t look at this. And we have not protected Bangladeshi migrants. We advocate deportation of foreigners who came after March 25, 1971, the cut-off date under the Assam Accord. But don’t harass Indian citizens.

Q. Why did you feel the need for a party floated by Assam Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind?
A. Everybody knows about the secular and nationalistic approach of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, which is the guiding force behind the AUDF. I am proud that a large number of non-Muslims are supporting us. I want to tell you that I might not have won the Dhubri Lok Sabha seat if more than one lakh Hindu voters had not voted for me. In the name of secularism all parties are cheating the Muslims. If crores of Muslims can come under the leadership of Hindus, why can’t Hindus come with a party led by Muslim leaders?

Q. You have been called a communal leader.
A. Yes, Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi has called me that. But that is only after we launched the AUDF. In the 2001 Assembly election, the Congress took my support in my capacity as the leader of Assam Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind. But now I am involved in educating the minority voters about their rights and giving them a fair chance to assert their political rights.
We have 10 MLAs of whom two are non-Muslims. In the first election we contested in 2006, 12 of our candidates lost by a very small margin — ranging from 48 to 2,500 votes. Eight of them were non-Muslim. We have directly affected the Congress Party in 18 seats. All the seats that we have won were previously held by the Congress. In the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress lost its Silchar seat because of the AUDF. We won the Dhubri Parliament seat and were second in Karimganj. Now our adversaries — the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party — have no option but to target the AUDF with false propaganda.

Q. Experiments in other states to have a party with a Muslim core failed before the last Parliament election, for example the attempt in Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. How is AUDF different from these?
A. In Azamgarh, a party was formed in reaction to the Batala House encounter in which Amir Rashid’s son was killed. The AUDF was not formed in reaction to a particular episode. We have an objective and a manifesto for the welfare of down-trodden and deprived sections of minorities. We are here to fight a long battle with certain principles.

Q. Are there plans to extend the AUDF to other states?
A. We do have plans to expand the party at the national level, but not in a hurry. We are preparing to make our presence felt in West Bengal where we would like to go with Trinamul Congress. Our party has already started doing its homework with the local leaders. The AUDF has already begun work in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. We intend to expand our base in these two states in the coming days. In the Northeast, we had contested elections in alliance with the Trinamul Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party.

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