Blog: They Are Nearly 20 Crore, But Not A Single Muslim Minister In Modi's NDA 3.0

India has the world’s third-highest number of Muslims, forming the country’s largest minority. In the electoral terms, Muslims comprise at least 20 percent of the population in 86 of India’s 543 Lok Sabha constituencies. However, the NDA alliance in the 18th Lok Sabha is a ‘minority mukt’ with no Muslims in the cabinet.

For India’s 200 million Muslims, this highlights their waning political power in the world’s largest democracy. Over the years, Muslim representation has fallen in the ruling BJP and in opposition parties as well.

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The National Democratic Alliances (NDA) led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took charge on Sunday, for a third consecutive term. Of the 24 Muslim MPs elected to the 18th Lok Sabha, 21 are from the Opposition INDIA bloc. Of this, seven are from Congress, five are from Trinamool Congress (TMC), four from the Samajwadi Party (SP), three from the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and two from the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (NC).

However, it is important to highlight the significant drop in Muslim representation in the Parliament. Only 78 Muslim candidates were fielded in the elections while last year it was 115. The diminishing number of the Muslim representation can be attributed to the parties’ unwillingness to field them fearing a polarising contest.

Modi’s BJP which claims to be the “biggest political party in the world” had only one Muslim candidate out of 441. With the resignation of the union minister Muktar Abbas Naqvi in 2022, India’s ruling party has no Muslim representatives, both in the lower and upper house. In the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, none of the BJP Muslim candidates got elected to the Parliament.

Though the BJP with its Hindu majoritarian ideology lost seats, the secular opposition parties have gained ground. However, when the Opposition targeted Modi for bringing up religion into the campaigns, the leaders of the INDIA bloc largely avoided raising Muslim concerns.

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The tension that prevails between Hindus and Muslims in the country is not new, but they have gotten worse under the Modi regime. Violence against Muslims is common and Modi has said little to deter it. Reports of dozens of Muslim being lynched over accusations of cow smuggling as their food choice and public prayers have come under attack from vigilantes. Apart from that, the post-Ram Mandir era, projected as a great assertion of Hindu identity along with the other issues including the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise in Assam and the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA), has exacerbated the community’s feeling of being discriminated against.

It is to be noted that with so much injustice against Muslims happening in the country, even the non-BJP parties have been reluctant to even say the word “Muslim” because the BJP has created a perception that secular parties have favoured the minority community. Moreover, PM Modi’s Lok Saba election campaign in 2024 was mostly centered around unproven charges of wealth redistribution and reservation for Muslims, with the aim of consolidating anti-Muslim votes for his nationalistic party’s behalf.

Yet another point to be noted is that only the Muslim candidates with a substantial Muslim population have won in the Lok Sabha polls 2024. Historically, Muslim representation in the legislature has been low, but it has declined lately since the rise of the BJP in the 1990’s.

However, with the election results, India has affirmed that democracy is opposed to the complete dominance of one idea and one voice, and will not allow the isolation of the followers of one religion and the mobilization of the majority against them.

The wounds of Hindu nationalism acquired during the past 10 years, with the election results, can now be healed. But will there be any change in the scenario of Muslim minority in the country under the coalition government is something we have to wait and see, especially when PM Modi’s major allies in the current establishment have been considered soft to Muslim causes.