(Mohd Asim is a News Editor at NDTV 24X7)The 'Shahi Imam' of the Jama Masjid has declared his support to the Congress for the 2014 elections. I have deliberately put 'Shahi Imam' in quotes and let me first explain that. It's no official title. There exists nothing in India like a Shahi Imam. It's a title that the generations of Bukharis have bestowed on themselves.
In the 1650s, when Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan built the majestic Jama Masjid in Delhi (then Shahjehanabad), he wrote to the rulers of Bukhara (Uzbekistan) for an Imam for the grand mosque. Thus was sent Maulana Adbul Gafoor Shah Bukhari. Shahjahan bestowed on him the title of Shahi Imam (Shah means king and imam is the one who leads prayers in a mosque. So Shahi Imam means an imam appointed by the king.)
Since then, his offspring have been Shahi Imams of the Jama Masjid as a matter of inheritance. After the end of Mughal rule, they have simply bestowed this title on themselves. The government of India never created or sanctioned this title, and rightly so.
Our present Imam Bukhari calls himself Shahi Imam because he thinks of himself as that, not out of any statutory sanction.
As for his announcement of support to the Congress, and also to the Trinamool, Imam Bukhari has always been a political freelancer. And in this role, he has doled out and canceled certificates of secularism to political parties and leaders as it suits his own personal interests.
Ahead of the 2012 UP elections, he again publically endorsed Mulayam Singh Yadav and his Samajwadi Party as the best political party for Muslims. But Bukhari's son-in-law lost his deposit in the election from the Muslim-dominated seat of Behat in Saharanpur. So much for Bukhari's influence on voters. The Bukhari-Mulayam affair soon turned sour as Bukhari demanded more Rajya Sabha seats to Muslims and Mulayam gave just one that too to a person from outside UP (Munawwar Saleem from MP).
Public memory is generally short. So it will be in order to dig into Bukhari's past a bit. Apart from his flings with the Congress, Bukhari has also endorsed Mayawati, and surprise, surprise, even the BJP.
Google some news reports from 2004. You'll find Bukhari urging Muslims to try the BJP once. So the BJP, that has taken a moral highground today, deriding the Congress' alignment with Bukhari, needs to revisit its past. And not only Bukhari, there was a 'Himayat Committee', consisting of Muslims, that was floated by the BJP to campaign for Vajpayee. Some of the prominent members included ex-MP Arif Mohammad Khan and Mehmood-ur-Rehman, the former Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University.
In 2008, Bukhari even gave certificate of secularism to the Indo-US nuclear deal when the SP had to support Congress. He declared in the company of Mulayam that the N-deal was actually in the interest of Muslims.
Sonia Gandhi has been ill-advised into courting Imam Bukhari. It's not going to get the Congress any votes in the elections, not even in Delhi 6. But such is our politics. It's controlled by what can be called the 'thekedari' mindset. Get a Bukhari and you'll get Muslim votes. Get Mr X and you'll get the Y community. It's not as simple, but our netas refuse to realise. Reason: they are bankrupt of ideas. So they go for symbolism.
And the likes of Imam Bukhari make the most of it. They have nothing to give, but are presented as the representatives of an entire community. In this recent episode, Imam Bukhari has got his seasonal five-minutes of fame. Muslims will vote as they have to, like any other community.
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