Can Muslims Reimagine the BJP?

As the BJP expands its political dominance, Indian Muslims need to rethink old electoral assumptions in engaging with the BJP. It is fascinating to read Arvind Singh’s ‘India’s Rogue Historians: How They Fought Hindus at Ayodhya & Lost’ (Redux Publications) in the context of the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s recent Bhojshala judgment. Singh, in his 830-page tome, explains how India’s Muslims, persuaded by the cohort of Marxist historians, squandered every opportunity to reconcile with the Hindu...

min read

As the BJP expands its political dominance, Indian Muslims need to rethink old electoral assumptions in engaging with the BJP. It is fascinating to read Arvind Singh’s ‘India’s Rogue Historians: How They Fought Hindus at Ayodhya & Lost’ (Redux Publications) in the context of the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s recent Bhojshala judgment. Singh, in his 830-page tome, explains how India’s Muslims, persuaded by the cohort of Marxist historians, squandered every opportunity to reconcile with the Hindu side’s religious, historical, and legal claim over Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. In November 2019, when the Supreme Court (SC) awarded the entire site to the Hindus to build the temple to Lord Ram, it only built on a series of legal interventions including the 1994 SC judgment which ruled that “a mosque is not an essential part of the practice of the religion of Islam”. Singh writes that right from 1858 when the then caretaker of the mosque filed the first complaint seeking an order restraining Hindus from praying inside the ‘mosque’ which the Muslim complainant himself mentioned as ‘janmasthan’, Ayodhya presented innumerable opportunities to the Muslims to accept the religious, historical, archaeological, and legal superiority of the Hindu claim over the site. Throughout the legal trajectory of the Ayodhya case post-independence, India’s ‘eminent historians’ took it upon themselves to represent the Muslim side and effectively stopped them from reaching any legal or out-of-court settlement, reconciliation, or just a pragmatic acknowledgement of the merit in the Hindu side’s claim which the SC upheld in 2019. Rogue Historians Singh’s account is an instructive read about the Hindu side’s nearly 500-year old struggle to reclaim Ayodhya, particularly the post-independence era, against all odds including the narrative war that “India’s rogue historians” fought on behalf of the Muslims but lost eventually, in the context of two recent developments- one, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) victory in West Bengal and Assam elections that has triggered a curiously cynical response that Muslims do not matter any longer to the BJP. Two—and a more direct outcome of the 2019 Ayodhya verdict itself—the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s judgment declaring the Bhojshala complex in MP’s Dhar district a “temple to goddess Saraswati”. The MP HC based its judgment on the 10-points emanating from the Ayodhya verdict. It also ruled that the 1991 Places of Worship Act, widely cited by the entire spectrum of Muslim petitioners to politicians to “secular” parties to the “eminent historians”, did not apply to the Bhojshala temple as it was a “protected monument” under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act of 1958, a set of monuments the Places of Worship Act does not apply to. The argument that the Muslims do not matter to the BJP has not been made for the first time nor are we likely to see this reductionist tendency to interpret India die down anytime soon. The BJP has won Bengal and retained Assam with even higher numbers despite the unfavourable demographics in many constituencies in these states. It indeed is a paradigm electoral shift in the sense that the BJP has finally denied the Muslim vote bank, if not the Muslims, the exercise of its veto power. In several state and national elections, the Muslim vote bank, and the fantastically self-styled secular parties who court this vote bank, have exercised this veto power to either deny the BJP a majority or even a shot at power. Assam and West Bengal have changed this and hence the cynical argument that the Muslims (not just Muslim voters) do not matter to the BJP any longer. Cynical Template Why always use this reductionist template which gives just one task to the Muslims - defeat the BJP in elections? Why not ask Muslims to take a chance on the BJP and vote for it? Given the viscerally polarised political atmosphere it probably is a big ask of the Muslims. But in that shines a political opportunity that has the potential to change this very cynical ‘BJP versus Muslims’ template of Indian politics. A suggestion has been made that all non-BJP parties build a coalition of Hindu voters and Muslims to take on the BJP. But in order to build that Hindu-Muslim coalition, won’t these non-BJP parties have to give up at least some, if not all, of their nauseatingly Muslim-appeasing politics? There is absolutely no sign that the non-BJP parties are even thinking on these lines. But the Muslims already have an electoral choice in the BJP. Like any other successful political party in a democracy, the BJP caters to its constituency, which effectively is the Hindu constituency. With West Bengal and Assam, the BJP’s Hindu consolidation is at its peak. So, there is no electoral incentive for the BJP at least in near future to change this Hindu maximisation matrix. But there is an incentive for the Muslims to consider the BJP as an option- it has the potential to make them stakeholders in BJP’s reign and perhaps incentivise the BJP to speak to the Muslims without appeasement. Can the Indian Muslims be politically bold and creative to take a bet on the BJP? A large part of the answer lies in the Bhojshala judgment. A court has just pronounced the structure as a temple to Saraswati based on the solid archaeological, historical, and religious evidence. The Muslim clergy and politicians have reacted exactly in the same manner they did to the Ayodhya ruling. Seven years after the epic Ayodhya judgment, a splendid Ram Mandir stands on the site taking nothing away from the Indian Muslims. Can the Indian Muslims distinguish themselves from their clergy and political leadership this time around and revisit some of their positions in an India that looks vastly different from what it did in 1992 or even 2019? (The author is a senior journalist and Executive Director of Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini. Views personal.)

The Big Show’s Final Curtain Call

Waleed Hussain
Jun 22, 2025
3 min read

Once upon a time, Glenn Maxwell was cricket’s equivalent of a rockstar who could play a sold-out stadium gig on a broken guitar with one hand tied behind his back. The man who, on one leg, dragged Australia to World Cup glory in 2023 with a knock so absurd it felt like he was trolling physics itself—201 not out against Afghanistan, a score that still sounds like it belongs in a sci-fi novel. That was Maxi at his peak: a swaggering, switch-hitting, boundary-bludgeoning genius who made bowlers question their career choices.

Fast forward to 2025, and the same man can’t buy a run in minor league cricket, where the only thing he’s smashing is his own reputation. It’s time for Glenn Maxwell to retire from all forms of cricket, not because we want him to, but because watching him limp through this twilight is like watching a once-great comedian bomb on open-mic night. Painful. Cringe-inducing. Almost cruel.

Let’s be honest: Maxwell’s current form is less “Big Show” and more “No Show.” In the past year, his scoresheets read like a binary code for failure—0, 4, 2, 7, 1. He’s been dismissed in ways that would make a tailender blush: bowled through the gate, caught in the slips, lbw to a ball he could’ve hit blindfolded in his prime. Minor league bowlers, who probably moonlight as Uber drivers, are now outsmarting him. These are guys who wouldn’t have dared look him in the eye during his IPL heyday, yet here they are, sending him back to the pavilion with the smugness of a cat that just knocked over a vase. It’s not just sad; it’s darkly hilarious, like watching a lion get outrun by a chihuahua.

Maxwell’s decline isn’t just a dip in form—it’s a full-blown nosedive into the abyss. The man who once reverse-swept spinners into oblivion now looks like he’s auditioning for a role as “confused batsman #3” in a low-budget cricket movie. His footwork is so sluggish it could be mistaken for interpretive dance. His bat swing, once a thing of violent beauty, now resembles a tired lumberjack chopping at a sequoia. And don’t get me started on his fielding. The guy who used to pluck catches out of thin air like a magician pulling rabbits from hats now moves like he’s wading through molasses. Every misfield is a tiny dagger to the heart of fans who still cling to the memory of that 2014 IPL season when he was a one-man wrecking crew.

The irony is deliciously bitter. Maxwell, the ultimate freelancer, the T20 globetrotter who turned franchise cricket into his personal ATM, is now being chewed up and spat out by the very system he mastered. Leagues like the Big Bash, ILT20, and whatever alphabet-soup tournament pops up next used to be his playground. Now, they’re his graveyard. Teams still sign him, of course, because nostalgia is a hell of a drug, and his name still sells jerseys. But the returns are diminishing faster than a crypto bro’s portfolio. He’s become cricket’s equivalent of a washed-up boy band, trotted out for reunion tours that nobody asked for, lip-syncing hits from a decade ago while the crowd politely claps.

And yet, there’s a part of me—a masochistic, morbidly curious part—that wants to keep watching this trainwreck. There’s something darkly comedic about seeing a man who once toyed with international attacks now flailing against part-time spinners in front of half-empty stands. It’s like a Greek tragedy scripted by a stand-up comic. Hubris, thy name is Maxwell.

The gods of cricket gave him everything—talent, flair, a World Cup-defining moment—and now they’re collecting their dues with interest. Every duck, every dropped catch, every awkward press conference where he mumbles about “backing himself” is another twist of the knife.

But enough is enough. For his sake, for our sake, Maxwell needs to call it quits. Retire, Glenn. In the end, Maxwell’s legacy is secure. He’s one of Australia’s great white-ball mavericks, a player who redefined what was possible in the shorter formats. But legacies aren’t built on stubbornness. They’re preserved by knowing when to walk away. So, Glenn, take a bow, tip your hat, and exit stage left before the boos get any louder. The Big Show deserves a standing ovation, not a pity clap. The curtain’s already falling.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Mumbai.)

1 Comment

Irina Fortun

Jun 23, 2025

I value tools that help me make informed bets, which is why their detailed statistics, match histories, and performance charts stood out. These insights are handy before deciding where to place funds. I dug into those features through jeetbuzz bangladesh and found the analytics clear, well-organized, and genuinely useful for strategic gameplay.

Edited