Muslim representation has fallen to its lowest level since independence. Don't blame the BJP for it. Our phony secularists must take the blame for leading Muslims up the garden path and leaving them stranded in isolation.

Muslim representation in the 16th Lok Sabha has fallen to its lowest level, down by nearly a fourth from 29 to 22. For the first time ever, there will probably be no Muslim representation from Uttar Pradesh, the state with the largest Muslim population, with 18-19 percent of the population.

A cursory reading of this development will lead to much head-shaking in the “secular” cabal, with accusatory fingers being pointed at the BJP. If they had the capacity to introspect, they will realise that they are the ones directly responsible for this state of affairs. By putting the onus on defeating the BJP solely on the Muslims of India, they have effectively isolated them from the mainstream.

The BJP, incidentally, fielded five Muslim candidates and all five lost – but that’s another story. It is a story of Muslim deficit that the party has to address sooner or later.

But we are on the larger issue of who marginalized India’s biggest minority – or, as some call it, the second majority – community from electoral politics?

No party in India has done much for Muslim well-being even though all have indulged in minority tokenism and appeasement politics. But all “secular” parties have used Muslims as votebanks to strengthen their hold on power. In this election, all parties rushed to demonise Narendra Modi and the BJP in order to tell Muslims that they can protect them better than the other “secular” parties. In doing so, they effectively polarised the election, giving it a strong communal tinge in states like UP and Bihar.

Once this process takes hold in communally-sensitive states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the logical consequences are counter-polarisation. This is what happened at least in these two states – and the consequences are clear. You can’t call for a Muslim consolidation and call the elections “secular”.

It is pathetic to see even a freshly-minted party such as AAP doing the same old jig: Modi is a villain, BJP is communal.

This is what secularism has been reduced to – obtaining votes by demonising one party and its candidate in the hope that Muslims will rush to the “secular parties” for protection.

Well, this election has news for all “secular” parties: if all you can offer Muslims is a protection racket, they don’t need you. If protection is what Muslims need, who better to provide it than a Hindu party? Protection will at least be guaranteed.

But protection is not the issue at all, inclusion is. Despite concerns about the BJP, even the humblest Muslim in the remotest village of Uttar Pradesh knows that nobody, no party, including the BJP, can wish them away. They also know that all “secular” parties have taken them for a ride. However, the connection they have not yet made is this: if they repeatedly allow themselves to be used as cannon fodder for vote bank politics and delink themselves from the national mood, their isolation can only grow. They will be used even more as vote banks.

Only two parties have the capability to end this impasse of fake secularism – the principals, not their agents. This means the BJP and the Muslims themselves. The two need to shake hands and do an honourable deal. The one group that cannot help at all – and would, in fact, have a vested interest in derailing such a deal - would be the political “secularists.” Suddenly they would have no reason for existence.

Having achieved a majority on its own, the BJP now has the political leeway to ignore the wild-eyed extremists in the Sangh Parivar and start opening a dialogue with moderate and modern Muslims. If a hand is offered for partnership rather than domination, most Muslims may be happy to consider the offer. Suspicions will take time to wither away, but a start can be made now.

For their part, Muslims know that in a country that is culturally Hindu, they cannot wish away the centrality of a party like the BJP – just as you cannot wish away an Islamist party in Turkey or Egypt or a Republican party in the US, or a Buddhist party in Sri Lanka, or an Awami League in Bangladesh, etc.

It is our “secular” oddballs who have vitiated the scope for Hindu-Muslim rapprochement and understanding all these years. If we don’t divide, they cannot rule. The sooner Muslims stopped believing in empty “secular” rhetoric and embrace the real deal with dignity, the better it would be for India.

As the party with a big mandate, it is entirely appropriate that the BJP make the first moves.