All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslims

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All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslims ( AIMIM ; Urdu کل ہند مجلس اتحاد المسلمين, Telugu ఆల్ ఇండియా మజ్లిస్ ఎ ఇత్తెహాదుల్ ముస్లిమీన్ ; "All India Council of the Union of Muslims") is a Muslim political party in India . Its political center is in Hyderabad , the joint capital of the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh .

Party history

Abdul Wahid Owaisi, (re) founder of AIMIM in 1958
Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi, son of Abdul Wahid Owaisi
Asaduddin Owaisi, son of Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi

The beginnings of the party go back to the British colonial times. In the then Indian princely state of Hyderabad , Nawab Mahmood Nawaz Khan Qiledar founded the political party Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslims (MIM, "Association of Muslims") in 1927 . The aim of the party was, on the one hand, to represent the interests of the Muslims in the princely state, who only made up a small minority there, albeit a politically leading minority. On the other hand, the party should support the Nizam of Hyderabad against the growing Indian autonomy movement. The Nizam saw the Indian independence movement as a threat to his state and rejected its integration into an independent (mostly Hindu) India. In the 1930s, the MIM established links with the Muslim League under Muhammad Ali Jinnah , which was working towards the establishment of an independent Muslim state "Pakistan". Also associated with the MIM were the so-called Razakars , Muslim paramilitary militias that were intended to defend Hyderabad against an independent India.

When India and Pakistan were granted independence in 1947, Nizam Asaf Jah VII declared that he did not want his country to join India or Pakistan. However, this was not a realistic option for geopolitical reasons alone. Hyderabad was ruled by a Muslim upper class, but the population was about 90 percent Hindus. In addition, the country was completely enclosed by Indian territory and cut off from the sea inland. A conflict broke out and in September 1948 Indian troops occupied the state of Hyderabad as part of Operation Polo , which was then converted into an Indian state. The Razakars resisted in vain and also committed atrocities against the Hindu population. After the Indian annexation of Hyderabad, MIM was banned as a political party and its leaders were sentenced to prison terms or deported to Pakistan.

In 1958, Abdul Wahid Owaisi , a lawyer in Hyderabad, re-established the party under the name All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslims (AIMIM). From 1976 his son Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi took over the chairmanship of the party. He was followed in 2004 by his eldest son Asaduddin Owaisi , who continues to lead the party to this day.

Political goals

The political goal of AIMIM since it was re-established in 1958 is no longer the preservation or restoration of the dissolved state of Hyderabad or even its annexation to Pakistan. The party is expressly committed to the Indian constitution and a secular state system ( “… strongly believes in the nation's secular democracy.” ). She sees herself as a representative of the interests of the Muslim community within India. Islamist ideas are officially rejected. For decades since its founding in 1958, the political sphere of action was practically limited to the area of ​​the city of Hyderabad. In the last few years the party began to expand its activities beyond Telangana. In the parliamentary elections in Maharashtra in October 2014, she won two constituencies there for the first time (out of a total of 288), 107-Aurangabad Central and 184-Byculla , and narrowly missed the majority in three other constituencies. Some political observers saw this as an incipient move away from secular parties towards Islamic parties by the Muslim electorate in India. Official representatives of the party announced several times that they wanted to expand AIMIM's activities to other states with a larger proportion of Muslim populations. The party wants to take part in the parliamentary elections in Uttar Pradesh 2017 and in particular to compete with the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party , which had previously received a large part of the Muslim votes there. Other states in which the AIMIM announced ambitions are West Bengal , Bihar and Karnataka . So far, AIMIM has remained unsuccessful here. In the parliamentary elections in Bihar (2015), Tamil Nadu (2016) and Uttar Pradesh (2017), she put up candidates in some constituencies, but was unable to obtain a mandate.

Election results

For a long time the AIMIM was a party with exclusively regional significance in the city of Hyderabad. In the parliamentary elections in 1989 , AIMIM was able to win the constituency of Hyderabad for the first time and has since defended it in all subsequent all-Indian elections (most recently 2014 ). Nevertheless, AIMIM's share of the vote was so small overall that it was not enough for recognition as a state party , which brings certain privileges, by the Indian Election Commission. It was only with the creation of the state of Telangana in 2014 that AIMIM was able to meet the requirements and was recognized as a federal party in Telangana on June 25, 2014. In the election to Parliament of Telangana on December 7, 2018, AIMIM entered into an electoral alliance with the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi . The electoral alliance was successful and AIMIM won 7 constituencies (out of 119 in all of Telangana, all 7 in the city of Hyderabad).

criticism

The accusation has been raised from various quarters that AIMIM is in fact not as secular as it is, but that it actually shows hidden Islamist and extremist tendencies. AIMIM representatives had repeatedly given inflammatory speeches against non-Muslims. AIMIM party officials threatened the Bengali Islam critic Taslima Nasrin with a fatwa and the death penalty in 2007 . The fact that AIMIM can be traced back to a party which acted against the unity of India and pro-Pakistani and advocated a backward feudal system also met with criticism.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Holding them captive? The Hindu, April 27, 2003, accessed February 6, 2015 .
  2. ↑ a b All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslims. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 18, 2009 ; Retrieved January 6, 2015 (English, AIMIM homepage with articles on the party leaders and party history).
  3. ^ R. Jagannathan: AIMIM's Maharashtra debut shows Muslims turning away from secular parties. firstpost.com, October 21, 2014, accessed February 6, 2015 .
  4. ↑ Jai Bheem-Jai Mim: New slogan of Owaisi-led AIMIM in UP. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 14, 2015 ; accessed on February 6, 2015 .
  5. ↑ MIM in Serious Fight in Bihar, Says Party Chief Asaduddin Owaisi. NDTV, October 11, 2015, accessed on March 13, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Aurangzeb Naqshbandi: Owaisi's party eyes national status, to contest from 2 Tamil Nadu seats. Hindustan Times, April 14, 2016, accessed March 13, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Election Commission of India has recognized the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul muslimeen as a state party for the state of Telengana .. !!! (No longer available online.) Aimim.in, archived from the original on June 29, 2014 ; accessed on February 6, 2015 .
  8. ↑ Telangana Result Status. Election Commission of India, accessed December 22, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Telangana Election Results 2018. The Times of India, accessed December 22, 2018 .
  10. ^ Owaisi arrested for hate speech. The Hindu, January 8, 2013, accessed February 6, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Is MIM MLA Pasha Quadri next in line? The Hindu, January 22, 2013, accessed February 6, 2015 .
  12. ^ MIM vows to implement 'fatwa' against Taslima. The Hindu, August 11, 2007, accessed February 6, 2015 .