The Election Commission has announced the schedule for the presidential elections, with the voting to be held on July 18 and counting on July 21, if required. With the start of of the process for electing the next President of India, speculations on probably candidates have started. Among these speculated names, one of the names that has emerged is that of Kerala governor Dr Arif Mohammad Khan.
Arif Mohammed Khan, who is currently serving as the Governor of Kerala has had a long career in politics, starting with students politics, and moved around in various political parties. Khan emerged as a student leader from the Aligarh Muslim University and joined the Indian National Congress in 1980. However, his open rife with PM Rajiv Gandhi over the Shah Bano case in 1986 and a continued discontent over the Congress’ appeasement of Muslim Conservatism made him part ways with the party. Subsequently, he joined and left various parties.
Over the years, Arif Mohammed Khan has led an ideological war against political and radical Islam. He joined the Bharatiya Janta Party in 2004, and was appointed as the Governor of Kerala in 2019.
A veteran in Indian Politics
1951-born Arif Mohammed Khan started off as a student leader originally hailing from Bulandshahar, UP. He was elected as Aligarh Muslim University Student Union’s President for the 1972-73 term. As a Chaudhary Charan Singh’s follower, he entered the UP legislative assembly on a Bhartiya Kranti Dal ticket at the age of 26. After joining the Indian National Congress in 1980, Khan entered national politics and won the Lok Sabha elections for two successive terms from Kanpur in 1980 and Bahraich in 1984.
After a tussle with Rajiv Gandhi over the Shah Bano Case and the Muslim Personal Law, Khan left the Congress to join Janata Dal and was re-elected to the Parliament in 1989. In the VP Singh government, he served as a Cabinet Minister for Civil Aviation and Energy. In 1998, he joined the Bahujan Samaj Party and again represented Bahraich as an MP. In 2004 he joined BJP and contested from Kaiserganj in the general election in that year on a Bhartiya Janta Party ticket. But he lost the polls and after that he took a break from Politics.
Arif Mohammed Khan was appointed as the Governor of Kerala in 2019. As a vocal advocate of reforms among Muslims, he has been supporter of Modi government’s moves in this regard like banning triple talaq. He was opposed to passing the Muslim Personal Law Bill, and has been saying that All India Muslim Personal Law Board should be abolished.
President Khan?
Even though called anti-Muslim by most Muslims and liberals, it was BJP which had elected the first Muslim president of India, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, who became president in 2002 after he was nominated by BJP led NDA. Therefore, it is being speculated in some sections of media that Arif Mohammed Khan could be chosen by BJP this time for the post.
Yesterday AAP leader Somnath Bharti claimed the same, who tweeted that he has “learnt from a credible source” that Arif Mohammad Khan is a strong contender for president of India. He argued that it is believable, because Narendra Modi is taking steps to counter anti-India narrative in Muslim nations over comments by some BJP leaders.
Learnt from a credible source that Janab Arif Mohammad Khan, present Governor of Kerala, is a strong contender for president of India. It’s believable in view of steps .@narendramodi Ji is taking to counter anti-India narrative, getting built across the world because of fringies.
— Adv. Somnath Bharti: इंसानियत से बड़ा कुछ नहीं! (@attorneybharti) June 9, 2022
For some reason, several people are speculating that BJP will nominate a Muslim for the post this time, and apart from the name of Arif Khan, the name of BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi is also being taken in this regard. However, this remains a speculation, as the last election of president Ram Nath Kovind shows, BJP is good at maintaining secrecy and does not let information to leak.
It is being argued that election a Muslim as the president will help the party at a time when it is being painted with a broad stroke of being ‘Hindu-nationalist’, supposedly ‘trampling the rights of India’s minorities’ in the western press.
While Arif Mohammed Khan fits the bill of being a Muslim, it is unlikely that Muslims and liberals will stop hating BJP if he is indeed nominated and elected. BJP didn’t earn any brownie points from its traditional opponents by electing a Muslim or a Dalit as the president, and there is no reason why there should be any change this time. Moreover, while Kalam and Kovind had uncontroversial past before becoming presidents, Arif Mohammed Khan has already earned enough hatred from radical Muslims by his open advocacy of reforming Islam and opposing regressive practices in Islam like polygamy and triple talaq. He has long a history of fighting against radical Islam.
Stand against Muslim extremism
In 1986, Khan was in the headlines for sternly walking out of the Rajiv Gandhi government after being displeased by its stand over the Shah Bano case. The case was a watershed moment in Indian history with a direct tussle between Constitutional values and the argument for separate laws for Muslims in the country. Despite a Supreme Court verdict, the Rajiv Gandhi government overturned the judgement and denied alimony to a divorced Muslim woman – Shah Bano Begum.
The Congress instead enacted a separate law putting the onus of the woman’s maintenance upon her relatives or the Waqf board, in consonance with the Sharia law. Khan took a stand against the government for buckling down under the pressure of Muslim clergies and parted ways with it. Since then, he has also been a vocal supporter of scrapping down the Triple-Talaq law – a move which he appreciated, when finally the law was passed by the Modi government in 2019.
Khan in his political stances has never contested his Islamic identity with his appreciation for Hinduism and its umbrella philosophies. In a critically acclaimed article titled ‘When Aanchal became the Parcham‘ on the Burqa debate, Khan assertively argued, “In the name of freedom of religion, I have the right to profess, practice and preach what I believe in. But this right to religion does not give me a licence to indulge in oppression and suppression of any other person. I have the right to practice my faith, I do not have the right to indulge in practices which are injurious to the health of others.”
Moreover, in the public discourse, Arif Mohammed Khan has supported the BJP’s moves of banning the Tripple-Talaq, Abrogation of Article 370, bringing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and welcomed the decision on Ram Mandir as ‘need of the hour’.
While his name has been taken for the post of president in the backdrop of comments of Arab nations over the alleged blasphemous comments by some BJP leaders, and BJP went in a damage control mode by suspending the leaders and distancing from the comments, Arif Mohammed Khan has actually said there is no apologise for the comments. After several Muslim nations demanded apology from India, Khan said that the government need not apologise. “People are entitled to their opinions. How does it matter?”, he had said, adding that “India cannot bother about such small reactions” while talking about the demand for apology.
Because of this, Arif Mohammed Khan may be favourite of moderate Muslims, and BJP supporters support him because his stances on various issues matches with the stance of the party. However, due to the same reason, even if Arif Mohammed Khan is elected as the president, it is unlikely that Muslims who are ritong on the streets demanding to behead Nupur Sharma will be calmed. It is very possible that Khan will declared a non-Muslim, just like an Imam had declared in 2017 that Abdul Kalam was not a Muslim.
