As Uttar Pradesh elections inched towards the final phase, Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday invoked his three favourite Muslim sounding names to attack the Opposition at an election rally in Azamgarh. Shah claimed that “Alia, Malia and Jamalia were used to infiltrate from Pakistan as long as there were governments of Congress and other parties in the country.” Shah told the voters, that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, “the Indian Army enters Pakistan and takes action against the terrorists”.
These names and claims, punctuated the usual election-time promises of free electricity to farmers, and other doles, were made at a public meeting held in Lalganj assembly constituency. Shah also claimed that the BJP “gifted a university” to Azamgarh, and somehow he linked it to attacking Samajwadi Party leader akhilesh Yadav and the abrogation of article 370 in Kashmir! According to Amar Ujala, Shah claimed that the “previous government could not muster the courage to remove Article 370. When our government made preparations to remove Article 370, Akhilesh Babu used to say here that rivers of blood would flow in the country, but we removed Article 370 and nothing happened anywhere.”
Shah added that it was the BJP government which “took revenge against terrorists from Pakistan” telling voters that the Opposition was only focussing on “religion, cate, and the betterment of dynasty and mafias” and “SP-BSP will not work for the welfare of the people of Purvanchal.”
However, who are Alia, Malia, Jamalia?
This phrase is a dog-whistle, meant to train the minds of voters to recall these as Muslim names, and the rhyme makes it easy for them to chant when taking an anti-Muslim, and an anti-Pakistan stance, which the right-wing ecosysten tags as one. These three names that Amit Shah has often invoked are his way of talking about Muslims, especially women, perhaps hinting of ‘honey traps’ allegedly once used to infiltrate military zones.
A few days ago, in UP’s Atrauli, Shah launched another attack on the Congress, invoking this dog whistle, saying in the 10 years of the party’s rule, terrorists from Pakistan infiltrated into India and the then Prime Minister kept silent, but after the BJP came to power, PM Narendra Modi took swift action and eliminated terrorists. He said, “When Congress governed for 10 years, Alia, Malia, Jamalia from Pakistan invaded our country and beheaded our jawans. Then PM Manmohan Singh didn’t do anything. But after the Uri and Pulwama attacks, PM Modi eliminated terrorists in Pakistan with a surgical strike in 10 days.” These remarks were Shah’s reply to former PM Singh’s reported criticism of the BJP at a public event in poll-bound Punjab.
Shah’s need to mention “Alia, Malia, Jamalia”, more frequently now, however does not target a poltical party, it openly targets Muslims and Muslim women. Shah had made similar comments at another rally in Uttar Pradesh.
He had also invoked the same Alia-Malia-Jamalia chant in December 2019 in Himachal Pradesh, and before that, in 2017 in Gujarat, when he was Bharatiya Janata Party president. Amit Shah had said in a speech in Gujarat that “since Narendra Modi formed a government, no Alia-Malia-Jamalia dared to carry out communal riots in Gujarat.” According to a column in the Mint that year, journalist Priya Ramani recalled, “It’s not a phrase he invented. Prime Minister Narendra Modi used it in 2002.”
Shah had used this chant in November 2016 too at a rally in Maharajganj in Uttar Pradesh, reported Catchnews, adding that it was Narendra Modi who had used this phrase frequently during the 2002 election campaign, which took place a few months after the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat. It cited a Times of India report from October 2002 that stated, “Beginning with his warnings to the ‘aliya-maliya-jamaliya; right from Modasa in Sabarkantha district to Dahod, by the end of Saturday, Modi had emphasised on the ‘settling of scores’ and celebrated the ‘Hindu’ as the ultimate hero.”
This is his attempt one last time in Uttar Pradesh, where the Bharatiya Janata Party led incumbent government is pulling out all stops, praying that it returns to power in a state that is crucial to its survival.
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