by Hilal Ahmed
First, how do Muslim political groups conceptualize the idea of social justice in postcolonial India, especially in the 1990s?
Source: Vikram Nayak.
Second, how do these different notions of social justice deal with the question of Muslim/Islamic homogeneity?
These internal debates, I believe, not only introduce us to the various interpretations of ‘Muslim backwardness’ but also underline a crucial link between the state’s affirmative action and the changing nature of Muslim politics of backwardness.
Dalit Muslims are Indians, and yet Islam is alien!
The legal–constitutional schema that India as a republic adopted after 1950 transformed terms such as ‘minority’, ‘Scheduled Caste’, and ‘Scheduled Tribe’ into secular administrative categories to respond to various forms of sociological and cultural diversity.
For instance, if a social group is culturally/religiously/linguistically distinct and numerically inferior, it might be recognized as a minority; if a social group had experienced caste discrimination and/or untouchability in the past, it would be included in the Scheduled Castes list; and the indigenous communities or tribes are to be officially recognized as Scheduled Tribes. Since minority, SC and ST (and later the Other Backward Classes, the OBC) are conceived as open secular administrative templates, no social group, technically speaking, would become a permanent constituent of these official–secular classifications.
An important question arises here: If the rights of minorities are primarily concerned with the protection of cultural/religious distinctiveness, why do we need to discuss the socio-economic and educational backwardness of members of officially recognized minority groups? This question is important because the Constitution makes provisions to identify the backwardness of social groups and encourages the state to design appropriate policies to tackle this backwardness.
The Report of the First Backward Classes Commission is a revealing example of this point. The commission, popularly known as the Kaka Kalelkar Commission, intended to identify the backwardness of the non-SC and non-ST communities. The commission’s response to Muslim backwardness, especially in relation to caste-based social stratification among Muslims, is very intriguing. The report notes:
There were representatives on behalf of some Muslim organizations asking that all Muslims should be treated as backward and be given educational aid and adequate representation in government service. It would not be fair, or just, to list all Muslims as socially and educationally backward. Officially, Muslims do not recognize any caste. It must be said to the credit of Islam that it did not compromise its position in the matter of untouchables [. . .] gradually, however, Islamic society in India succumbed to the influence of caste and lost its pristine purity. The racial distinction of Mughal and Pathan, Shaikh and Syed has been maintained though, without any sense of social inferiority. We have recognized this deterioration that has overcome Muslim society today and added the names of such backward communities found among them in [the] list of other backward classes.5
Despite identifying the internal divisions among Muslims, the report does not give adequate attention to crucial sociological differences in the wider context of affirmative action. It lists the relative marginalization of those who are socially/culturally treated as inferior in a somehow mechanical manner, simply abiding by the Nehruvian policy of non-interference in the affairs of minorities.
The Presidential Order, 1950 (that has been amended twice), is another relevant example, which actually restricts the entry of Muslim and Christian castes into the SC list. The order says:
The castes, races or tribes or parts of, or groups within, castes or tribes [. . .] shall, in relation to the States to which those Parts respectively related, be deemed to be Scheduled Castes.
However, this general definition of Scheduled Castes is further clarified. The next paragraph of the order notes:
No person who professes a religion different from the Hindu, the Sikh or the Buddhist religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste.6
Here it is clear that in order to avail of the benefit of SC reservation, the members of the identified scheduled castes would have to stay within the Hindu fold. Socially backward Muslims and Christians are not entitled to SC reservation. This does not apply to the ST and OBC categories though. Muslim and Christian communities can be included in the ST and OBC lists. In other words, conversion to Christianity and Islam by the weaker sections is officially identified as a serious challenge to the very nature of affirmative-action policies.
The view that the purpose of reservation is to reform and protect the integrity of Hindu society seems to prevail in recent years. The Dissent Note of the member secretary of the Misra Commission is a good example. This note argues:
The positive discrimination on the ground of social and economic backwardness arising out of untouchability was granted to certain castes professing Hinduism with the objective of achieving the constitutional guarantee of equality [. . .] Both Islam and Christianity are religions, which originated outside India. These came from foreign lands to India along with traders, invaders and preachers/missionaries over a period of time spanning hundreds of years and firmly established themselves as more and more indigenous people converted from their religion to Islam/Christianity. Both are religions that do not recognize caste. It may be extremely difficult to hazard a guess about the number of the progeny of such traders/invaders/preachers/settlers from foreign lands and Scheduled Castes who converted the present population of Muslims/Christians in India. What can, however, be said with an element of certainty is that a vast majority of Muslims and Christians in India today comprise the converts and their progeny.7
This observation very clearly establishes that the purpose of reservation in India is simply to reform Hinduism. It is asserted that those communities which had opted out of the original Hindu religion in the past are not entitled to positive discrimination simply because of two reasons:
(a) Embracing Islam or Christianity means accepting a faith that is intrinsically alien to the caste-based Indian social order.
(b) Leaving Hinduism means the end of exploitation based on untouchability.
In this sense, the freedom of religion, both in terms of ‘propagation of religion’ as well as accepting other religions is understood with reference to an unstated order of religions. The religions of Indian origin—Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism—constitute the core of Indian religiosity in this schema, while Islam and Christianity are seen as floating external ideas.
Yes, Muslims are backward! Two perspectives, four positions
Let us look at Muslim intellectual political responses to the question of Muslim backwardness. For the sake of clarity, I discuss two broad perspectives on Muslim reservation. The first perspective, which I call the ‘Muslim unity perspective’, argues that Muslims as a whole are backward and marginalized. Therefore, it is important to develop a kind of social justice regime that could address the problems and issues of all Muslims in India. The internal caste/class differences, it is claimed, need to be solved internally, at the community level, through negotiations, so that the collective strength of all Indian Muslims could be used to bargain with the state.
The second perspective, which could be called the Muslim Pasmand perspective, highlights the internal divisions, especially the caste differences, among Muslims. It shows that Muslims, like Hindus, are divided on caste lines. The upper caste, which is also an upper class, uses the social hierarchy to subjugate backward/lower-caste Muslims. Thus, the empowerment of marginalized Muslims should be taken up as the most important agenda, not only for the internal democratization of the Muslim community but also to achieve real and legitimate social justice in India.
For the purpose of discussion, I examine the ideas and politics of four leading Muslim political intellectuals of north India. The choice of these political elites is not entirely arbitrary. Factors such as political experience, caste background, education
al training, professional career and, above all, their public presence as Muslim figures have been taken into consideration.
Instead of describing who does what, let us talk about the following four questions, which simply try to find logical coherence in the ideas of these political ideologues, especially in relation to social injustice and social justice.
What is ‘injustice’?
What are the sources of this injustice?
What is to be done to deal with this injustice?
What are the justifications? What is the scope of social justice?
‘Universalize reservation for Muslims!’
The late Syed Shahabuddin, who was Syed by caste (an Ashraf caste), had a brilliant career as a civil servant before joining active politics in 1977. He was an ex-MP. Shahabuddin established the first Muslim political coalition on the question of the Babri Masjid in 1987.
What is ‘injustice’? What are the sources of this injustice?
For Shahabuddin, the centralization of power is the most important problem in the Indian system. Because of this centralization, established institutions are not performing the functions they are expected to. Shahabuddin identifies two aspects of this centralization. First, there is a lack of adequate representation of different groups in the institutions and, therefore, power gets centralized. Secondly, the dominant group is not only using the state apparatus for its own vested interests but also trying to demolish the fundamental structure of the Indian state—the Nehru–Gandhi model—thus, there is a perpetuation of the process of centralization. He writes:
In India we are reaching the intersection, the point of explosion. The tribal unrest, the militancy among the dalits, the upsurge among the OBCs, and the dissatisfaction among the minorities are no more than signals [. . .] They (dominant group) promise all that [sic] everything except land to tiller, living wages to workers, proportional reservation of public employment, universal and compulsory education.8
What is to be done to deal with this injustice?
Shahabuddin thinks that reservation for all Muslims could be a possible way out. However, we find two very different positions taken by him on this question. Initially, he argued that in the case of Indian Muslims, caste identity could not be separated from religious identity. He noted that the reservation for backward Muslims was, sociologically, a valid demand. However, this demand should be seen in relation to the wider Muslim demand for OBC status. Therefore, he opposed the SC status for Muslim Dalits in 2004.9
But, later, his position changed. In his introductory speech at the Muslim Convention for Reservation in 2009, he accepted the Dalit Muslim demand for reservation. He said:
The Muslim community should have a separate sub-quota as a backward class, in proportion to its national/state population and its relative backwardness, as determined on the basis of uniform prescribed parameter [. . .] The Muslim sub-communities, which are on par with SCs and which have [in] some state[s] been included in the OBC lists, should be admitted to the SC list and the religious bar in the Constitutional (SC) Order, 1950, issued under Article 341 of the Constitution should be included and Para 3 of the Order should be deleted. In order to fulfil the sub-quota of 10–15 per cent for the minorities and meet the demands of other groups, [the] Central government must move [the] SC to remove the bar of 50 per cent on total reservation, if necessary by legislation, because a uniform bar for the entire country which has varying number of backward classes with varying levels of backwardness in different states is neither rational nor necessary.10
What are the justifications? What is the scope of social justice?
Shahabuddin gives two justifications: one is legal while the other is theoretical. According to him, Article 16 (4) of the Constitution, which says: ‘Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class of citizens which, in the opinion of the State, is not adequately represented in the services under the State,’ could also be read differently. He argues that Muslims could be recognized as a backward class under the purview of Article 16 (4) of the Constitution because this article does not specifically mention that a religious community cannot be recognized as a backward class.
In order to understand this reading of the Constitution, let us look at his theoretical justification. He proposes a theory of ‘universal reservation’. According to him, ‘I would have no problem with a modified reservation system which breaks up the artificial conglomerates of SCs, STs OBCs and minorities and introduces a regime of universal reservation with separate quotas for every identifiable and self-conscious subgroup (religious, caste, racial, geographic, linguistic and cultural) in proportion to its population and its index of backwardness at every operational level. Even if, in the event of a Muslim quota under the present system, any Muslim subgroup which comprises more than 1 per cent of the total population wishes to have its own sub-quota, I have no objection, though it may weaken the bargaining capacity of the community in other respects.’11
So, for Shahabuddin, social justice is:
All Muslims should be given reservation under the OBC category because they are backward and more so because the fruits of reservation need to be distributed among all groups.
There should be a creamy-layer provision, based on the socio-economic conditions of Muslims.
Muslim Dalits should be included in the SC list.
There should be a sub-quota for Muslim subcommunities in the proposed Muslim quota.
Reservation should also be given in the private sectors.
‘Quota/Sub-quota!’
The late Iqbal Ansari was Ansari by caste (an Ashraf caste). He was a retired professor of English at Aligarh Muslim University. He is the author of two seminal works—one on minorities and the other on Muslim political representation. Ansari was also an active human rights activist.
What is ‘injustice’? What are the sources of this injustice?
Ansari’s work is based on two assumptions:
(a) There are some collective identifiable interests of a pan-Indian Muslim community.
(b) Reservation is an essential means to safeguard these collective interests in the existing legal–constitutional framework.12
Ansari focuses on the question of under-representation. For him, Muslims as an identifiable social category are under-represented in all spheres, including services and legislative bodies in postcolonial India. This unjust representation is the root cause of all problems. Ansari’s position on the Mandal Commission’s recommendations, especially with regard to non-Hindu OBCs, may be taken as an example to elaborate this point.
According to him:
The Mandal Commission’s mandate—qualitative and quantitative—based not on empirical study of Muslim social reality but deductionist logic, which made it fix [it at a] grossly low level, i.e., 52 per cent of backwardness among Muslims [. . .] it never occurred to [the] Mandal Commission to go into the issue of discrimination, neglect and intolerance that Muslims routinely faced because of the strong sub-group loyalty of all Hindus and because of ‘otherness’ imposed upon Muslims, especially in the Hindi belt and Gujarat. If the commission’s concern for social justice had been extended to Muslims, it should have recommended a separate quota for at least those Muslim groups whom it had identified as OBCs. Why did Mandal’s concern for justice not make him recommend a separate quota for backward Muslims?13
What is to be done to deal with this injustice?
Ansari gives three very clear-cut legal–constitutional answers.
Following Shahabuddin, he too asserts that Article 16(4) can also be read to include all Muslims in the OBC lists as a backward class. In addition, he goes one step further and suggests that the word ‘minorities’ should be included in the text of Articles 15(4) and 16 (4).
Ansari suggests that all Muslims should be included in the OBC lists. However, a sub-quota within this category could be reserved for those castes which are traditionally
‘backward’. He also suggests that a new method of determining the creamy layer should be worked out. In case of the non-availability of suitable candidates from these ‘backward’ castes, the remaining share in the sub-quota could be made available to the general Muslims.
If the entire Muslim community is not provided reservation, there should be a fixed quota in the existing OBC quota for OBC Muslims. Ansari says: ‘I hold the opinion that in any formulation on reservation for Muslims, the creamy layer, defined in terms of education, income and occupation, must be excluded irrespective of racial or country origin over a millennium, and that backwardness needs to be redefined taking into account socio-economic changes among Muslims.’14
What are the justifications? What is the scope of social justice?
Ansari justifies his vision of social justice on two counts.
There are some very specific Muslims problems, such as wider discrimination and a sense of insecurity, which need to be recognized with regard to Muslim marginalization. Therefore, the demand for declaring the Muslim community as a backward class is legally as well as constitutionally justifiable. (Ansari, 2004)
The Indian State must also recognize recent international forms of affirmative action, especially UN initiatives related to minority rights. So the demand for reservation is also justified on the basis of international discourse on human rights.15
Thus, for Ansari, social justice is:
Muslim reservation as an expansion of minority right.
Muslim reservation, as an idea, has historical roots because it was very much included in the first draft of the Constitution.