by Hilal Ahmed
Internal contradictions among Muslims should be resolved by adopting more advanced legal mechanisms, such as a sub-quota within the larger Muslim quota or a quota for Muslim OBCs in the existing OBC quota.
Muslim Pasmanda versus Muslim Ashrafs
Ali Anwar is an ex-MP. He used to be the spokesperson of JD(U). Anwar is Ansari by caste (Arzal caste). He was a trained Hindi journalist before joining politics. He used to be a leftist and has worked with the Communist Party of India in Bihar. His book Maswat ki Jung (Battle for Equality) is considered to be a path-breaking study on Pasmanda Muslim politics. Ali Anwar is the founder leader of Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz.
What is injustice? What are the sources of this injustice?
According to Anwar, Muslim lower castes, or what he calls Dalits—namely the Ajlaf and Arzal—are the victims of four kinds of unjust systems.
They have been socially excluded.
They are economically backward.
They are not getting the benefit of affirmative action.
Because of their Islamic identity, they also face communal discrimination.
Apart from these factors, Anwar also points out that Muslim society in general faces some problems which are very specific to them.16
Anwar identifies various reasons behind this injustice. These reasons could be divided into three categories:
Historical: He argues that the Muslim caste structure, which was under the direct influence of Hinduism, produced a similar kind of caste hierarchy. As a result, Muslim society is divided on caste lines—Ashraf, Ajlaf and Arzal. ‘This social categorization based on social prestige actually established a kind of unjust Muslim social order. It was ironic because Islamic principles do not approve of such social divisions. The majority of the people who got converted to Islam were lower-caste Hindus who found a new hope in the religion. But the caste system did not allow them that space even in the Islamic fold.’17
Political: Elaborating this problem, Anwar argues that the Ashraf Muslim leadership did not bother to raise the issues of Muslim Dalits. As a result, Muslim Dalits could not be included in the SC list.
Social: The Mandal Commission for the first time recognized the position of lower-caste Muslims and recommended that they should be included in the OBC category. The Ashraf leadership, however, has been trying to capture the benefits of the Mandal Commission by demanding that all Muslims be recognized as OBC.18
What is needed to deal with this injustice?
Ali Anwar, like Shahabuddin and Ansari, proposes four legal–constitutional solutions, which, in his opinion, are secular in nature:
(a) The state should continue to follow a secular policy of affirmative action. All Muslims should not be recognized as OBC because such a move would reproduce the existing social hierarchies among Muslims; (b) The 50 per cent ceiling on reservation imposed by the Supreme Court should be repealed, if the government wants to give reservation to an economically backward class; and (c) The state should also develop policies to help Ashraf Muslims.19
Muslim Dalits should be included in the SC list. Article 341 should be amended and the SC quota should be increased.
The existing Mandal regime is very significant for backward Muslims because it is not based on any communal categorization. However, before taking any position on the existing Mandal framework, we need to conduct a proper survey to determine the actual share of Muslim OBCs.
Instead of a separate OBC Muslim quota under the Mandal dispensation, OBCs should be divided into two: (a) Most backward classes and (b) Other OBCs. Both categories would have Hindu and Muslim castes as well as people from other religions, depending on their socio-economic backwardness.
What are the justifications? What is the scope of social justice?
Ali Anwar gives three justifications for his proposals:
Constitutional justification: The inclusion of Muslim and Christian Dalits in the SC list is justifiable because the Sikhs and the neo-Buddhists were given SC status after the infamous Presidential Order of 1950. So if the state recognizes the Dalit Muslims’ plea, it will defiantly widen the scope of affirmative action and social justice will be achieved.
Political justification: The inclusion of Muslim Dalits into the SC list will strengthen Dalit unity, which is secular in nature. In addition, OBC Muslims under the existing Mandal scheme enjoy the benefit of reservation on the basis of their socio-economic status, which is a non-communal scheme. This is justifiable on the basis of Indian secularism. Elaborating on his notion of secularism, Anwar says:
The Dalit and backward-caste Muslims are all of indigenous origin, being descendants of converts from the oppressed castes. This is why we don’t use the words ‘Dalit minority’ or ‘Dalit Muslim minority’ or ‘backward caste Muslim minority’. We Dalits and backward castes are not a minority at all. In fact, taken together, we are in the majority, the ‘Bahujan’, forming over 85 per cent of the Indian population, despite the fact that we might follow different religions. We see that the politics of communalism, fuelled by both Hindu and Muslim elites, is aimed at dividing us, making us fight among ourselves, so that the elites continue to rule over us as they have been doing for centuries. This is why we in the Mahaz have been seeking to steer our people from emotional politics to politics centred on issues of survival and daily existence and social justice, and for this we have been working with non-Muslim Dalit and backward caste movements and groups to struggle jointly for our rights and to oppose the politics of communalism fuelled by Hindu and Muslim ‘upper’ caste elites.20
The state should also recognize the common problem of all Muslims, such as communalism, and should protect the minority rights given in the Constitution. He also argues that there should be some general schemes available to deal with the issues of poor Muslim Ashrafs.
This discussion leads us to three aspects of Ali Anwar’s notion of social justice:
Internal contradictions among the Muslims need to be taken seriously so as to reach out to the truly marginalized Muslims.
Affirmative action should be based on secular principles.
The state has to play a more important role in dealing with social issues.
‘We are opposed to reservations for Muslims as a whole!’
Dr Ejaz Ali (MD) is an ex-MP, Rajya Sabha, from Bihar. He is a Rayeen by caste (Arzal caste). He is a trained surgeon. Ali comes from a political family. His father-in-law was a famous Muslim leader of Bihar—Ghulam Sarwar. Ejaz Ali was one of the very first Dalit Muslim leaders who raised the question of Muslim Dalits in post-1992 Bihar. He has established the All India Backward Muslim Morcha in 1994. In fact, he coined the term ‘Dalit Muslims’ to describe backward-caste Muslims.
What is injustice? What are the sources of this injustice?
Ejaz Ali, like Ali Anwar, feels that the caste structure is the main problem. He also shares the view that Islamic principles do not recognize caste-like structures, but the Ashraf hegemony, which he calls ‘Syedism’, established a social order based on caste hierarchies. He says: ‘Almost all Muslims in India are descendants of local converts. Our ancestors did not come from Arabia. They were locals who converted to Islam: the Dalits who converted to Islam en masse, to escape from caste oppression under the Brahminical order.’21
So this unjust system of caste led to wider legal–constitutional injustice, which Ali believes is one of the main problems faced by present-day Dalit Muslims. Ali notes:
As the law stands today, Dalit Muslims are denied reservation rights as Scheduled Castes although their conditions are the same as the Hindu Dalits. However, in 1950, a Presidential Order was passed according to which these special benefits would be available only to those Scheduled Castes who professed to be Hindu, and, accordingly, an amendment was made to Article 341 of the Constitution of India that authorizes the President to declare certain castes as Scheduled Castes for special benefits [. . .] We are struggling to have the Presidential Order rescinded so that all Dalits, irrespective of religion, enjoy the
same benefits. In 1956, Article 341 was amended to extend the same benefits that Hindu Dalits enjoy to Sikh Dalits, and in 1990, this was extended to the neo-Buddhists. If these communities can enjoy Scheduled Caste status despite belonging to theoretically egalitarian religions, then why not Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians?22
What is needed to deal with this injustice?
Ali classifies Ashrafs, Dalit Muslims and OBC Muslims in different categories. He demands that Dalit Muslims, being the most disadvantaged lot, be given more preferences.
Two solutions can be identified in his writings:
Muslim Dalits should be kept out of the OBC list and placed in the SC list. He argues: Under Mandal, two categories of Muslims have been included as OBCs. The first are the Dalit Muslims, descendants of ‘untouchable’ converts to Islam. The other category, which is far smaller in number, consists of the Muslim counterparts of social groups among Hindus recognized as OBCs, such as vegetable growers, milkmen, and so on. We would like the former category to be recognized as Scheduled Castes instead of OBCs, as is the case at present. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, because presently, the OBCs are given only benefits of reservations in government jobs and some limited concessions in the matter of education. On the other hand, the Scheduled Castes are provided not just job reservations, but also political reservations in state legislatures and the Parliament, and facilities such as housing schemes, interest-free loans, special courts to try cases of atrocities against them, and so on. As a result of these benefits, the Hindu Dalits have been able to make considerable headway, leaving the Dalit Muslims lagging far behind them. Is it not right that the Dalit Muslims too should be granted similar benefits so that they can also progress? Further, by placing the Dalit Muslims in the same category as economically, socially and educationally far more powerful and advanced Hindu and Muslim OBCs, they have been put at a considerable disadvantage. How can you expect the extremely poor Dalit Muslims to compete with these groups for the limited benefits that are provided for the OBCs? Little wonder then that it is these powerful groups who are cornering all the advantages from the limited implementation of the recommendations of the Mandal Commission Report, while the Dalit Muslims have gained almost nothing from it.23
All Muslims should not be included in the OBC list. He says: We are opposed to reservations for Muslims as a whole. The Indian Constitution itself prohibits reservations on a communal basis, for an entire community, and provides for reservations only for socially and educationally backward sections of religious communities. Furthermore, demands for reservations for Muslims as a whole will only further strengthen inter-communal antagonism, and even if introduced, the benefits would accrue to economically and educationally better-off Muslims, not the Dalit Muslims, who form the vast majority of the Muslim population and who need such benefits the most.24
What are the justifications? What is the scope of social justice?
Ali gives two justifications for his understanding of reservation:
Sociological and political justification: Muslims Dalits are the descendants of those Dalit Hindus who embraced Islam. These Muslim Dalits are still involved in caste-based professions which are considered to be socially inferior. Reservation, if they are included in the SC list, will not only help them in protecting their socio-economic rights but will also provide them an opportunity to elect their political representatives.
Religious justification: The empowerment of Dalit Muslims will help in democratizing the internal structure of the Muslim community and establish the real and egalitarian principles of Islam.
So what is social justice from his point of view? We can identify four very interesting points:
Muslim caste dynamics are very crucial for making sense of the powerlessness of the Muslim community in India.
There is a difference in the problems of Muslim Dalits and Muslim OBCs, and that’s why we need a package of affirmative action to deal with the general as well as specific problems of backward Muslims.
Political power is also very important; for that reason, Muslim Dalits should be included in the SC list.
Muslim unity is important, but to achieve that unity in a true sense the Muslim caste system should end. Islamic principles are egalitarian and there is no place for such social categorization in Islam.
‘Dalit Muslims’ and the two norms of Muslim politics
The term ‘Dalit Muslim’ has emerged as one of the most contested categories in recent years. We find that political elites like Shahabuddin and Iqbal Ansari did not initially use the term. Instead, they employed legal concepts such as ‘Muslim OBCs’ and/or ‘Muslim subcommunities’ in order to avoid direct discussion on the subject of internal differentiations among Muslims.
The Muslim Pasmanda perspective, however, deliberately emphasized upon the term ‘Dalit Muslim’ to underline a kind of political assertion against the caste dominance of upper-caste Ashrafs. Ejaz Ali, who coined this term, forcefully argues that Dalit Muslims symbolize the inferior, backward and/or subjugated positions of a number of Muslim castes, known as Arzal biradaris. Similarly, Ali Anwar has also tried to expand the scope of the concept of Dalit Muslims by introducing another powerful term, ‘Muslim Pasmanda’ (Backward). In his opinion, the term ‘Pasmanda’ reflects the collective assertion of Dalit and backward-caste Muslim organizations.
These apparent contradictions, however, do not prevent the Muslim elites from evolving political consensus on a case-by-case basis. In fact, the conflicts of ideas and positions as well as political agreements and issue-based consensus set the terms of Muslim political discourse, which is often not taken into consideration. Therefore, two aspects of this Muslim-backwardness discourse need to be underlined.
First, the Muslim politics of social justice, especially its Pasmanda perspective, does not entirely go beyond the given notion of Muslim/Islamic homogeneity in India. Despite being critical of Ashraf hegemony, the Pasmanda movements evoke the concept of Dalit Muslim to underline a tension between the exploitative nature of Muslim caste practice and egalitarian Islamic principles. This adherence to Islamic identity helps them establish effective channels of communication with other Muslim groups.
The Declaration of the Joint Committee for Empowerment, 2009, is a good example in this regard. It argued for the reservation of all Muslims as well as the inclusion of Dalit Muslims in the SC list. The declaration demands:
The formal recognition of the Muslim community as a backward class in the light of the findings and recommendations of the Sachar Committee and the Misra Commission [. . .] the immediate publication of the Misra Commission Report, full implementation of its basic recommendations [. . .] and the deletion of Para 3 of the Constitution SC order 1950, issued under Article 341 of the Constitution for the inclusion of Muslim and Dalit Christians in the SC list.25
This led to the second point. We find that there is a crucial link between the Muslim politics of social justice and the legal–constitutional discourse. All Muslim groups seem to place their political agendas in the grand framework of minority rights and affirmative action. This explicit faithfulness to legal constitutionalism appears to function as a norm of Muslim politics.
It would be interesting to observe the functioning of these norms of Muslim politics in the wake of radical Hindutva. This is what we discuss in the last few chapters of this book.
Source: Vikram Nayak.
7
The Politics of Triple Talaq
Triple talaq as an MCQ!
The question of ‘triple talaq’ is posed as an objective-type MCQ (multiple choice question)! We are given two options—support it (say yes) or oppose it (say no). The meaning of yes and no are also premeditated in this schema: Yes refers to closed Islamism, while No stands for gender equality and progress.
This dominant (and somewhat stereotypical) representation of the triple talaq issue is based on a few strong assumptions about Muslims in general and Muslim men in particular:
The Muslims of I
ndia constitute a single, closed, homogeneous community, which is inevitably male-dominated.
This male-dominated community is governed by a few established Islamic norms which are highly anti-women in nature. Islamic religiosity as well as Islamic practices, hence, are intrinsically patriarchal.
The Islamic clergy functions as the true representative of the community. It has an ultimate right to interpret religious texts and, at the same time, speak on behalf of all Muslims.
These convictions, interestingly, are often presented to us as hard facts—not merely by the government, political parties and the ulema class but also by those who prefer to be identified as ‘liberals’. As a result, a media-centric discourse of political correctness emerges, which virtually freezes any possibility of a nuanced and meaningful discussion on the nature and functions of patriarchy among Muslims.
The recent debate on triple talaq is an example of such stereotypical public imagination. No one bothered to look at the arguments and positions of various Muslim women’s groups on the status of Muslim women in India, the internal debates among them on the question of Muslim patriarchy, their varied interpretations of the Quran and Hadith, their critical responses to the much-debated idea of the Uniform Civil Code and, above all, their critique of Muslim personal law and the role of the ulema in nurturing the anti-Muslim attitude of Hindutva politics.
The triple talaq debate, surprisingly, is seen as a battle between the conservative ulema represented by the All Indian Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and the committed BJP-led NDA government. The discussion in the Parliament on the triple talaq bill and, later, on the triple talaq ordinance seems to ignore the nuanced arguments made by Muslim women’s groups, especially the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA). The purpose, therefore, of this chapter is to clarify and contextualize the public debate so as to make sense of the various aspects of the controversy. In addition, an attempt is made to analyse the politics of triple talaq in the wake of emerging Hindutva.