India at 75: Upper caste Muslims have kept casteism in Islam hidden for personal benefit, says Faiyaz Ahmad Fyzie

An interesting word at a contempo conference on the degree census showed that casteism is shared by Hindus and Muslims in India.

The panel, on Caste and 'The Muslim Question' with sociologist Khalid Anis Ansari, demographer Srinivas Goli, activist and former MP Ali Anwar Ansari and historian Faisal Devji was moderated by researcher Shireen Azam.

Azam studies the state and policy discourse on degree amidst due south Asian Muslims.

"Waking up as a Muslim in India in the last 8 years has not been like shooting fish in a barrel. Every 24-hour interval the news somehow manages to get even worse… Something about the sight of schoolgirls in Mangalore wearing saffron scarves to show their support for the banning of their classmates in hijab shows us that things have gotten way worse than they were just yesterday.

"And this is the relentless everyday context that we alive in. And amidst this, people who work on degree in Muslims are frequently asked, is this important at a fourth dimension like now? …It's not so bad equally among Hindus, correct? Muslims are non killed based on their caste correct?"

Azam hoped the panel would hash out, "Why caste is not just a feature some Muslims may take in some caste or more than, but how information on caste communities in India might aid us call up differently about Muslim educational backwardness, the lack of Muslim representation in authorities services, the powerlessness of Working Class Muslims in the face up of atrocities by lynchers and constabulary, and why some issues are considered more muslim than others."

She said the first census in 1871 argued that Upper castes (Syeds, Sheikhs, Pathans and Mughals) were only xix% of the Muslim people of India. "If caste has historically adamant what kind of jobs people are able to do, what industries they are in, where their houses are and whether they become to study, what is the status of those 81% of Lower caste Muslims today?

"If you lot were to believe NSSO data, most of them have magically turned into Upper castes. According to the Sachar Committee, which used NSSO 2005 data, OBC and Dalit Muslims constitute only forty% of Muslims.

"So the questions then are: What are we non seeing about Muslim backwardness as a effect of not having a caste demography? What are we missing about Muslim ghettoisation, well-nigh atrocities on Muslims? And what will alter for the Muslim identity in India if there is a fresh caste census – what will change in the mode Hindutva attacks and speaks of Muslims?"

Khalid Anis Ansari began by "historicising the Muslim question.

"In that location is an influential torso of piece of work that in the precolonial period communities and identities were much more than fuzzy and cryptic, and from well-nigh the tardily 19th century the colonial knowledge project, particularly the instrument of census, gazetteer, maps, museums etc, reconfigured south Asian order from a religious lens. And then these fuzzy communities became much more than systematised, bounded, enlightened of their numbers and position vis à vis other communities."

There were "two other moves with serious epistemic consequences on how we understand south Asia today. The showtime colonial move was that information technology launched faith as the overarching category, and accommodated all the social diversity, whether caste, gender or sectarian affiliations, intepretative communities, inside the category of religion. Caste in particular became an internal moment of religion, and at that place was a religionisation of the political sphere."

"The second important move was that Hinduism was framed every bit a tolerant but inegalitarian faith, and Islam on the other hand was framed as an intolerant but egalitarian religion. And these ii conceptual moves take continued to inform how we understand due south Asia".

"1 can see the conceptual violence of categories involved hither, in which the pan religion, high caste Elite play the role of the native interlocutors. And from the early 20th century, especially after the Montagu Chelmsford reforms and semi parliamentary politics were introduced, there was an feet among the loftier caste sections across religions."

This was because they are short on numbers.

"They establish minorities inside all religious communities. And in club to respond to this anxiety they – the Ashraf and the Savarna class in Hindus and Muslims, in both these communities – invisibilised their privilege and also their demographic deficit through the category of organized religion, and became the self styled spokespersons of both the Hindu and Muslim communities.

"The Savarnas became the spokespersons and cocky appointed leaders of the Hindu community, and the Ashrafs became the spokespersons for the Muslim community. And due to diverse reasons the colonial authorities obliged."

Later on the Sectionalization. "If you look at the postcolonial framing of the Muslim minority discourse, or the Muslim question, there are three primal elements that were foregrounded. The kickoff was the question of identity equally solidarity, and hither the Muslim customs was presented as a monolithic customs, an egalitarian community… At that place was emphasis on vertical solidarity, the unity of all Muslims.

"Second was the question of equity, and here the entire Muslim customs was presented equally a marginalised community, an oppressed customs. The third key element was that of security, of periodic communal violence that affected the Muslim community."

These elements were challenged past the Pasmanda movement.

"In the 1990s the emergence of the Pasmanda counter discourse – a movement of Astern, Dalit and Adivasi Muslims who merits they are about 85% of the Indian Muslim population, a bulk within the minority so to speak – challenged these 3 primal elements of the Muslim minority discourse, and deconstructed it as a mechanism serving the interests of the Ashraf, High caste Muslim classes."

"In terms of identity, the Pasmanda soapbox suggested that Muslims are not monolithic, they are internally divided on the basis of degree, and that Islam as interpreted in the south Asian context is not actually egalitarian, there are deep seated degree hierarchies hither, which are also legitimised by the religious communities, texts, that were produced in southern asia.

"In terms of the entire Muslim community as a subaltern or backward community, the Pasmanda counter soapbox suggested that during the final 50 to 70 years, during the Congress regime in particular, it was not all Muslims who were backward. A small microscopic minority upper degree elite was cultivated by the Congress party, and had a share in the Congress patronage organisation, and these classes were in no sense backward or socioeconomically marginalised."

He said the Pasmanda movement had "advanced some information on the representation of Muslims… If nosotros look at the Muslim torso politic, the Ashraf categories are particularly overrepresented in the power structures, and underrepresented in the catalogues of victims of communal violence."

The movement "articulated an alternative notion of solidarity. Instead of vertical, on the basis of organized religion, a counter hegemonic solidarity of pan organized religion subjugated castes. A solidarity of lower castes, of marginalised sections."

Ansari said a complete caste census was a very of import moment "to test these claims of the Pasmanda motion and ground them on the basis of more scientific evidence."

"We all know degree is not a static category, it is dynamic, and the relationship of caste, form and occupation was non watertight fifty-fifty during the colonial period."

He said the British census reports hash out the "question of fission, fusion, of diverse Lower castes presenting themselves equally Upper castes as a status enhancement mechanism."

"In the 1931 census it clearly notes that Sheikhs and Pathans have returned inflated numbers, and one of the reasons is probably that the occupational castes accept returned themselves equally Sheikhs and Pathans."

"Such data needs to be updated… 1 has to have stock of the dynamic state of caste and its human relationship with class and occupation… A number of castes were left out in 1931 and new castes have emerged, some accept fused into larger groups."

Fresh data would help us understand these changes.

"The second major result is the question of development. How to target the beneficiaries of welfare and redistributive measures? More than germane to the Muslim question is the categorial revisions, the justice claims advanced by Dalit Muslims, Backward Muslims, Tribal Muslims… We accept no sense of the population of these groups as of now, and if some credible information emerges it will be very helpful in understanding the categorical revisions."

He said Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians have asked to be included amongst the Schedule Castes, and Vann Gujars and Meo Muslims among the Schedule Tribes. Further, similarly placed caste groups across religions would demand to be accommodated in the Other Astern Classes.

"This is not possible without scientific information, and there has been a ping, pong going on between the judiciary and legislature, and a caste census would be very helpful in resolving that."

The final effect Ansari discussed was "competitive victimhood".

"Much water has flown since the terminal caste demography in 1931, and there are now some legitimate claims from higher degree sections similar Pathans, Rajputs etc that because of neoliberal politics and the general performance of the market mechanism, some of these landed communities might have slid down the class ladder."

"There is an abyss, a kind of a gap betwixt the historical memory of privilege that these castes take and their contemporary socioeconomic reality. They are on a decline… This might lead to hurt sentiments, and probably these landed communities are much more prone to restorative violence, communal violence and then on, i issue where the caste demography will assist."

"Second is the question of graded inequality, where the hegemonic classes in India pitch one backward or subordinate grade against some other, as seen in the discourse against Yadavs, Jatavs, etc. So the question of up mobility within lower caste communities also needs to be documented, considering some of these upwardly mobile lower degree groups are attempting to invisibilise caste, to counter stigma. And are at present increasingly wanting to be included in the consumerist paradise, neoliberal fantasies and then on."

"And the question of castes' endogamy. We need more credible data on intercaste and interreligious marriages."

Ansari ended, "Even during the colonial regime the Upper caste Muslim and Upper degree Hindu organisations contested and agitated against the caste census. Only interestingly in India caste was dropped afterwards independence, while religion was retained. Since then particularly the fertility question and the comparative population of religions has fed into the Hindutva conservative imagination. I think the caste census is key to a new dialogue on the mode our commonwealth needs to be conceived."

Srinivas Goli, who teaches population studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru Academy, presented the results of a contempo survey of vii,000 households representatively sampled across the regions and districts of Uttar Pradesh, cities and villages.

It studied untouchability, education, employment and poverty amongst Hindus and Muslims, their position relative to each other, and the position of Dalit and Backward Muslims relative to other degree groups.

Funded in part by the ICSSR, a government body, it used the socioreligious groupings and occupational categories found in the reports of the Mandal Commission and Sachar Commission, mapping subcastes (jatis and biradaris) onto the officialised categories of SC, General and OBC.

Goli said that we need to count caste considering the inequalities inside these large groups are growing, every bit are the inequalities between them. And with the growing demand for reservation by many economically and politically ascendant castes, to better redistribute capital it would assist to place the near deprived communities of the officially deprived.

"We don't have information to demonstrate this, only mechanisms to estimate it. We can't say which degree is deprived, we can't take the name, because we don't have that kind of data."

He said that not existence a sociologist he was using categories like jati and biradari equally reported, classing them every bit subcastes "for convenience", and drawing an unexamined parallel betwixt Frontward Caste, OBC, Dalit and Ashraf, Ajlaf, Arzal.

These final are claims made by south Asian Muslims about their blood descent, and broadly correspond to their class position. Ashraf or upper class Muslims claim long ago foreign descent, Ajlaf Muslims are thought to be Hindu converts though not Dalits, and Arzal Muslims are treated as Dalits who converted to escape the rigidities of caste hierarchy.

Goli said his piece of work had constitute identical occupations, caste names, socioeconomic backwardness, and similar experiences of untouchability amongst Dalit Hindus and Arzal Muslims. "We plant a lot of subcastes which we classed as Arzal… The Authorities of India order of 1936 used 10 socioreligious criteria to identify depressed classes in Hindus, and nosotros institute similarities using three parameters."

But without a caste census at that place would be no robust evidence of their size, socioeconomic status, social exclusion or bigotry. This was important as Arzal Muslims are denied the affirmative activeness constitutionally guaranteed to Dalits, while most Ajlaf Muslims practise not arrive to the statewise lists of OBCs.

Goli said he had encountered strong criticism of a caste census "inside JNU, a very powerful and politically conscious institution." That it may trigger more divisions within communities, perpetuate caste feelings, "a large department of scholars think this will strengthen the caste system," may weaken internal unity amid Muslims, OBCs, Dalits, "and touch on their political bargaining power, Savarnas can use information technology as a divide and rule thing," and that it is "time to forget degree and alive as a casteless society."

He said that several Dalit scholars had besides argued that "this kind of subcaste level information is not necessary… I concord that people can misuse these numbers to weaken the lower caste movement and to reduce their share of resources… But the reality is of heterogeneity, and we should address caste heterogeneities."

He said the Demography remained the aureate standard of demographic data considering "despite issues the enumeration is consummate and information technology's not a survey which tin come up with sampling errors… direct collection of information on caste is of import."

The pie on upper left shows the Demography population of the administrative categories FC, OBC, SC, Muslim and ST in Uttar Pradesh. Lower left, this degree data is partitioned by faith, every bit found in the survey conducted by Goli and his colleagues. On the right, the Forward Caste, OBC, Dalit population share among Muslims and Hindus

On many metrics OBC and Dalit Muslims reported a like incidence of untouchability perpetrated by Upper caste Muslims and Hindus, with some exceptions. And while a large share of respondents said they faced no untouchability at the hands of Upper caste Muslims, the specifics reported were largely the same

Muslims classed as Upper Caste by the researchers reported a low level of interaction with those classed as Dalit

Prevalence of some untouchability practices perpetrated past OBC and UC Muslims as reported past Dalit Muslims

(Slide should read Top xx%) Wealth inequality amid Hindus far exceeds that among Muslims

The extent of poverty was near identical amid Dalit Hindus and Dalit Muslims, and among OBC Hindus and OBC Muslims. Poverty was far more prevalent among Upper Caste Muslims than Upper Caste Hindus

Among Muslims and Hindus, the oldest generation of respondents had like opportunity to complete an educational degree, and with younger generations the divergence kept growing. Amidst Dalits, Muslims started off with slightly better educational attainment and the younger generations of Muslims were increasingly denied admission to teaching

Amongst the oldest generation (G1) the deviation was least between religions and castes. With history Hindu Dalits came to exist kept out of Grade A and B service sector jobs, as did Muslims overall. The divergence grew to the lowest degree between Hindu and Muslim Dalits

Hindu Upper Castes dominate the secondary and higher education market place, private and public

Goli proposed that the land's denial of affirmative activity to Muslim Dalits and OBCs had hurt their ability to counter casteist oppression after converting.

And concluded, "The gap between Hindus and Muslims in socioeconomic status is persistent and significant… Including Dalit Muslims in affirmative action policies is an urgent and essential demand."

Ali Anwar, former Rajya Sabha member whose book Masawat ki Jung (war for-of-by equality) led the rise of the Pasmanda motion in the late 90s, spoke in Hindi=Urdu and his remarks are translated here.

"Since 1998 the Pasmanda motility we began has entered the academic discourse in India and abroad, in such a curt time, and I am happy as it isn't a long fourth dimension in the life of a qaum or samaj, that too in Oxford, Columbia, Berlin and many Indian universities including JNU.

The degree census should exist for the people of all castes in all religions, only I think a degree census among Muslims is fifty-fifty more important, because there is a negation of information technology in Muslim society, people don't believe it, one thousand intellectuals deny degree among Muslims, and there is a practice of hiding and suppressing it among Muslims and then it's all the more important.

It is a question of upper caste hegemony in guild - in Hindu and in Muslim gild - and the outcome of information technology on politics is that in the secular parties, and the parties that talk of social justice, there is an chemical element of negating Muslim caste that is very potent.

Equally an example, this recent letter by Bihar leader of opposition Tejashwi Yadav to chief government minister Nitish Kumar - the Congress is included in it. 'If a caste census is not done the economic and social development of the Astern and Well-nigh Backward Hindus volition endure…'

Consider the irony. The parties that talk of social justice, non only regional merely national parties like the Congress, CPI, CPIM, CPIML – from the letter it would seem that just Hindu OBCs (Bihar has Annexure one and ii, Virtually Astern and Backward) should exist counted in a census.

After we pointed it out these parties amended themselves, though it wasn't done in ignorance but deliberate. They are afraid that if nosotros talk about caste among Muslims information technology will hurt united states of america, they too call up Muslims are monolithic and homogeneous, and are very slap-up that Muslims should remain so. This is ane of the troubles with a caste census.

Information technology doesn't end here. Taking a stride back, these parties talk of a caste census but say that an OBC census should happen, as the letter says, and Muslims are left out. Just even among Hindus they only desire to enumerate OBCs and EBCs, that is to say, not General. Such a caste demography will accept no meaning. Unless yous count people in the General category information technology is meaningless…

Second, the ruling BJP's Rajnath Singh said in Parliament that we'll practise an OBC demography in 2021, just as the opposition letter says. But there was nada about the Full general category or its subcastes.

On Dec 8 2009 I raised the question for the 2011 Census in the Rajya Sabha. The OBC, SC, social justice line parties all were there. When I raised it in a special mention not a single political party fellow member supported us, there wasn't a sound… But past the next session in May 2010 the movement took shape, with Lalu Yadav, Mulayam Yadav, Sharad Yadav, and when these leaders have it up the MPs started as well…

Gopinath Munde of the BJP as well supported calculation a 'caste' column to the next Census. So it was during UPA two that information technology was accepted, in principle. Then the way they messed with it was they didn't do it under the 1948 Census Act, under the Census Committee, just delinked the caste census from information technology. So a caste demography happened in proper name but information technology was so defectively done that the data was non released, either by the UPA or the NDA.

The reason was that they delinked it from the Demography Deed. The 1948 Human action says that trained teachers should practise it, simply instead anganwadi workers, daily wage workers, NGO workers were enlisted as enumerators, and as a result people untrained in census enumeration performed it, and so no good data came out. And what did emerge was hidden, suppressed.

And so on nine May 2011 in the Rajya Sabha again I raised the question, but a lobby was at piece of work. With the UPA the fear was that a caste census would atomic number 82 to demands for an increase in quota - the OBCs whether Hindu or Muslim simply go 27% reservation, and they'll ask for more. The NDA has an additional fear, that a caste census will suppress their communal polarisation agenda, and it volition sink to the lesser.

And then we started educating people, like with this slogan - sampradayik dhruvikaran ka yahi ilaj, jati janganana ke liye ho jao taiyar - The only cure for communal division, ready for a degree census. Nosotros started educating them. As activists we piece of work as activists, you are academics and you lot work in your own way, we took these pamphlets to the field.

Dalit pichda ek samaj, hindu ho ya musalman - Whether Hindu or Muslim the Dalit Astern is one. Equally the All Bharat Pasmanda Muslim Mahaj we went to thousands and thousands of people, from Delhi Lucknow Bihar Haryana, various states peculiarly in the Hindi speaking region, and launched this booklet. Our non Muslim allies in the Jati Janganana Karao Abhiyan too spread this booklet, titled Jati janganana karani hogi, nara netritva naukri bachani hogi - We'll have to get a caste census done, to protect leadership opportunities and jobs.

From NDA to UPA to those in the middle, who are nowhere, everyone is saying that if the Eye, the government in Delhi doesn't do information technology the states should. Nitish Kumar says we'll practice information technology, Akhilesh Yadav says we'll do it, only we say it is not a census if one state does it, only a survey. And its legal validity is not the same as a census done by the Demography Commissioner nether an Deed of Parliament…

Surveys you could have done before, Mulayam, Lalu, Nitish, you lot ruled for 15-20 years, why didn't you do it any earlier? And and so they say it will only enumerate OBCs, or only be performed past u.s. – but if it'due south statewise, what volition happen to the jobs in the central services? …It should exist done for the whole nation and we are running movements for it.

The upper castes including Muslim upper castes are confronting information technology and won't want to practise it. Obviously non, they know the share they grab in government jobs, in politics, everywhere else. Information technology will expose their deceit.

It is true that 1931 was the last caste census just in 1941 too a caste census was begun. With the Second World War information technology wasn't completed, the data didn't come up. Simply while it was underway the Hindu Mahasabha was saying, 'Get them to write Hindu, not your jat' and similarly the Muslim League was proverb, 'Go them to write Musalman, not your biradari'… Disallowment a few progressive people it's the same situation today."

Speaking last and briefly, Faisal Devji, who studies 20th century Muslim intellectual history suggested some more means of looking at caste and faith.

Of the colonial menses, he said it was "not increasing religification in colonial times of identity, but rather the shift to Islam and Hinduism as systems, as sociological systems, and that happens with the loss of indigenous kingship, where caste becomes the foundation for Hindu 'identity', and sociology and law, this so called Islamic law, becomes that for Muslims, and it'southward these two things that become the foundations for claims to unity in both sides."

Of the project of Muslim unity, he recalled the "fascinating genealogy with Syed Ahmad Khan. He has no interest in Muslim unity, he is interested in caste unity, between upper caste Hindus and Muslims… Past the fourth dimension of the Muslim League you lot practice take Muslim unity emerging because of the introduction of elections… And and then of grade with the Congress you have exactly the same idea of Muslim unity. There is no difference between the Muslim League thought of Muslim unity and the Congress's idea of Muslim unity. And information technology'south not a very politically productive idea at all today, I agree."

"There is also an interesting alternative history of caste argue within Muslim politics. The get-go idea for caste reservation for Hindus is proposed by the Muslim League in 1906, to of class fragment the idea of a Hindu community. But fifty-fifty with someone like Muhammad Iqbal, who constantly writes near caste… it's an interesting alternative history to be explored.

"Coming finally to the issue of religion again, I entirely concur that caste needs to be made visible in Muslim politics and in the and then called Muslim community, merely I wonder if it's possible to do this without actually fragmenting the idea of Muslim organized religion also.

"I don't hateful in sectarian terms. I am thinking of recent studies like Joel Lee'southward 'Deceptive majority,' on the Valmiki caste in northern India, formerly known as Lalbegis. In Dr Goli'due south presentation they are listed [also] as a Muslim Dalit caste.

"Lee shows that claims of religious identity, even excessive claims of religious identity as Hindu, exercise not stand up upwardly to scrutiny. I would recollect the same is probably true for groups classed as Muslim lower castes. I think you lot can't actually make caste visible without at the same time inquiring into the religious identity, which also requires some caste of fragmentation."

The showtime question was about how Ashraf led groups like the Jamat-e Islami Hind, the Jamiat Ulema-e Hind, the All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat and the All India Muslim Personal Police force Board accept represented Muslims and affected the Pasmanda motion in India.

Khalid Anis Ansari answered, "Before independence the Muslim League was characterised equally Ashrafiya, an organisation of nawabs, capitalists and aristocrat classes, and was challenged by the All Bharat Momin Conference, especially after the 1937 provincial elections and the 1940 Lahore Announcement where the Muslim League stated the need for Pakistan quite openly.

"So there was contestation between these ii… Then in the 1946 elections, dubbed every bit a consensus on Islamic republic of pakistan, from Bihar out of xl seats (at that place were separate electorates at the time) probably the All India Momin Conference won 5 or vi seats and the balance were won past the Muslim League.

"An important point to stress here is that in the 1946 elections there was a restricted electorate. Not everyone was allowed to vote. There was no universal adult franchise, so merely a small-scale section of Muslims were eligible to vote. There were qualifications for voting in terms of income, teaching, etc.

"So there is a sense that of the 13% [of Muslims] who voted for Islamic republic of pakistan, for the Muslim League, considering of the correlation between degree and class most of them were probably Ashrafs, and the 85% or more of the Lower caste Muslim vote was not even put to examination. So this entire understanding that Muslims are responsible for Pakistan does non hold true if nosotros scrutinise it historically."

In terms of Partition and the demand for Pakistan, he added, the Jamiat Ulema-due east Hind was split betwixt two camps, one led by Mahmood Madani, who articulated the thought of unified nationalism and a composite civilization, contesting the thought of Pakistan, and the other led past Ashraf Ali Thanawi who sided with the Muslim League.

And today, "All these organisations are mostly dominated by high degree Muslims, and they endorse the broad Muslim minority or Ashrafiya soapbox I pointed out before."

A question was posed to Srinivas Goli on the differences in wealth and country ownership between Muslims and Hindus.

"The Muslim presence is disproportionately in urban India, so agronomical landholding is not quite relevant. But overall, wealth wise, whether it's Hindu Dalits versus Muslim Dalits, or OBCs, or General, or Hindus to Muslims overall, there are multiple disparities every bit my research papers in the public domain have shown. There are also disparities in fiscal inclusion and equality."

Shireen Azam. "Your information shows Muslim backwardness is not but Lower degree backwardness. The Upper castes are too backward."

Srinivas Goli. "There is Muslim backwardness. The within-group inequality is significant and growing, but the Hindu-Muslim inequality is also significant and growing."

He emphasised that his enquiry had found identical or similar occupations followed by Dalit Muslims and Hindus. "Sometimes the name is likewise the same, like Dhobi, in Muslims and Hindus."

Ali Anwar was asked why even the OBC led parties treat Muslims every bit monolithic.

"Because it is in their idea and concern. Simply it wasn't in Ambedkar's thought, or Gandhi'southward, or Lohia's, or Rahul Sankrityayan who was a Marxist. They agreed that Muslims similar the Hindu samaj are divided into jatis.

"And so why are they agape? They take the excuse that Muslims as a community volition vote for secular, social justice line parties wholesale, then it's better to go on them monolithic rather than subdivide and endure.

"But the difficulty is it'due south not but almost Muslims. Those who used to say Bahujan at present say Sarvajan. They are talking of everyone from A to Z. They don't trust their own people, only the fistful of people who are in the corridors of power. They speak to their pleasure and for their comfort and appeasement.

"It is their own ideological defalcation. Not learning from the BJP, and how firm it is in its own ideology. The tragedy for Pasmandas has been that all the social justice parties are agape to give them tickets, brand them ministers, motion them upwards, so as not to upset the upper caste Muslims.

"At present look at how both Owaisi and the BJP are saying Pasmanda! Those we vote for are too agape to take our name, and these two… Of course their hearts are different. Owaisi knows the Pasmanda won't autumn for his swindle. Earlier he would exist upset by whatsoever mention of Pasmanda. Similarly the social justice parties who talk Lohia, Ambedkar, are afraid to take our name.

"But our movement is accelerating and you all have a role in information technology besides. Nosotros started it 25, 30 years ago and at present they are beginning to understand, but feeling afraid.

"In that location is another reason. With Muslim guild, as with Dalits when they got reservation. Dalits want an independent thinking homo like Chandra Shekhar. But these people don't similar him, he'due south a hard hitter, he goes for the frontal attack. Not him then.

"Likewise with Dalits, they want the weakling kind of Dalit in front. We saw information technology with SC seat reservation in Bihar and other states. For the upper caste Hindus their own dependents, their ploughman, their shepherd, their servant would get the ticket. So is information technology with Muslims. Fifty-fifty the BJP and the secular parties are looking for men of the broker sort, who volition go to Parliament and enhance their hand and vote, non talk of their own samaj. They don't like that variety.

"This is the upper degree hegemony we talk of as Pasmandas. Now the upper castes accept started maxim Pasmanda, but people are beginning to sympathize, and I don't think the stigma volition last much longer."

Faisal Devji said it was important to motility the discussion beyond northward Bharat.

"Ashraf, Ajlaf, Arzal only has significant in north India. Bengal is different, in western Republic of india there are tiny just wealthy and influential castes which are of the Baniya type though they'll say they are Rajputs, and in the southward it'southward unlike entirely. So I wonder if it might be an of import chore to pluralise the fence on degree itself amongst Muslims, by looking at these other places.

"In some of them Muslims do meliorate than in north Republic of india – which of course does badly in full general compared to the rest of the state – just partly because there are different sociologies and demographies in play. So politics between Muslims and non Muslims, and among Muslims themselves, might have a different resonance in s and western India, and in other parts.

"This is crucial considering Muslims from Bihar and Upwardly are constitute in large numbers at that place every bit migrant labour. But also because a dandy deal of the funding for Muslim religious causes comes from exterior north India. It tin't be sustained by the north, and hasn't been sustainable since the early 20th century, which is why even Jinnah and the Muslim League were headquartered in Mumbai.

"So whether information technology's the Tablighi Jamat, whose funding comes from Gujaratis and its leadership too, or others, everyone makes the pilgrimage to Mumbai, Kerala, someplace. Information technology'due south crucial for a wider understanding of ulema networks, Sufi networks, where the money comes from and to whom it goes, how it is distributed. Nosotros demand to call back outside north India."

Ali Anwar concluded with an example from Andhra Pradesh.

"YSR, who is the CM and his father was CM, added some upper caste Muslims to the OBC list in the state. This is a pan India phenomenon including Bihar, that some upper castes have been added to the OBC lists. The court said no. PS Krishnan in his report took them out of the listing. The courtroom okayed it. And Owaisi opposed this. He took out protests. They burnt an effigy of PS Krishnan."

'Counting Caste: Breaking the Caste Census Deadlock' was hosted by Oxford University. A discussion on majorities, minorities and invisibles with Grace Banu, Satish Deshpande, Dilip Mandal and Kanimozhi Karunanidhi is reported here, and on Hindutva'south caste issues with India Patankar, Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd, Christophe Jaffrelot and Sagar Choudhary here.

Source: https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/13/21880/Caste-in-Muslim-Indians

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