A Different Jihad

Dalit Muslims’ Challenge to Ashraf Hegemony

This article discusses the issue of caste, in the context of the backward Muslim communities of
Bihar elucidated in Ali Anwar’s book, and the complete marginalisation of the groups at the
bottom of the pecking order. The book, by focusing on the plight of backward and dalit
Muslims, has the potential to redefine the very grammar of Muslim politics in favour of a
progressive agenda, thus moving away from the now-prevalent reactive politics.
IRFAN AHMAD

(By contrast) lowly, rascal, incompetent, coward, unknown, stingy,
lazy, lowborn, bazaari people do not have any association with
history; neither can its study be their profession…Reading and
knowing of it (history) is harmful rather than beneficial to the stingy
and lowborn people.
(Ziauddin Barni1 1983:47-48)
The position of the Julahas had got thoroughly undermined and
this inferior-lowly people (badzaat) were most active in the uproar
(1857 rebellion).
(Sir Syed Khan 1958:60)
Gentlemen! So long as religious knowledge was with the Sheikhs
and other nations (read castes) remained under subjugation, there
was no disaster. However, ever since qasaai, naaee, teli, lohaar
bisaati, kalaal, julaha etcetera have become maulvi, mudarris, qari,
sufi, hafiz, the wave of problems has begun to arrive because Hadis
proves that those who would believe in dajjal would verily be
julahas.2
(Ahmad Usmani quoted in Ansari 2001:30)
Introduction
for their own caste candidates, no matter whether this leads to
the victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Casteism”, he goes on, “ has deeply also crept into Muslims.
They do not act like a ‘millat’. We were united before, but
especially after 1990 caste divisions have grown stronger among
Muslims. Prior to 1990 we used to fight elections collectively.
All Muslims used to vote for one Muslim candidate. But ever
since the rise of casteism, we have often lost (except in the last
election when a candidate belonging to the qureshi community
got elected to the state assembly) and BJP has won instead. They
(low-castes) are indeed ‘jahil’, ignorant”.
Denial and Anxiety
The upper castes comprise no more than 8 per cent of the total
population. The majority of Muslims in Sheher are qureshis,
ansaris, saifis, rangrez, bishtis or alvis. Before 1990, candidates
were often from the so-called Ashraf classes and Muslims in
general supported them. But after 1990, that is, since what
Yogender Yadav has described as the ‘second democratic up-

A
ligarh, February 12, 2002. On a pleasantly cold winter
evening, otherwise politically hot because of the upcom-
ing UP assembly elections, I walk down to the Muslim-
populated Upper Fort neighbourhood of the old town, locally
known as Sheher. Preparations are underway for the election
meeting of G M Banatwalla, a sitting member of parliament and
a prominent leader of the Muslim League. His supporters are
enthusiastically erecting the stage adjacent to the Jama Masjid,
an imposing, magnificent, medieval mosque. For Muslims of
Sheher, the space surrounding the Jama Masjid represents, to
invoke Jurgen Habermas, a coffee house (an open one, though)
and hence a public sphere in its Indian incarnation. As dusk
draws closer and the muezzin calls out for prayer, it gradually
turns into a debating plaza where everything is discussed:
from light social gossip to serious political issues. Taking
me for a journalist, a group of young men walk towards me.
I introduce myself. And then discussion takes off, mostly about
elections.
The most vocal among the youth remarks, “Muslims are facing
the toughest time now and this election would be really decisive.”
In a tone marked by deep lament, he adds that Muslims in Sheher
are not united: ‘Musalmanon men iteehad nahi hai; aapas me
hi tafarqa hai’ (Muslims are not united, they are divided among
themselves). There are four Muslim candidates belonging to
different castes. And their respective supporters will only vote
surge’ [1996:101] inaugurated by Mandal and the ascendance
of the other backward classes3 (OBCs), low-caste Muslims
started putting up their own candidates and asked the Ashraf to
vote for them. In the narrative of the upper castes, it was then
that casteism began within Muslims and the imagined millat got
severely wounded.
Such an impression, as given to me by my young friend, a Khan
by caste and whose father had migrated from an erstwhile princely
state to the town some three decades ago, is most common among
the Muslims elites.4 However, this is not unique to Muslims.
Upper caste Hindus too hold the same opinion [Goradia 2001].
As a matter of fact, the classes in power and with privileges have
always dismissed resistance to them as a ploy to sow the seeds
of disunity, now in the name of nation now in the name of
community, both of which are more imagined than real. The
dismissal is accomplished by a variety of strategies. I will focus
here only on two important strategies.
The first, and also the most effective one, is by denying the
very existence of the problem.5 A characteristic example in this
regard is the response one often encounters from the diasporic
Pakistanis in the west. Ask any of them about the presence of
castes among Muslims, her immediate and most likely reply is
‘no’.6 The naïve assumption behind this denial is that Islam does
not sanction caste system. And if there is one, it was a Hindu
influence that has disappeared after ‘Islamic’ Pakistan was created.

4886 Economic and Political Weekly November 15, 2003

And those few who accept its presence feel embarrassed to
acknowledge it: ‘Hindu’ feature in ‘Islamic nation’. But it is a
stunning reality that caste is perhaps more prominent in Pakistan
than in India. The birth certificate issued by municipal offices
in Punjab has a distinct compulsory column for caste. It is called
‘qaum’.7 One certificate (issued in Circa 2000) that I examined
was issued by the Rawalpindi municipal office, and under the
column qaum was written ‘Hun Rajput’. The denial by the Indian
Ashraf runs almost along the same lines even as its framing is
anchored in a markedly different political context.
The second one is by a fervent invoking of the slogan ‘unity
in danger’ or ‘conspiracy to divide the qaum/millat”.8 Consider
the response of a revivalist Muslim organisation to the struggle
launched by the All India Muslim OBC Organisation (AIMOBCO).
On August 29, 1996 AIMOBCO organised, under the leadership
of its convener, Shabbir Ansari, a conference in New Delhi’s
Maolankar Hall. Its main objective was to build public opinion
in favour of extending the existing provision of reservation for
other backward classes to their Muslim counterparts. Barely a
week after the conference, Dawat, the biweekly Urdu organ of
the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind [JIH], front-paged an alarming story
– “Do not Create Further Disunity in Problem-Ridden Millat”
[Dawat 1996].
As JIH ideology stands, it seeks to fashion a bounded, unified,
homogenous Mulsim Qaum regardless of all its glaring social
differentiations based on caste, language, ethnicity, region, gender
and class9 . No wonder, it first rejects the very existence of castes
among Muslims. However, in the same paragraph it makes a
paradoxical statement (and paradox is inherent in the ideology
of such movements) that admits the presence of caste among
Muslims. But this is immediately dismissed saying that “ now
such things (caste divisions among Muslims) are fading away”.
Referring to the specific demand raised in the seminar, Dawat
sees it with absolute suspicion and as a design of some sort to
divide Muslims:
Therefore to link issue of reservation to caste is akin to permanently
dividing the Muslim society along the caste lines [Souvenir of
AIMOBCO, undated: 11]
It concludes:
There is no gain in further dividing the Muslims who are already
ridden with problems [ibid:11].
It would not be out of place here to mention that even as in
JIH’s grand ideology there is no recognition of caste, sentiments,
solidarities and marital alliances based on caste do exist in
practice within its own organisation and members. It is rarely
visible and articulated in public, though. The last page of Dawat
carries matrimonials. Most of them clearly mention the caste of
the bride/groom. During my fieldwork, one of its members
narrated to me in anguish how the marriage alliance for his sister
was repeatedly turned down once it came to be known that he
was an ansari, a julaha. This was despite the fact that he was
economically well-placed. Those who declined the marriage
proposal (on the singular basis of caste) also included members
of the JIH (field notes).
Cast in this wider context, Anwar’s (2001) book Masawat ki
Jang (‘Battle for Equality’) is a remarkable piece of work. It
brings into sharp focus the dark-lived experiences that may shame
the upholders of vacuous scriptural equality. Consisting of eight
thematic chapters, the book is about the backward Muslim
communities of Bihar. In the first chapter – ‘Bahas’, discussion
Economic and Political Weekly November 15, 2003
– the author makes a strong case for constitutional recognition
of the reservation of non-ashraf, dalit Muslims by countering two
popular arguments put forward by the ashraf. First, it persuasively
contends that caste among Muslims has arisen not because of
government policies of independent India; rather it has been there
for centuries. Second, it sees with suspicion the demand for
reservation for Muslims as a whole. According to the author,
the idea of ‘total Muslim reservation’, as advocated by the likes
of Syed Shahabuddin, is both unconstitutional and impossible.
Moreover, it will strengthen the forces of Hindutva. Given this,
he wonders if the demand for total Muslim reservation is not
a conspiracy to deny what the backward and dalit Muslims indeed
deserve.
The next chapter – ‘Haqeeqat’, reality – presents existing
conditions and hardships faced by low-caste Muslim commu-
nities such as julaha (weavers), halalkhor, lalbegi (scavenger),
bhatiara, gorkan (grave diggers), bakkho, mirshikar, chik (butcher),
rangrez, darzi and nat. He shows how these castes are discrimi-
nated against and frowned upon in everyday life by the ashraf.
Such discrimination persists in mosques and even after one’s
death. The detailed description of the plight of pamarias in a
pathan-dominated village of Bhojpur district is heart-rending.
Islam’s slogan for equality notwithstanding, pamarias are not
allowed to bury their dead in the pathans graveyard. Methodo-
logically, this chapter is quite rich. It uses popular proverbs and
stereotypes about the so-called low-born Muslims and dissects
them with dazzling clarity.
In the following chapter – the longest of all – there is a
comprehensive history of Islam as an ideal and Islam as a lived
reality. The author says that though Islam does not recognise
hierarchy and differentiation based on birth, in practice it has
existed among Muslims, both in India and also in Arab lands.
Muslim ‘ulema’ and scholars have particularly legitimised this
hierarchy all throughout history. Among the former, he discusses
the writings of Ashraf Ali Thanvi and Maulana Ahmad Raza
Khan Brelvi (Chapter Four) and in the latter Ziauddin Barni, the
medieval historian. Ali thinks that Barni was almost like
‘Musalman’s Manu’. The author makes a sweeping jump from
the medieval to the modern era and discusses how British rule
badly affected the dis-privileged sections of society – weavers,
ansaris – especially. It was during this period – the first two
decades of the 20th century, to be precise – that the Momin
movement was born. It is not well known that this movement
never supported the Muslim League. Indeed, its leaders such as
Abdul Qaiyum Ansari, always opposed and debunked Jinnah’s
two-nation theory. The author draws our attention to a striking
fact: both the Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League opposed
the enumeration of caste in the census arguing that it would
weaken the ‘community’.
The fourth chapter – ‘Virasat’, heritage – deals with the ways
in which Muslim religious fora and government institutions
meant for Muslims in Bihar have been monopolised by the
Ashraf. The fora and institutions discussed in the chapter include
Imrarat-e-Sharia, Phulwari Sharif, Idar-e-Sharia, Patna, All India
Milli Council, All India Muslim Personal Board, Urdu Academy,
Suuni Waqf Board, Minorities Commission, Madarsa Board, and
Urdu Advisory Council. In support of his argument the author
furnishes meticulously gathered secondary data that vividly depict
the absolute marginalisation of the groups at the bottom.
Titled as ‘Pyar Nikah par Zaat ki Pahredaari’ (Caste Surveil-
lance on Love Marriage), Chapter five is most interesting. It
4887
presents one case of unsuccessful and four cases of successful
inter-caste love marriage. Through these stories, Ali Anwar
intends to show how deeply entrenched is the caste feeling among
the Muslims of Bihar, particularly among the traditional elites.
He notes with a sense of irony that we all listen to the immortal
love stories of Sheerin-Farhad, Laila-Majnu and none of us
perhaps ask which caste they belonged to. In Bihar, however,
we do when it comes to inter-caste marriage.
From the open streets of love Anwar jumps to the closed
corridors of power in the next chapter – ‘Seyasat’, politics. The
crux of this chapter is how and why backward Muslims have
been deliberately kept out of legislative assembly and government
services, IAS and IPS, and upper-caste Muslims promoted in their
place. This is tragic because most upper caste Muslims in pre-
independent India sided with the Muslim League and its two-
nation theory. The backward Muslims, under the leadership of
the Momin conference and Abdul Qaiyum, by contrast, firmly
stood for a united India. This historical fact apart, the Indian
National Congress in the post-1947 phase promoted erstwhile
Muslim League leaders at the expense of those who lent rock
solid support to the Congress. As a result, backward Muslims
never got their due, politically as well as economically, even
though they numerically form 80 per cent of the total Muslim
population. This situation has continued, says the author, even
during the regime of Laloo Prasad Yadav, the messiah of the
backward in Bihar. Anwar sharply criticises him for his refusal
to support the cause of Muslim backward castes in the same way
as he does for their counterparts among Hindus. He, however,
notes with a sense of satisfaction that the scenario is now changing
and there is a great social churning within Muslim society with
the solid assertion of the backward Muslims. And this augurs
well for the next century.
The penultimate chapter – ‘Shakhsiat’, personality – is devoted
to the political-social biographies of four members of the ansari-
dhuniya communities whom author describes as “source of in-
spiration” (p 205) – Maulana Ateequr Rahaman Arvi, Abdul
Qaiyum Ansari, Battakh Mian and Bismillah Khan. Ateequr
Rahman was an ‘alim’ by training and profession but he was
an open critic of the Muslim League. Because he believed that
Hindus and Muslims were one and that god did not differentiate
between them, the Muslim League disgustingly called him a
‘Domwa Maulana’ (p 208). Abdul Qaiyum Ansari was the architect
of the Momin conference in Bihar. Battak Mian, the least known
among the four, was the man who refused to poison Gandhi in
Champaran despite the offer of wealth by the British. Bismillah
Khan, as we know, is a living Bharat Ratna shahnai player. It
is not known that he was born into a poor backward family of
the present-day Baksar district.10
Debating the Issue
I can hardly disagree with what the author has said so far.
Undoubtedly this is a splendid book in social criticism and each
of us, certainly the students of sociology, should read it. It makes
the unseen glaringly visible; and the unconscious conscious. It
lifts the veil off the dark realities we seek to conceal. That said,
the book is also about several silences. I will discuss here only
three of them.
First, endogamy, the most agreed upon element of caste strati-
fication among Muslims! It is not sufficient to say, and this is
what the author does in several places, that ashraf do not marry
4888
their daughters off to sons of ajlaf. It is equally true that one
caste among ashraf generally does not have a marital alliance
with another caste even if it is ashraf. Likewise, a lower caste
such as dhuniya will rarely marry his son or daughter to a person
belonging to the lalbegi or nat caste. The point I wish to make
is that there is not one continuous, singular hierarchy that defines
castes among Muslims. Rather, hierarchy is multiple and each
caste is a discrete category. Put differently, the ashraf-ajlaf
dichotomous approach to understanding social stratification among
Muslims, though it is useful, is also extremely restricted in
unravelling many nuances. This approach privileges the ashraf
view of the caste system and fails to account for the view from
the bottom.11
While interviewing low caste Muslims in Delhi for a Delhi
government project to assess if they should be included among
the OBCs,12 most of them narrated their respective stories of
the fall from grace. Invariably, each of the lower castes that we
interviewed said that long ago they were indeed Shaikh and
enjoyed considerable economic prosperity. Gradually their status
began to dwindle. The chicanery by the so-called ashraf accen-
tuated the decline. And thus over a period they became what
they are today. For example, a leader of the ansaris in Salempur
area said their lineage went back to Aiyub, who welcomed
prophet Muhammad in Madina, and thus they were in no way
inferior to the ashraf who called themselves Siddiqi or Faruqi.
Be it noted that prophet Muhammad called Aiyub13 and others
who supported him in Madina as ansar and hence the caste title
Ansari. Similarly, a leader of the qureshis said their ancestry went
directly back to the tribe of prophet Muhammad and therefore
they were in no way inferior to the so-called ‘sharif zaat’.
From the foregoing, it is more than evident that if we look
at the caste system from the perspective of the non-ashraf, we
notice that each caste has its own sense of being proud and
superior. Further, it is quite misleading to say that the so-called
ashraf always serves as the point of reference for all non-ashraf
castes. On the contrary, each caste has its own sense of pride
and differentiates itself from other castes without necessarily
considering it either inferior or superior. This seems to be working
mostly at the middle levels. When it comes to a relation between
two or more levels, one notices an extremely powerful notion
among each caste that there is at least one caste below and inferior
to it. Of many other reasons, this is perhaps the most important
one why endogamy persists even today. Otherwise, how can we
explain the opposition to marriage between a pathan boy and
a shaikh girl, as cited by the author himself (p 163), even though
both of them are ashraf? What is also strikingly absent from the
author’s otherwise brilliant account is the mention of even a
single story of conflict over marriage, for instance, between an
ansari boy and a dafali or lalbegi girl. I assume there are possibly
several stories of this nature in a patriarchal, feudal society like
Bihar.
Second, Anwar does not give any significant weight to the
political economy of caste. On page 31 he says, “…Where caste
is decided on the basis of one’s birth, change in economic position
does not alter the caste status.” While making this argument, I
think, Anwar unconsciously falls in the very ashraf trap that he
seeks to overcome. The birth thesis is what ashraf would always
employ not to recognise the changed status of the ajlaf as it so
glaringly defies the belief (unexamined as always it is) of the
former. This is exactly the way racists in the US sought to muffle
the egalitarian voices of the blacks – a person born black remains
Economic and Political Weekly November 15, 2003
a black forever [Becker 1998:146 ff].14 In such a battle of
arguments, as it is obvious, biology-like science triumphs and
sociology loses.
Moreover, this approach is static as it freezes the institution
of caste once and for all and loses sight of its dynamic aspects.
Economic mobility, in conjunction with available political matrix,
does change the social status and by consequence opens up new
possibilities of marriage transgressing the otherwise closed walls
of castes. To the best of my knowledge, there is no anthropo-
logical study of this phenomenon so far and hence hard to
substantiate it by data. But let me quote the author of a recently
finished PhD thesis. In his study of the banjara community of
western UP, Abdul Waheed discovers that because of their strong
economic position the so-called ashraf have begun to marry their
daughters off to the sons of the banjara caste (otherwise low in
hierarchy). Banjaras, by contrast, do not give their daughters in
marriage to the ashraf castes15 (also see Waheed, this volume).
As early as 1933, Qazi Abdul Gaffar in his famous feminist fiction
work wrote, “Man is by nature nomadic and woman patriot”
[1933:153]. I think this is no less true for the elites, be they from
a caste, class, community or nationality. The caste elites are thus
also very much like nomads.
Since the author does not seriously account for the political
economy, he does not offer any socio-economic package for the
upliftment of the really downtrodden Muslim populations. I fail
to comprehend how the nats, lalbegis, bakkhos, pamarias and
gorkuns would be able to ask for their own representations in
state assembly, government jobs or Muslim organisations and
government bodies – and these are the three focal arenas the whole
book revolves around – unless they send their children to schools
and their economy gets sound! Which means the slogan for equal
representation is doomed to be unsuccessful without a thorough
change in the social structure. This is certainly true for those at
the lowest rungs of the society. Thus seen, it would be worthwhile
to think over the question of land reform as an effective mecha-
nism to economically empower the powerless.
Third, a book about Muslim caste or community today would
probably remain inadequate without reference to religious reviv-
alism or Islamisation. Religious revivalism in modern India is
at least older by one century than the caste movement. Bhatty
(1996:248) underlines the need for studying the ways in which
the process of Islamisation has affected caste-like divisions
among Muslims. Bhatty’s point, I think, is significant.16 How-
ever, it would be equally interesting to study how caste divisions
affect the process of Islamisation. As I have observed during my
fieldwork, a few important members from the non-ashraf castes
such as ansari are key figures in the JIH movement and consider
any demand-based on caste for Muslims as an anathema to Islam.
Yet, sentiments and solidarities based on caste starkly exist within
its organisational set-up. Had Anwar covered this extremely
important social process, it would have made the book much more
comprehensive.
Is Caste a Colonial Invention?
These complexities and tensions in the book as discussed in
the preceding pages should not preclude one from appreciating
its central argument. To drive it home, the author has harnessed
several of the sub-arguments. I wish to engage with one of them
– the dynamics of relations between caste, colonialism and the
imaginaire of the state. The reason for my choice is the growing
Economic and Political Weekly November 15, 2003
importance that the recent anthropological/sociological writings,
inspired by the postcolonial turn, have devoted to this subject.
Its discussion would, I hope, pave the way for a more nuanced,
complex understanding of both theory and method.
Since the mid-1980s several scholars have written on caste and
the ways in which it was shaped and reshaped by the metropolitan
modernity and its intricate relationship with colonial statecraft,
the decennial census being perhaps most powerful technology
in its storehouse [Cohn 1983: Chapter 10; Pant 1987; Appadurai
1993; Dirks 2001]. Appadurai highlights the deep interrelation-
ship between the rise of caste consciousness and the enumerative
technologies of the colonial state (informed by orientalist doxa).
“The enumerations of the social body, conceived as aggregations
of individuals whose bodies were inherently both collective and
exotic”, contends Appadurai, “sets the ground for group differ-
ence to be the central principle for politics” (1993:330, emphasis
mine). Taking this argument to a more polemical height, Dirks
announces:
Under colonialism, caste was thus made out to be far more – far
more pervasive, far more totalising, and far more uniform that it
had ever been before, at the same time that it was defined as a
fundamentally religious social order…What we take now as caste
is, in fact, the precipitate of a history that selected caste as the
single and systematic category to name, and thereby contain, the
Indian social order (2001:13).
What follows from the above is that the salience caste has
gained since 19th century to the present is the quick upshot of
colonialism and its, to use Dirks’ enchanting phrase, ‘ethno-
graphic state’. If this inference is not off the mark, one may accuse
the author of arguing that caste is indeed a colonial invention
set in motion by census and other accompanying hegemonic arms
of the colonial state.17 Dirks’ argument is not entirely novel.
As early as in1932, G S Ghurye, consensually regarded as father of
Indian sociology, has made a similar argument18 (1932:156-60).
Without going further deep into the content of this argument,
I wish to focus on its actual architects and how it is deeply
implicated in the matrix of class and communal relations. In the
colonial era, this argument was put forward with unmatched force
both by Hindu and Muslim communalists. They were quite comfort-
able with, indeed they applauded, the religious category enshrined in
the census but felt extremely fearful of the caste classification.
In 1931 the Hindu Mahasabha had fervently campaigned for
the harijans to be counted as Hindus and not as a separate caste
in the census. Their argument was that it would divide and weaken
the Hindu community and that the British were playing this
divisive game.19 Ten years later, the Muslim League followed
the Mahasabha in both letter and spirit. On the eve of the 1941
Census, the provincial secretary of the Bihar Muslim League,
Syed Badruddin Ahmad – an ashraf as his name so loudly declares
– issued an appeal to Muslims to mention their religion but not
their caste. He saw inclusion of the caste category in the census
as something divisive and hence against the ‘community’. Taj
Muhammad, a district leader of the low-caste Muslim movement
called Jamiatul Momenin, forcefully countered Muslim League’s
appeal. In open opposition to the Muslim League’s position, he
appealed to the colonial, ‘ethnographic state’ that Momins must
necessarily be counted and registered as a separate caste [Anwar
2001:24-30]. In a letter published in The Searchlight on Sep-
tember 10, 1941, Taj Muhammad pleads his case:
Frightened with the numerical strength of the Momins, the veterans
of the Muslim League, who have always looked down upon Momin
4889
 as a class, have left no stone unturned to enlist them not as Momin
but merely as Muslims…In this context, the exploited and the
deprived Momins make a humble request to the government that
to maintain their representative character, which others want to
annihilate, it directs the census department to register the Momins
as a separate caste [quoted in Anwar 2001:27].
In the respective responses of Badruddin Ahmad and Taj
Muhammad, one can see the conflicting readings of the role of
colonial state. For the former, enumeration of caste was a colonial
invention; for the latter it was not. For the landed magnates and
Khan Bahadurs belonging to the ashraf castes and Muslim League,
census was a device aimed at fracturing a community imagined
on the solitary principle of religion. For the marginalised Momins
it served as a tool to improving their ever-worsening social
condition that barely figured in the League’s agenda. In the
reading of Momin classes the role of the colonial state vis-a-vis
the caste question thus appears more to be one of recognition,
and less of invention. This seems to be true in the case of harijans
as well.
The conspiratorial role of the British in fueling caste conscious-
ness (and by implication dousing the pan-Islamic ember) among
Muslims by way of census, policies of affirmative actions,
representative institutions and so on, however, continues to be
emphasised by the upper caste ashraf leaders even today. Half
a century after caste-based census has been consigned to the
archives of history, Maulana Mujahidul Qasmi, leader of the All
India Milli Council, says:
But let us not overlook the fact that caste-like prejudices do exist
in our midst…It is no use denying the reality. However, these
prejudices have also been reinforced by the existing political
system, Muslim quotas and backward class reservations etc.
Elections also bring to prominence one’s community affiliations.
Once we had started a campaign for avoiding to mention our caste
in clauses intended for this purpose and wrote only ‘Muslim’. By
Allah’s grace, it had a lot of success. One of our friends’ daughter
could not secure backward class reservation concessions due for
ansari community merely because her father’s name was not
suffixed with ansari. The caste consciousness often creeps into
our minds through such compulsions (1992:121-22).
Challenging Maulana Qasmi’s position, Ali Anwar poses
counter-questions. “Were caste-based prejudices not present in
Muslim society before the introduction of reservation for the
backward classes? Has the disease of caste system spread in our
society (Muslim) only after independence of the country when
adult franchise was introduced” [Anwar 2001:26]. Though Anwar
does not dwell on this theme in greater detail, even his brief
treatment is a powerful enough critique of the thesis that the
British invented caste. What it does even more eloquently is that
it not only shows the basic flaws of the argument but also connects
it with its real advocates – the Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim
League. Dirks’ theoretical contentions, one is driven to appre-
hend, strikingly coincides with those of Badruddin Ahmad and
Taj Muhammad.20
Embattled Future
In post-partition India, Muslim politics has predominantly been
reactive. It has raised emotive rather than substantive issues.
Monopolised by the traditionally privileged classes of ashraf,
Muslim leadership has so far rarely looked beyond the four issues
of Urdu, Aligarh Muslim University, Muslim Personal Law and
4890
Babri masjid [Ahmad 1997]. There is thus a growing feeling that
such an edition of politics has failed to deliver much dividend.
As a matter of fact, many observers feel that it has instead
strengthened the hands of Hindutva and created boredom and
alienation in Muslim society, particularly the youth. A fringe
minority has thus begun to be taken over by the captivating slogan
of jihad against the forces of what it calls ‘non-Islam’.
By bringing into sharp focus the plight of backward and dalit
Muslims, Anwar’s book does not merely address an economic
question but has the great potential to also redefine the very
grammar of Muslim politics in favour of a progressive agenda.
This redefinition, if successful, augurs well for India’s destiny.
It is framed in a distinctively secular language and envisions a
socially just, plural society. This may inaugurate a departure of
some sorts from the old-style reactive politics. The need for such
a departure hardly needs to be stressed in the face of two major
challenges confronting Indian polity – near triumph of Hindutva
on the one hand and reactive Muslim politics on the other. There
is a visible propensity of a section of Muslim youth towards a
revivalist jihad ignited by robust ideology of Wahabism. In
obvious contrast to this, Anwar’s book calls for a radically
different jihad – jihad for the social empowerment of the down-
trodden Muslims and the restoration of honour to them.21
Amen! I would say. EPW
Address for correspondence:
ahmad@psw.uva.nl
Notes
[I am thankful to Sajjad, who brought this book to my notice. Discussion
with Imtiaz Ahmad has, as always, been immensely helpful.]
1 Unless indicated otherwise, all translations from Urdu and Hindi into
English are mine.
2 Qasaai, naaee,teli, lohaar bisaati, kalaal, julaha are Urdu-Hindi names
of the Muslim castes placed at the bottom of the caste hierarchy. Maulvi,
mudarris, qari, sufi, hafiz denote religious specialist, teacher, hafiz
trained for good recitation, sufi, and a person who has memorised the
entire Quran respectively. As imagery dajjal is invoked to symbolise the
ultimate forms of anti-Islamic evil, ‘Fitna’. Ascendance of dajjal on earth
marks beginning of the end of the world. It is closer to the meaning
of anti-Christ in Christianity.
3 On the rise of OBCs in north India, see Jafferlot (2000).
4 This section is based on fieldwork conducted between November 2000
and October 2001.
5 Imtiaz Ahmad-edited pioneering volume (1973) convincingly showed
the presence of caste among Muslims. Its most scathing rebuttal, more
ideological-religious than empirical, has come from the Institute of
Objective Studies, Delhi as manifest in its books published in the wake
of Mandal and political rise of Muslim OBC in north India in general
and in Bihar in particular. See F R Faridi (1992).
6 Obviously, this goes against hard anthropological facts. Werbner [1989]
beautifully describes how caste regulates relations among Pakistani
Punjabis in Manchester, Britain.
7 The common perception, also shared by most academics, is that behind
the idea of Pakistan lay the belief of Muslims as a separate ‘nation’
(qaum), distinct from, rather opposed to, Hindus as a separate nation.
If it were so, one wonders what the term qaum in birth certificates issued
by the Rawalpindi Municipal office means: qaum within qaum? Does
not this, then, destabilise the myth of all Muslims as one separate nation?
8 In Urdu quam and millat are interchangeably used in the sense of
‘community’ in the English language. The basis of qaum/millat is
unambiguously faith, however.
9 For a detailed analysis of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, see Ahmad (1998).
10 The final chapter – ‘Dastawez’ – contains important archival and
contemporary documents used in writing the book.
Economic and Political Weekly November 15, 2003
11 This argument is modelled on that of Gupta (1993, 2001) as outlined
in the case of the caste system among Hindus. My debt to him is thus
obvious.
12 This project was undertaken under the directorship of J S Gandhi of
JNU during 1998-1999. The fieldwork in Muslim-dominated areas was
carried out for 2 weeks and I worked as a member of the team.
13 To escape the pinching stigma, fashioned and perpetuated by the self-
proclaimed superior ashraf, many people from ansari caste have recently
begun to delete ‘ansari’ from their names and have instead added ‘Aiyubi’
as suffix. It should be recalled that the title ‘Aiyubi’ is derived from
Aiyub Ansari who welcomed prophet Muhammad in Medina. Field note.
14 Howard Becker discusses the issue of race in a different context. The
reason why I invoke him here is that the underlying nature of arguments
appears to be almost similar in both contexts.
15 In conversation with Abdul Waheed, March 18, 2001, Aligarh.
16 Ahmad (1973) touches upon this aspect. An in-depth study is still
wanting, however.
17 Stating the objective of his book, Dirks writes that he hopes to “ weave
an argument far more complicated than that the British invented caste,
though in one sense this is precisely what happened” (2001:9).
18 Ghurye’s explanation is worth noting here. He observes:
It is difficult to see any valid public reason for this elaborate treatment
of caste in the census reports…The conclusion is unavoidable that the
intellectual curiosity of some of the early officials is mostly responsible
for the treatment of caste given to it in the census…The total result has
been, as we have seen, a livening-up of caste spirit (1932:158, italics
mine).
19 There seems to be an unhindered continuity between the position of the
then Mahasabha and that of the present RSS parivar. Both RSS and BJP
simply deny caste identity. See Kanungo (2001:140-48) and Jafferlot
(2000).
20 It is surprising that Dirks does not deal with caste among Muslims. One
must acknowledge, however, that Dirks’ book is immensely thought
provoking. It is ruthlessly brilliant in establishing the intimate relations
between technologies of knowledge production and colonial power. So
is its powerful critique of the Cambridge school.
21 Anwar does not exactly use the term Jihad. To plead precisely this case,
Ejaz Ali, convener of the all-India Muslim Backward Morcha that has
the same cause as Anwar’s, however, calls for a jihad. See his pamphlet
Jihad (undated).
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Ahmad, Irfan (1997): ‘A New Agenda for Muslim Radicals’, The Times
of India, New Delhi, April 1, Edit Page.
– (1998): ‘The Making of an Islamic Society in Post-Independent India:
REVIEW OF LABOUR
AUGUST 2, 2003
Arguing for ‘Industrial Relations’: Journey to a Lost World
Changing Policy Regime and Labour: A Case Study
Skill, Education and Employment: A Dissenting Essay
Informal Labour Market and Structural Devolution
Informal Labour in Brick Kilns: Need for Regulation
For copies write to: Circulation Manager
Economic and Political Weekly
Hitkari House, 284, Shahid Bhagatsingh Road, Mumbai 400 001
Economic and Political Weekly November 15, 2003
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– V Janardhan
– G Vijay
– C S K Singh
– P K Viswanathan, Tharian George K, Toms Joseph
– Jayoti Gupta
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