‘A Minority’, By Its Identification As ‘Other’ Of ‘A Majority’ Becomes ‘Dependent’ For Its Rights On The State Controlled By The ‘Majority’
By
Saquib Salim, New Age Islam
18 December
2022
“Minority Protection In The Ultimate Analysis
Is Not The Protection Of The Muslim Interests; It Is The Vivisection Of India
Into Various Groups, Sub-Groups, And Parties So That Any Coherent Action By The
Combined Forces Of The People Will Not Be Possible In India
Rezaul Karim
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“The
concept of a national minority is built, however, on a fundamental tension: on
one hand, it signifies the membership of a minority group in a national polity;
on the other, the minority group by virtue of its cultural racial, religious,
ethnic, or linguistic difference from the majoritarian culture also represents
an incipient threat to national unity.” writes Saba Mahmood, former Professor
of Anthropology at the University of California, in her celebrated paper,
Religious Freedom, the Minority Question, and Geopolitics in the Middle East.
A Muslim family breaking their fast
during Ramazan in Delhi's Jama Masjid (Ravi Batra)
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In the
present world, it seems impossible to think of a world where we do not talk
about ‘minority’ and thus ‘minority rights’. In India, minority rights have
been a field of contestation where on one hand a majoritarian view keeps
accusing the polity of appeasing the different ‘minority’ groups, on the other
‘minority groups’ accuse the state of discriminating against them. Religious
minorities, especially Muslims, are often asked to prove their loyalty on
account of being coreligionists of the inhabitants of the neighbouring enemy
nation.
Intellectuals,
politicians, scholars, and other leaders of our society often wonder how
Indians could live without much religion-based bloodshed for centuries what
happened in post-colonial India is that different communities look at each
other suspiciously. As pointed out by Saba Mahmood, the idea of minority, while
explicitly helping in securing legal rights to certain religious, social, or
ethnic groups, simultaneously in an implicit fashion takes them away from the
national polity of equal partners. ‘A minority’, by its identification as
‘other’ of ‘a majority’, itself becomes ‘dependent’ for its rights on the state
controlled by the ‘majority’.
One might
not believe but the idea of a ‘national minority’ is only a century old. It was
only after the First World War at “Versailles Peace Conference, the concept of
‘national minority’ has been used in International Law to distinguish
communities that can lay claim to membership in a national polity versus those
populations who can make no such claims”.
The idea is
problematic. In India, if we apply this category to Muslims, Sikhs, Jains,
Christians, Sindhis, or any other group we end up excluding them from the
national identity.
Hannah
Arendt also argued that though throughout history minorities were part of human
societies “the minority as a permanent institution” was introduced with the
treaties after the World War. The treatise recognized “that millions of people
lived outside normal legal protection and needed an additional guarantee of
their elementary rights from an outside body (The League of Nations)”.
According
to Hannah, acknowledgment of minorities and their rights implied, “that only
nationals could be citizens, only people of the same national origin could
enjoy the full protection of legal institutions, that persons of different
nationality needed some law of exception until or unless they were completely
assimilated and divorced from their origin”.
This is not
the case that Indians did not understand the perils of this categorization.
Indian Muslims raised their voice against categorizing them as a minority. They
argued that it would divide the country. Freedom fighter and member of the
Constituent Assembly, Maulana Hasrat Mohani, vehemently opposed the term
minority being used for Muslims of India in the Constituent Assembly.
He
disagreed with Dr. B. R. Ambedkar over minority rights and said, “I say: we do
not want them. You have provided in the constitution that 14 percent of the
seats should be reserved for Muslims. You still consider yourself 86 percent
and Muslims to be 14 percent. So long as you have this communalism, nothing can
be done. Why do you say that Muslims are a Minority? So long as you depict them
in communal colours Muslims shall remain a Minority.”
Another
prominent leader and prolific writer from Bengal, Rezaul Karim, campaigned
against the categorization of Muslims as a monority. He argued, “minority
protection in the ultimate analysis is not the protection of the Muslim
interests; it is the vivisection of India into various groups, sub-groups, and
parties so that any coherent action by the combined forces of the people will
not be possible in India. Therefore minority interest does not mean Muslim
interest. Minorities are always minorities; they can never be made majorities.”
Maulana
Ubaidullah Sindhi, another revolutionary freedom fighter, argued that Muslims
could not be considered a minority and that national citizenship should be
equal for all religions. In his view, the psychology of considering themselves
a minority would keep Muslims backward. Netaji Subhas Chandra also believed
that Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, and Muslims should not consider each other
majority and minority. Every Indian nationalist enjoys the same status. For
Netaji, it did not matter if the leader in power was a Hindu or a Muslim. In
his belief virtue of nationalism surpassed that of religious belief.
The impact
of granting minority status to certain communities has often been detrimental.
We have seen the international community taking notice of the minority
problems, or sometimes ‘activists’ calling upon the international community to
take notice of the ‘atrocities’ against them. Saba writes, “for a religious
minority to call for international protection is to also draw attention to the
uniqueness of the group as distinct from the majoritarian identity of the
nation”. She goes on to argue that this special protection for minorities “also
them more vulnerable”.
In the
international arena, the support is gathered by pointing out the ‘difference’
between minority and majority, which in turn renders them unstable in a
national unity project and further “weakens the possibility of forging a
collective life together”.
Source: Should Indian Muslims Shun The
Minority Tag?
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/minority-muslims-india-constituent-assembly/d/128658
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