Why Dalit Muslims Should be Recognized as Scheduled Castes
By Arshad Alam, New Age Islam
18 April 2023
The Government And Dalit Bahujan Intellectuals Should
Stop Opposing This Inclusion
Main Points:
1.
The supreme court of
India recently said that it wants to adjudicate on whether Dalit Muslims and
Christians should be granted Scheduled Caste status.
2.
The court took this
position because successive governments have prevaricated on this issue.
3.
This prevarication
is because Dalit Bahujan intellectuals have been opposing the inclusion of
Dalit Muslims in the SC quota.
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Muslim (and Christian) groups have for long approached the
supreme court with the plea that ex- untouchable castes that converted to so
called egalitarian religions be granted scheduled caste (SC) status. We know
that through a presidential ordinance of 1950, the SC status was restricted to
only three religious groups: Hindus, neo-Buddhists and Sikhs, effectively excluding
Muslim and Christian ex-untouchable castes from the ambit of affirmative
action. Dalit Muslim and Christian groups have long argued that this
constitutes discrimination on the ground of religion, which is
unconstitutional. Long time ago, in 1995, Mother Teresa, even sat on a day long
fast to highlight this discrimination. But who are these castes who want to be
included in the SC list and why?
Who are Dalit Muslims?
Dalit Muslims (and Christians) refers to those
ex-untouchable castes who converted to Islam but continued to face
discrimination on account of social stigma. Conversions took place in India due
to multiple reasons, not least because these castes wanted to escape the
inhuman treatment meted to them by caste Hindus. However, even after conversion,
their social status did not undergo changes; they did not get accepted by caste
Muslims as equals. Meenakshipuram conversion of 1981 serves as an apt example.
Hundreds of Dalits did embrace Islam but it is recorded in memoirs that Muslims
refused to have any matrimonial alliance with these converts.
There is evidence to suggest that caste Muslims
discriminated against lower castes as viciously as caste Hindus. Sociologists
and anthropologists like Ghaus Ansari, Zarina Bhatty and Imtiaz Ahmad have documented
their multi-level exclusion from the Muslim society even in the
post-Independence period. There is some documentation which suggests that at
places, these castes have their separate burial grounds and even mosques.
During my own fieldwork in Azamgarh, I interviewed members of the Halalkhor/sweeper
caste who were in the process of constructing their own mosque. They told me
that the dominant Muslim caste in the city, the Rautara, did not allow them to
pray peacefully in mosques. As a result, they were forced to construct their
own mosque.
The claim of Islam is that it is an egalitarian religion;
the social dynamics might be very different though. Ali Anwar’s book Dalit
Muslims of Bihar sheds spotlight on the precarious state of existence of these
castes through a small survey. He documents the lack of education within these
castes and argues forcefully that without any affirmative action for them,
their situation is unlikely to improve.
It is these castes who are now demanding that they be
included into the SC list to avail of the benefits that government bestows on
the Scheduled Castes. It must be noted though that all such Muslim castes are
within what is called the OBC category, which means that they get reservations
within the overall 27% quota. So technically, they are recognized as backward
castes but their demand is to be included in the SC quota. This demand is only
just because it is exceedingly difficult for them to compete with more
‘advanced’ castes within the OBC quota.
Lack of Support
Their demand has largely remained unheard till now.
Successive governments have failed to even commission a survey to find out the
socio-economic condition of these Muslim castes. The Sachar committee report
referred to them as a separate category but ultimately fused them with the OBCs
for the purpose of analysis. The Ranganath Misra committee, on the other hand,
advocated for their inclusion within the SC quota. Despite these committees
being formed by the Congress led UPA government, their recommendations were not
followed up.
The present BJP government has in fact taken a position in
the supreme court that Dalit Muslims (and Dalit Christians) should not be
granted SC status because Islam is an egalitarian religion and hence has no
concept of untouchability. Ironically, this is the same government that
advocates the issue of Pasmanda/backward Muslims and argues that they should be
included into the governance structure. The party has even given a call to
organize meetings with backward Muslims and develop solidarity with them. The
prime minister has himself been at the forefront of such messages. He has
repeatedly called for understanding the problems of backward Muslims in party
meetings as well as from public platforms. But it is sad to see that this does
not get reflected at the level of government policy. Rather, we have become
painfully aware that this government’s position has been no different from the
previous ones when it comes to affirmative action for Dalit Muslims.
But it is not just the government’s stand which is worrying.
Intellectuals from Hindu Dalit and OBC communities are also not comfortable
with the inclusion of Dalit Muslims (and Christians) within the SC quota.
Surprisingly, while they oppose the government on almost everything else, there
is remarkable unity of purpose between these intellectuals and the government
when it comes to denying Dalit Muslims their due rights. Even their argument is
the same as that of the government: that since Islam does not sanction
untouchability, there cannot be an existence of untouchable castes within
Muslim society. This argument lacks historical nuance but it is its duplicity
that must be called out first.
Sikhism also does not approve untouchability; in fact, it
vehemently condemns it. The institution of Langar (communal dining) was
devised so that all castes could eat together. But Sikhs are included within
the SC list. If these intellectuals are honest, then they should ideally be
demanding that Sikhs should be excluded from the SC list as Sikhism does not
approve of untouchability.
Even Muslim intellectuals and politicians have been slow to
articulate the demands of these castes to be included within the SC category.
We see no effort on part of Muslim politicians to raise this issue in the
Constituent Assembly debates. Also, the clergy for the longest time kept
denying the existence of castes amongst Muslims by giving exactly the same
argument that the government is giving today. Even after the implementation of
Mandal Commission report, politicians like Syed Shahabuddin were demanding
reservation for all Muslims. They not only turned a blind eye to the existence
of caste among Muslims but even continued to keep up the canard that Muslims
were not getting any reservation at all. But of course, we know that after
Mandal, majority of Muslims were already covered under the OBC quota and they
also qualified for preferential treatment under the religion-neutral category
of the Scheduled Tribes.
A large part of the problem was that most Muslim
intellectuals and politicians were themselves Ashraaf/upper caste and
hence had no interest in talking about the amelioration of the backward
Muslims. It is not surprising therefore that they would hardly recognize the
existence of Dalit groups within the Muslim community.
It must be put on record though that of late, some important
Muslim organizations have been talking about caste within their society. The
Jamiat Ulama e Hind, the largest body of Muslim clerics, though primarily
Deobandis, recently talked sympathetically about them. However, just like the
current government, we have seen no follow up action to their well-meaning
statements. If they are really serious, what stops them from including Dalit
and Shudra Muslims into their policy making bodies?
The Courts To The Rescue?
One criticism that is often levelled at our judiciary is
that it lacks representation of lower castes because it has exempted itself
from the state policy of reservation. But it is the same court which has now
told the government that it will go ahead and look into the issue of whether
Dalit Muslims (and Christians) should get SC reservation. The case has gone for
years and successive governments have been reluctant to take a stand on the
issue.
The present government has constituted a committee led by
the only Dalit chief justice India ever had, K G Balakrishnan. The government
has pleaded before the supreme court that till the time the report of the
commission is not finalized, the honourable judges should not pronounce any
verdict. However, since the matter is pending for nearly two decades and the
said report is not coming out anytime soon, the supreme court has decided that
it will go ahead with its proceedings without waiting any further. In its
observation, it also said that social stigma can continue despite conversion to
any religion, a fact that is completely lost on the state as well as the Dalit
Bahujan intellectuals.
These intellectuals have rightly remarked that the courts of
this country are dominated by upper castes. But ironically, it is this space of
privilege which is suggesting the very obvious: that religious conversion does
not put an end to discrimination and exclusion. That simply because one
converted to Islam does not mean that all his markers and signifiers will melt
away in an instant. The act of religious conversion does not automatically lead
to social acceptance. Being included in a community which had disdain for Dalit
Muslims and even called them Arzal (singular Razil; lit. useless) certainly
meant that the social stigma continued even after their conversion.
It is this social stigma that needs to be addressed. Merely
asking if Islam has the concept of untouchability or not will not do. Taking
recourse to religious texts when one is clearly discussing a much complex
social problem reflects poorly on those who are claiming to be the champions of
social justice.
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A regular
contributor to NewAgeIslam.com, Arshad Alam is a writer and researcher on Islam
and Muslims in South Asia.
URL: https://newageislam.com/the-war-within-islam/dalit-muslims-scheduled-castes/d/129589
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