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Hindustan Mein Zaat-Paat Aur Musalman (Urdu)
Author: Masood Alam Falahi
Publisher: Al-Qazi, F-A/86, Abul Fazl Enclave, New Delhi 110025
Price:Rs.250/-
“Bhai saheb! My village is completely Pakistan which is surrounded by India”. “What do you mean by India and Pakistan?”, I asked. Only Sheikhs and Syeds live in the village and on the periphery, there are settlements of Kunjras (Green-grocers), Qasais (Butchers), Jolhas (Weavers), Dhuniyas (Cotton-carders), Nais (Barbers),etc”, he replied. (An excerpt from the book, p: 453).
The discourse (secular/ religious/ both) on the South Asian Muslims has been so ashraf-driven that either it hardly engages, in a pragmatic fashion, the issues of social equality as a tool to put an end to economic and cultural exclusions, or whenever it tries to address them (the issues of social equality), it does so with great rhetoric. Mohammad Iqbal’s verse “Ek Hi Saf Me Khade Ho Gaye Mahmud-o-Ayaz / Na Koi Banda Raha Na Koi Banda Nawaz,” very aptly exemplifies the extent of simplicity and rhetoric the ulama and the Islamists have reduced such a complicated question to. Another limitation which categorizes their narratives on the theme is that they do it to woo the ummat-i-da’wah to embrace Islam, not to radicalize the behavioural aspect of the concept of equality among the believers. Being a narrative of an Islamist alim, though the book under-review also carries some of these limitations and biases, it offers fresh information on the theme and throws a host of questions to ruminate on.
In the light of the insights obtained from years of ethnography on the caste demography of the Indian Muslims, the present volume problematizes the social equality project of textual Islam, especially when the latter negotiates with the strong local societal institutions. That process of theology manufacturing is marked by a constant reproduction of the local societal institutions and hence their perpetuations, is another motif of the book. What enhances its complexity is the academic and ideological location of the author and his approach to the politics of jurisprudence production. To put the book in perspective, one needs to explain briefly the dominant discourse about discrimination and forms of social exclusion among Indian Muslims, before delving into the genealogy of the volume and the saga of its several rejections from the publishers.
Apart from social intercourse, the caste-based discriminatory praxis among Muslims find expressions in at least five forms: khilafat, imamat, kufu/kafa’at, employment and education. Majority of the ulama consider khilafat a prerogative of the descendents of the Prophet while it is only ashrafs who jurisprudentially qualify for the imamat (to lead the prayer in the mosque). Further, the ulama deem the observance of ‘Kufu” mandatory for the islamicality of a marital alliance. Literally meaning eligible/suitable/equal, the kufu in its hermeneutical sense, stands for the following: four castes of the ashrafs (Syeds, Sheikhs, Mughals and Pathans) are generally considered suitable marriage partners for each other, making it a complete endogamous affair while the ajlaf (communities based on professions) can marry only among themselves, not the ashrafs. The arzals (the untouchables) form the socially and physically excluded lot of the Muslim society. Moreover, no Jadidul Islam (new converts to Islam) can marry a Qadeemul Islam (a person whose family has been within the pale of Islam for more than a generation), due to the temporal distance which comes to characterize their association with Islam. The textual Islam (the Qur’an and the Hadiths) does not conceive social organisation of the Muslims in terms of these stratifications, however majority of the Indian ulama have been justifying the same in the jurisprudence, through interpretations of the Qur’anic verses which serve their purpose and also with the help of concocted ahadith.
Due to several factors like socio-democratic programmes of the Constitution, secular character of the Indian polity, industrialization-led-intense process of urbanisation, etc, have reduced the occurrence of other discriminatory praxis, however, the institution of Kufu is still violently in practice. It has thus continued to come under criticism from the backward caste ulama time and again. In this regard, among others, Mufti Habibur Rahman Azmi’s monograph Ansaab Wa Kafa’at Ki Shar‘i Haisiyat and Maualana Abdul Hamid Nomani’s tract Masla-i-Kufu Aur Isha’at-i-Islam as critiques of the dominant narrative of the Kufu deserve mentioning here. Though Masood Falahi’s book comes to signify the most recent effort in this series of protest writings, it marks a departure from its predecessors in several ways.
A graduate of Jamiatul Falah, Azamgarh, the central madrasa of Jama’at-i-Islami Hind, Masood’s has an insider’s take on Jama’at’s real politic and work-culture. In fact, one of the important reasons which prompted him to write the book is the casteist behaviour of the cadres and office-bearers of the Jama’at. (P373). In addition to engaging the issue in normative fashion, he quotes instances from real life of the predominantly ashraf leadership of the Jama’at. “Personal histories, interviews, observations and incidents which the author has been a witness to”(P27-28), thus, constitute a major chunk of the book. On a much larger plane, he applies the same strategy of data-collection to the outstanding ulama of all denominations and prominent religious bodies of Indian Muslims. That is why potential of his book to critique the agenda and vision of the present Muslim religious establishment and Islamist leadership is simply unmatched.
It is against this backdrop, one needs to understand why Jama’at-i-Islami Hind, after three years of dilly-dallying discovered that it could not publish Masood’s monograph and why an Ahl-i-Hadith publisher from the city of Maunath Bhanjan, Uttar Pradesh demanded to remove those portions of the book which offered insights about the caste-driven writings of the Ahl-i-Hadith ulama and practical politics of the present establishment of Markazi Jami’at Ahl-i-Hadith Hind. Interestingly enough, before he found his publisher, Jamia Asaria Darul Hadith, an Ahl-i-Hadith madrasa of Maunath Bhanjan, had started a serial reproduction of some portions from the book in each issue of its monthly magazine Aasar-i-Jadid (from February 2007).
Divided into ten chapters, the timeline of Masood’s narrative starts with the Aryan invasion on India and comes down to the current period. His hypotheses is that the Muslim intellectuals (religious/secular), instead of discouraging the caste-based discrimination among the Indian Muslims, have consciously or unconsciously projected it as an Islamic concept and tinkered with the classical Islamic texts to lend it a jurisprudential sanction. Consequently, it has caused an irreparable damage to the process of proselytization of Islam in the country. Having realised the gravity of circumstances, some contemporary ulama and intellectuals, in their individual capacity, tried to challenge the islamicality of the caste discrimination. India has yet to witness a movement which has had at the core of its programme: struggle against caste-discriminations among Muslims.
What may really come as a shocking discovery to a reader of the book is the following line by Khwaja Syed Hasan Nizami: “Though there is a provision for equality within Islam, Allah has created Julahas to serve the higher caste groups”. Sufism is regarded as the most liberal expression of the proselytizing Islam which has done its best to accommodate local traditions, with due respect to their autonomy, within the master-narrative of Islam. Sufism in India thus, due to its accommodative character, does not only reproduce the social biases, but reinforces them as well, as is evident from the advocacy of a form of social exclusion by one of the doyens of the Sufi traditions in India.
In Masood’s narrative-design, theological insights enrich the findings of social scientists so that a wider picture of the dynamics of the caste praxis in the Muslim society can emerge. His borrowings from Ali Anwar, Imtiaz Ahmad, Aijaz Ali, V.T.Rajashekhar, etc, are not just reproductions or para-phrasings, he differed from them or critiqued them on several occasions. Moreover, he also shows occasionally the upfront confrontation between the ulama and the secular intelligentsia.
In short, Masood’s first book makes an interesting reading on the issue of the caste discriminations. One may differ from him on several points he makes and conclusions he draws, but the disagreement neither undermines the utility of the tons of information he provides for the future scholars nor does it overshadow the relevance of the questions he raises in the book.
(Arshad Amanullah can be reached at arshad.mcrc@gmail.com)
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