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Demands by ‘low’-caste Muslims for reservations on the basis of caste are quickly denounced as going against Islamic unity
In theory, Islam is an egalitarian religion. The Quran stresses that the sole criterion for judging one’s superiority is piety. Neither wealth nor caste count in God’s eyes. Despite this, Indian Muslim society is, on the whole, divided into numerous largely endogamous caste-like groups. They are generally ranked in a hierarchical fashion, similar in some ways to the Hindu caste system, although the rigidity of this system of ranking differs across the country.
Indian Muslims who claim West or Central Asian descent, such as the Syeds, Shaikhs, Pathans, and Mughals—the so-called Ashraf or ‘nobles’—generally regard themselves as superior to Muslims of indigenous origin, who form the vast majority of the Indian Muslim population. This owes to several factors: the geographical proximity of West and Central Asia to Arabia; the fact that the putative ancestors of the Ashraf arrived in India as conquerors and ruled most of the land for several centuries; the ‘refined’ Indo-Persian culture of the Ashraf and their historically closer association with scriptural Islam, Arabic, Persian and Urdu; and a feeling of racial superiority on account of differences in skin colour. Historically, the centuries of what is often, but mistakenly, described as ‘Muslim’ rule in India was the rule of the Ashraf (in association with sections of the Hindu ‘upper’ castes). It was from their ranks that rulers, judges, landlords, governors, and famous Sufis and ulema emerged. Like ‘upper’ caste Hindus, many Ashraf tended to look down on the indigenous Muslims (mostly of ‘low’ and ‘middle’ caste origin), who remained tied down to their ancestral professions despite the process of Islamisation that they had undergone to various degrees.
The historical base of the Ashraf coincided with the Hindu Aryavarta or the ‘cow-belt’, what is now Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and parts of Bihar. This is where many important Ashraf-built Muslim institutions are located, some set up in pre-colonial times, and many others during the period of British rule and thereafter. This was the base of the Deobandi, Ahl-e Hadith and Barelvi ulema, the Tablighi Jamaat and the Jamaat-e Islami, and the Muslim League and the ‘nationalist’ Muslims. This was also a region which witnessed fierce competition between Hindu and Muslim elites, being also the bastion of Hindu revivalist groups. All this had important consequences for the evolution of Indian Muslim political discourse from the colonial period onwards, whose effects continue to be visible even today.
The Ashraf of Aryavarta dominated Muslim politics in the British period, and continue to do so today, seeing themselves as ‘natural leaders’ of all the Muslims of India. Steeped in a culture shaped heavily by the feudal traditions of their ancestors, and hailing from a region that witnessed sharp Hindu-Muslim polarization and conflicts from the turn of the nineteenth century onwards, the Ashraf of Aryavarta saw the Muslims of India in their own image. Inevitably, issues of particular concern to them were projected as issues that concerned all the Muslims of India. (Likewise, ‘upper’ caste Hindus from Aryavarta presented these issues, which related principally to them, as issues that concerned all the Hindus of India). These ranged from the Hindi-Urdu and cow-slaughter/cow-protection controversies in the late nineteenth century, to wrangling between Hindu and Muslim elites for patronage under the colonial system and then the Pakistan movement in the years before Partition, to issues such as discrimination against Urdu (the language the Ashraf of Ayavarta cherish as their own, but which they tend to project as the language of virtually all Indian Muslims), threats to the minority character of the Aligarh Muslim University (once the bastion of the ‘modern’-educated Aryavarta Ashraf middle-class) and the Babri Masjid-Ramjanambhumi controversy. The Aryavarta Ashraf (as with the ‘upper’ caste Hindus of Aryavarta in the Hindu case) thus saw, and continue to see, themselves as ‘natural’ spokesmen of all the Muslims of the country, thus seeking to hegemonise Indian Muslim political discourse.
This has had crucial consequences for the ability of other Indian Muslim voices to be heard at the ‘All-India’ level. Thus, for instance, South Indian Muslims, who, on the whole, have fared considerably better than their north Indian counterparts in terms of economic and educational development, and whose relations with their Hindu neighbours have been marked by considerably less controversy, hardly find any representation in the numerous Muslim organizations, mostly based in Delhi, that claim to speak on behalf of all the Muslims of India. This problem is not unique to the Muslims, however. Aryavarta Hindu elites, too, see themselves as the arbiters of the destiny of all the Hindus of India. Perhaps this stems, in large measure, to the historic Aryan-Dravidian divide and the deep-rooted prejudices among many north Indians against South Indians, mainly on account differences of race, colour and language.
Likewise, non-Ashraf (or so-called Ajlaf or ‘low’ caste) Muslims from Aryavarta and other parts of the country find little or no presence in the Muslim outfits that claim to speak on behalf of the Muslims of India, despite the fact that they heavily outnumber the Ashraf. This owes to a long tradition of caste prejudice, and the fact that, by and large, the so-called Ajlaf historically did not witness any significant upward social mobility despite their conversion to Islam. Consequently, issues of pressing concern to the majority of the ‘low’ caste/class Muslims, such as rampant poverty, landlessness, illiteracy and unemployment, caste discrimination, rapid economic marginalization due to the ‘liberalisation’ of the economy that is fast destroying the resource base of Muslim artisan communities, and the meager representation of ‘low’ caste Muslims in government services, rarely, if ever, find mention in the discourse of Ashraf politicians. Nor are they often reflected in the activities engaged in by many Ashraf-led organizations or in the demands that these make on the state. Indeed, on some counts, several of these organizations and leaders have taken positions that explicitly harm the interests of the ‘low’ caste majority, such, as for instance, in opposing reservations for Dalit and OBC Muslims, using the specious argument (which resonates with that of Hindutva ideologues in the Hindu case) that this would allegedly divide the Muslim community against itself.
Although for long subdued, the voices of non-Aryavarta Muslims as well as non-Ashraf Muslims more generally are now gradually beginning to be heard, thereby helping the issues and concerns of minorities (in terms of power, not in terms of numbers) within the larger Indian Muslim community to be publicly articulated and heard. For many entrenched male Ashraf elites, these voices, that directly or otherwise challenge their hegemony, are seen as disruptive of an imagined monolithic and firmly united Muslim community of which they claim to be the ‘natural spokesmen’. Often, these voices are denounced as being motivated by ‘anti-Islamic’ sentiments. Demands by ‘low’-caste Muslims for reservations on the basis of caste are quickly denounced as going against Islamic unity because, it is argued, Islam does not recognize caste. Ironically, at the same time, the Ashraf rarely, if ever, marry with the non-Ashraf, and many Ashraf ulema continue to misinterpret Islamic jurisprudence to seek to justify the caste system. Clearly, it is time that the voices of these subaltern groups, who together form the majority of the Indian Muslim population, must be listened to.
(The writer can be reached at ysikand@gmail.com)
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