From: yogi sikand <ysikand@...>


Ali Anwar is the founder of the Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz
(`Marginalised Muslim Front'), Patna, Bihar, a union
of several Dalit Muslim and Backward Caste Muslim
organisations. A well-known Hindi journalist, he is
the author of `Masavat Ki Jang' (The Struggle for
Equality') and `Dalit Musalman' (`Dalit Muslims') and
writes regularly on issues related to the Backward
Caste/Dalit Muslims, who form the majority of the
Muslim population in India. In this interview with
Yoginder Sikand, he talks about his involvement in the
struggle for the rights of the Backward Caste/Dalit
Muslims.

Q: How did you get involved in the Backward
Caste/Dalit Muslim movement?
A: I belong to the Ansari community, which is one of
the largest Muslim communities in India. The ancestral
profession of the Ansaris is weaving. They are
considered as a `Backward Class' for purposes of
reservation. My family is from the Shahabad district
in Bihar. My grand-father was a horse-cart driver and
father was a mill-worker, and before me there was not
a single person in my family who had passed the
matriculation examination. The Ansaris in my area had
practiced weaving as a profession for generations,
but, with the onset of British rule and with the sort
of capitalist `development' that India went through
after 1947, this profession of theirs almost totally
decimated. That's why my parents and relatives, even I
as a child, were forced to take to rolling beedis to
supplement the meager income of our family.

As a child itself I was sensitized to the crass
oppression and poverty that I saw all around me. As a
student I got involved in leftist politics. This was
partly due to the influence of my father, who was a
trade unionist, associated with the All-India trade
Union Congress of the Communist Party of India (CPI).
My first involvement in people's struggles was when
some students of my high school in Dumraon started a
movement against the Maharaja of Dumroan, a dreaded
feudal lord who was also the manager of the school.
Thereafter, I joined the CPI, and I remained a
card-holder of the party for around 20 years.

Q: How did you take to journalism as a career? In
particular, what made you focus particularly on issues
related to the Dalits and Backward Castes?

A: My association with the CPI inspired me to take to
writing to document and highlight the oppression of
the poor and their struggles against feudal and
class/caste oppression. I worked for many years as
chief reporter with CPI's Hindi magazine `Janashakti'
based in Patna. However, over the years I also
discovered that within the communist parties casteism
continues to be rife. Most of the leaders of the
various communist parties are themselves from the
so-called `upper' castes, which is one reason why they
rarely talk of caste, but, instead, talk only in terms
of class. In a sense, for some of them this is a way
to perpetuate `upper' caste dominance.

My perception of the reality of caste oppression, both
among Hindus and Muslims, was further strengthened as
I traveled around Bihar as a journalist, and this was
reflected in the sort of articles that I began writing
after Janshakti closed down and I joined Navbharat
Times and later Jansatta and then Svatantra Bharat.
For instance, I did a story on the Police Lines in
Patna, where there are separate barracks and kitchens
for different castes, and another story on Dasrath
Manjhi, a Dalit worker, who literally broke half a
mountain with over a period of 19 years in order to
build a road. Another story I wrote was on how, as in
the case of the Hindus, many so-called ashraf or
`upper' caste Muslims use fake `Backward Caste' caste
certificates to get jobs reserved for the Backward
Classes. One such case was that of the grand-daughter
of Abdul Ghaffur, Bihar's only Muslim Chief Minister,
who belonged to the so-called `upper' caste Shaikh
caste but got a fake Backward Caste certificate to get
a government job reserved for Backward Castes. This
article, which was published in the `Hindustan',
created a great stir and I received many threatening
mails for having exposed this racket!

In 1996 I received the K.K.Birla Fellowship for
journalists to do a study on the Dalit/Backward Caste
Muslims, a subject about very little has been written,
although these Muslims constitute the vast majority of
the Indian Muslim population. Owing, among other
factors, to caste prejudice, `upper' caste Muslim
writers, Syeds, Shaikhs, Mughals and Pathans, as well
as non-Muslim scholars, have displayed little or no
interest in writing about the non-ashraf Muslims. This
is one reason why I thought it was crucial to write
about them and to highlight their pathetic conditions
and their struggles for equality and justice. And so I
began traveling around Bihar to document the lives of
the Dalit and Backward Caste Muslims in the state, the
report of which was later published as a book in Hindi
titled `Masavat Ki Jang' (`The Struggle for
Equality'). It has recently been translated and
published in English and Urdu as well.

Q: What are the major arguments that you have put
forward in your book?
A: I have tried to show, with the help of interviews,
oral histories as well as statistics, that although
the Backward Caste/Dalit Muslims form the overwhelming
majority among the Muslims of Bihar, they are victims
of pervasive discrimination and, on the whole, are
economically and educationally extremely marginalized.
The state has done little, if anything, for them, and,
instead, has sought to promote ashraf or so-called
`upper' caste Muslims, who form only a small minority
among the Muslims, as Muslim `leaders'. I tried to
highlight the nexus between the state and the
so-called ashraf political and religious leadership in
Bihar, a phenomenon that can be observed in other
parts of India as well. This explains, as I have
shown, how under various governments in Bihar
non-ashraf Muslims have hardly received any
representation, whether in successive ministries or in
government services. Most of the few Muslims who have
been so represented have been from the so-called
ashraf, and they do little, if at all, for the
non-ashraf Muslims, being hardly concerned about their
plight at all. In addition, I have highlighted the
fact that in large parts of Bihar the Backward
Caste/Dalit Muslims continue to face social
discrimination at the hands of both self-styled ashraf
Muslims as well as so-called `upper' caste Hindus. I
have shown how the leadership of large Muslim
religious organizations is almost completely in the
hands of the so-called ashraf Muslims.

Q: Could you tell us something about the Pasmanda
Muslim Mahaz? How was it established and what are its
objectives?
A: The Mahaz is a broad front of a number of Dalit and
Backward Caste Muslim organizations from different
states of India, particularly Bihar, Uttar Pradesh,
Jharkhand, West Bengal and Delhi. In the course of
conducting the research for the book that I was doing
I realized that the Dalit/Backward Caste Muslims are
hardly organized at all and that they have few
effective leaders. Till now they have been following
the lead of the so-called ashraf, both professional
politicians as well as maulvis, who have, as I said,
taken no particular interest in addressing their
pathetic socio-economic conditions. Like their `upper'
caste Hindu counterparts, they want us to focus only
on communal controversies or narrowly-defined
religious issues, and in this way seek to completely
displace the harsh reality of the lives of Dalits and
Backward Castes from political discourse. Hence, I,
along with several of my friends, set up the Mahaz in
Patna in 1998, to organize the Dalit/Backward Caste
Muslims so as to help evolve a leadership that would
be responsive to their concerns and which would also
seek to build alliances with non-Muslim Dalit/Backward
Caste groups so that we can engage in a broad united
struggle for our rights.

Q: What sort of work has the Mahaz been engaged in?
A: We have participated in several people's struggles
for justice to the Dalit/Backward Caste Muslims
through staging demonstrations, presenting memorandums
and bringing out publications. Recently, we launched a
Hindi magazine `Pasmanda Ki Awaz' (`The Voice of the
Oppressed'). This is the only Dalit/Backward Caste
magazine in this country, although the Dalit/Backward
Caste Muslim population in India is well over 100
million! Hardly any of the hundreds or even thousands
of other Muslim magazines and papers, not to speak of
media controlled by non-Muslims, ever talks about our
issues, such is the indifference to the problems and
plight of our people.

The Mahaz has also been pressing with the demand that
the State include Dalit Muslims, as well as Dalit
Christians, in the Scheduled Caste list. Due to an
extremely discriminatory Presidential Order issued in
1950, the state denied to Dalit Muslims and Dalit
Christians all the reservation and other benefits that
had been provided in the Constitution for Dalits. It
declared, going completely against all notions of
secularism, democracy and social justice, that such
benefits would be limited only to those Dalits who
claim to be `Hindus'. Later, due to political
compulsions, the state was forced to extend these
benefits to Dalit Sikhs and Dalit Buddhists. So, why,
we ask, should Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians,
too, not be included in the list of Scheduled Castes?
The so-called ashraf Muslim leadership has never
voiced this demand because they are not at all
interested in the plight of the Dalit Muslims. But I
think it is crucial that the Dalit Muslims be given
justice and treated by the state on par with `Hindu'
Dalits. Presently, they are classified, along with
several more powerful castes, as `Backward Classes'
instead of Scheduled Castes, because of which they
have not been able to benefit at all from `Backward
Caste' status. This is despite the fact that they
continue to practice the same occupations as `Hindu'
Dalits and face the same sort of discrimination and
oppression despite following Islam, a religion that is
fiercely opposed to caste and untouchability.

Q: How do you think the other Dalits would respond to
the demand of including Dalit Muslims and Dalit
Christians in the Scheduled Caste list? Might they not
oppose this on the grounds that this would result in a
reduction of whatever little benefits they are able to
procure from the state?
A: This problem can easily be solved if, while
including Dalit Muslims and Christians in the
Scheduled Caste list, the Scheduled Caste quota is
proportionately increased. In this way, the other
Dalits would not oppose this demand. In fact, they
would welcome it because in this way the Dalit
movement would itself be strengthened. After all, all
the Dalits, irrespective of religion, belong to the
same race and the blood of their common ancestors
flows in their veins.

Unlike the so-called ashraf Muslims, who take great
pride in their claim of foreign extraction, the Dalit
and Backward Caste Muslims are all of indigenous
origin, being descendants of converts from the
oppressed castes. This is why we don't use the words
`Dalit minority' or `Dalit Muslim minority' or
`Backward Caste Muslim minority'. We Dalits and
Backward Castes are not a minority at all. In fact,
taken together, we are in the majority, the `Bahujan',
forming over 85% of the Indian population, despite the
fact that we might follow different religions. We see
that the politics of communalism, fuelled by both
Hindu and Muslim elites, is aimed at divided us,
making us fight among ourselves, so that the elites
continue to rule over us as they have been doing for
centuries. This is why we in the Mahaz have been
seeking to steer our people from emotional politics to
politics centred on issues of survival and daily
existence and social justice, and for this we have
been working with non-Muslim Dalit and Backward Caste
movements and groups to struggle jointly for our
rights and to oppose the politics of communalism
fuelled by Hindu and Muslim `upper' caste elites.

Q: Some Muslim leaders, mainly from the so-called
ashraf, are demanding reservation for all Muslims in
government jobs and educational institutions. How do
you view this demand?
A: I am totally opposed to this demand. The
Constitution explicitly says that the reservation
policy is meant for socially and educationally
marginalized communities. How can anyone seriously
argue that all Muslims in the country are socially and
economically backward? Many of those who do argue in
this way actually seek thereby to promote the
interests of the educationally and economically
better-off ashraf, who would inevitably hog the lion's
share if a separate quota in jobs and educational
institutions was made for all Muslims, although they
form only a small proportion of the Muslim population.
This demand is also un-Constitutional, because nowhere
in the Constitution is there any provision for
reservation on the grounds of religion. Further, such
a demand is bound to fuel the fires of communalism and
Hindu-Muslim conflict, which would inevitably hurt the
Dalit/Backward Caste Muslims the worst, they being the
principal victims of communal violence.

Of late, some people, including some self-styled
leaders ashraf leaders, have been asking for a
separate Muslim Backward Caste quota within the larger
Other Backward Caste (OBC) quota, on the grounds that
the Muslim OBCs have not been able to benefit much
from the general OBC quota. I am opposed to this
demand as well. I think this is a crafty move to
create and promote communal strife between Hindu and
Muslim Backward Castes, which can only work to the
benefit of the `upper' caste Hindu and Muslim elites.


The claim that Muslim Backward Castes have not been
able to benefit much from the 27% quota set apart for
Backward Classes by the Mandal Commission because
these benefits have been cornered by some more
powerful and influential Hindu Backward Castes first
needs to be established. We have to conduct surveys to
show this, and this is something that has not been
done so far. Now, this claim might well be true, but
we can think of this later. We can't take up too many
issues at the same time. I believe that instead of a
separate Muslim quota in among the OBCs, we should
think of dividing the 27% quota that OBCs now have
into two, on the Bihar model: one for the `Most
Backward Classes' and the second for other OBCs. Both
categories would have Hindu and Muslim castes as well
as from other religions, depending on their
socio-educational conditions.

Q: Some Muslims, particularly from the so-called
ashraf, see the Dalit/Backward Caste Muslim movement
as `divisive' and `un-Islamic'. Some of them even go
so far as to claim that it is a `Hindu' or `Jewish'
conspiracy to set Muslims against each other. How do
you respond to this charge?

A: Yes, that is an accusation that I have been hearing
day in and day out. When we started our work we were
branded as `anti-Islamic'. Numerous maulvis, mostly of
so-called ashraf background, branded as `divisive' and
`dangerous' and appealed to Muslims to stay away from
us. Urdu newspapers, almost all controlled by the
so-called ashraf, also boycotted us, and refused to
publish anything about us. However, today, perhaps
because our movement has expanded and grown into a
powerful force, their open opposition has somewhat
declined.

Let me set the record straight here. We Dalit/Backward
Caste Muslims are believing Muslims. We take our faith
in Islam seriously. Islam, as the Qur'an says and as
the Prophet Muhammad showed in his own life, stands
for social equality and justice. It is completely
opposed to social hierarchy. So, when we are
protesting against inequality and injustice, how can
we be said to be going against Islam? On the contrary,
what we are doing is, in my view, actually mandated by
our religion. On the other hand, those who keep silent
on the plight of the Dalit/Backward Caste Muslims are
actually working against Islam, for they are
indifferent to its mandate of social justice and
equality. Among these are several maulvis who have
elaborated fanciful theories to argue the case for
caste hierarchy in the name of what they call in
Arabic kafa'a! And few of these maulvis take any
interest in our plight, being more concerned with the
details of minor fiqh or jurisprudential issues or
with promoting their own sectarian brand of Islam
while denouncing other Muslim sects as deviant.

Some so-called ashraf accuse us of dividing Muslims.
They say that caste has no sanction in Islam and they
accuse us of injecting the poison of caste into Muslim
society. Such people are completely blind to social
reality. Islam, it is true, has no conception of
caste, but Indian Muslim society is, by and large,
characterized by the existence of multiple castes. And
the so-called ashraf, for centuries, have taken pride
in being of foreign extraction, Arab or Iranian or
whatever, and considering the other Muslims, who are
all of indigenous Indian extraction, as being of `low'
caste. So, all this while the so-called ashraf have
been championing caste and division among Muslims
based on caste, but this does not strike our opponents
as `casteism' or as `un-Islamic', but the moment we
non-ashraf begin to speak oppose this system of ashraf
hegemony we are dubbed as divisive and `anti-Islam'
and so on. This reaction is no different from that of
many `upper' caste Hindus, who brand the Dalit
movement as `divisive', accusing it of reinforcing
caste, simply because the Dalit movement seeks to do
away with `upper' caste hegemony.

My answer to those who falsely accuse us of dividing
Muslims is that, far from doing so, we are trying to
untie the dozens of Dalit/Backward Caste Muslim
communities who have been kept divided for centuries!
We are trying to bring them—Ansaris, Halalkhors,
Kunjeras, Kalals, Dhuniyas, Mochis, and who knows how
many more such castes—together on a common platform to
voice their demands and concerns. Now, you tell me,
are we dividing these Muslims or uniting them? We are
not setting the Dalit/Backward Caste Muslims against
the so-called ashraf Muslims. Our movement is not
directed against them. Rather, we seek to strengthen
and empower our own people, to enable them to speak
for themselves and to secure their rights and justice
from the state. We welcome well-meaning people of
so-called ashraf background as well as non-Muslims who
are concerned about the plight of our people to join
us in our struggle.

When we are accused of dividing Muslims, our response
is, `You so-called ashraf have kept us divided for
centuries by fanning sectarian (maslaki) differences.
Why don't you put an end to this instead of telling us
what to do? You have created and magnified these
sectarian divisions for your own interest, to run your
own little religious and political shops, for which
you have not stopped even at promoting bloodshed and
hatred. First you put an end to this sectarian hatred
and division that you have created and then talk to
us'.

Today, numerous maulvis of different maslaks,
Deobandi, Barelvi, Jamaat-i Islami, Shia, Ahl-i Hadith
and who knows how many more, issue statements against
each other, some going to the extent of branding all
Muslims but themselves as `apostates' and even as
`enemies of Islam'! Is that not `dividing the
Muslims'? Why don't those who accuse the
Dalit/Backward Caste movement of dividing Muslims
condemn the way these maulvis are spreading such
serious sectarian conflict and dividing Muslims? Is it
because the vast majority of the leaders of these
maulvi groups are from the so-called ashraf, so that
when they fight on sectarian lines it is okay because
this does not threaten so-called ashraf hegemony, but
when they see the Dalit/Backward Caste Muslims getting
together to struggle for their rights, they set apart
their sectarian differences for the time being and
come together to condemn them as `divisive'?

This said, let me point out that not all so-called
ashraf Muslims behave this way. Not all of them are
opposed to our demands. In fact some of them, as well
as some Hindus of so-called `upper' caste background,
have been supporting our movement and demands. Yet, I
cannot help saying with deep regret that while several
`upper' caste Hindus have been supporting the Dalit
movement in different ways, very few `upper' caste
Muslims have taken any interest in the concerns of the
Dalit/Backward Caste Muslims.