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. ----- 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. ----- A regular contributor to NewAgeIslam.com, Arshad Alam is a writer and researcher on Islam and Muslims in South Asia. 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