Indian Muslims Are Forging A New Path Towards Secularism Within The Framework Of Indian Democracy

By Grace Mubashir, New Age Islam 9 April 2024 As They Navigate Through A Post-Islamist Phase, They Are Blending Constitutional Principles Of Freedom, Justice, And Equality With Their Religious Beliefs. Main Points: 1. Despite facing increased marginalization and dwindling political representation, Indian Muslims have largely resisted radicalization. Instead, they are embracing a rights-based approach, prioritizing socio-economic concerns over religious reform 2. Even Islamist groups are adopting a rights-centred vocabulary, albeit with a preference for religious morality in certain areas such as personal law and religious practices 3. In essence, Indian Muslims are redefining secular politics by integrating constitutional values with religious beliefs ------- Protests against initiatives such as the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens have reinvigorated secularism in India's political discourse. Led initially by the Muslim community, these protests have gained traction among students, civil society groups, and political parties. What's noteworthy is the language employed by Muslim activists, which predominantly revolves around Constitutional rights guaranteed to all citizens, rather than religious rhetoric. Despite facing increased marginalization and dwindling political representation, Indian Muslims have largely resisted radicalization. Instead, they are embracing a rights-based approach, prioritizing socio-economic concerns over religious reform. This shift is evident in various spheres, including education, where most Muslim children attend secular schools rather than religious institutions. Even Islamist groups are adopting a rights-centred vocabulary, albeit with a preference for religious morality in certain areas such as personal law and religious practices. This shift is reflected in the transformation of organizations like the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, which have moved from rejecting secular democracy to embracing religious pluralism and democratic principles. Moreover, Muslim groups are forming alliances with other marginalized communities, exemplified by the support for leaders like Chandrashekhar Azad of the Bhim Army. However, the alliance between Muslims and Hindu Dalits remains somewhat tenuous due to disparities in socio-economic interests. In essence, Indian Muslims are redefining secular politics by integrating constitutional values with religious beliefs. Their rejection of mainstream liberal secularism, which often disregarded their socio-economic concerns, has breathed new life into the concept of participatory democracy. By asserting their rights within the democratic framework, they are shaping a more inclusive and equitable future for India. People usually think that when majoritarian politics take over, Indian Muslims will become more extreme. But this focus on basic rights goes against that idea. Every day, the government is becoming more hostile toward Muslims because of the communal policies. It makes their social and economic exclusion worse. It is not only clear that cops are biased against Muslims when they break the law, but it is also written into the law. For example, to "maintain demographic equilibrium," the Disturbed Areas Act in Gujarat makes it very hard for Hindus and Muslims to buy and sell land in urban Gujarat. In addition, the number of Muslim MPs in the Lok Sabha is the lowest it has been since independence. Out of the 543 MPs, only 25 are Muslims, which is six more than in the last Lok Sabha. In spite of the fact that Muslims only make up 14.2% of India's population, this gives them just over 4.5% of the Lower House. In January 2018, only four of the BJP's 1,418 MLAs were Muslims. However, the party's strength in Northern and Western Indian states has decreased since then. Even so, the fact that Indian Muslims are becoming less visible (they are the "fifth column" of Indian society for Hindu nationalists) has not led to radicalization, except in a few isolated cases in Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala. In fact, the most recent pro-democracy protests show that India's Muslims are creating a new language of secularism through civil symbols and sometimes creatively mixing them with religious themes. Constitutional Language Based On Rights This shows a big change in the Muslim community's political strategy over the years: Indian Muslims now value a language of rights more than the religious and moral tasks that Islamic reformists stress. Almost all of the time, Muslim female groups have used human rights knowledge. One example is the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, which has spoken out against women not being able to enter Dargahs and for women to have the freedom to make their own choices in life. A lot of work has been done by "non-religious" Muslim groups, like Pasmanda, which is short for low-caste and Dalit Muslims, in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra to fix the problem of caste-based socioeconomic backwardness among Muslims through representative politics. Protests for democracy are happening now in many parts of India, mostly by Muslim women who don't have a leader. In public, holding portraits of BR Ambedkar, MK Gandhi, and Savitribai Phule, reading the Preamble of the Indian Constitution, and flying the national flag have become more important than religious beliefs. There's no doubt that the "storm of West" inspired Mohammad Iqbal's poetic discovery, but the "storm of Hindutva" is turning Muslims into secularists. It's not that Indian Muslims didn't support secular goals before; what this means is that active support of constitutional and secular symbols is something new and different that they bring to the table. To speak this rights-based language with more confidence, Muslims are focusing less on moral change and more on social, political, and educational ways to make progress. In India, most Muslim kids go to open schools, despite what people think. In 2006, only 7% of Muslim kids ages 7 to 19 who were old enough to go to school went to a madrassa. Half of the people who went to a madrassa also went to a regular school and took religion classes on the side. Even Islamists are starting to use language that focuses on rights, even though they often value religious morals over constitutional ideals, especially when it comes to personal law and religious practices. New Signs And A New Name My study on two Islamic reformist groups that work in Gujarat, a state that was the testing ground for Hindu nationalist politics, confirms this clear shift toward putting economic issues ahead of reformist activities. For example, these groups run Muslim charity schools that have separate classrooms for boys and girls and a part-time religious education. These schools follow the state-mandated curriculum, so they are kind of like a mix between a regular school and a part-time madrassa. Their goal is clear: to help Muslim children learn new skills and improve their ability to learn because the government has been ignoring them for so long. This way, these Islamic radicals deal with secular modernity on their own terms, using Islamic reasons to back them up. By giving up some of their beliefs about how religious truth is always right, they find a new moral reason to take secular views. My results are similar to those written by Irfan Ahmed in his 2009 book Islamism and Democracy in India. Ahmed's book is about how the values of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, an Islamist group that was founded in 1941, have changed in a very interesting way. The Jamaat used to be against secular democracy and nationalism around the time of the Partition of the Indian subcontinent. But starting in the 1990s, they started to believe religious freedom, tolerance, and a democratic system. As Jamaat has a history of supporting the Pakistan movement and is thought to have been involved in terrorist actions through its student group, the Students' Islamic Movement of India, these changes in ideology are very important. In India, the Jamaat has given up on its goal of creating an Islamic state and encourages its members to work in the social sciences, journalism, and the public service, often with the help of civil society organizations. This trend can also be seen in the way that political groups that focus on the Muslim issue, like the Welfare Party of India and Asaduddin Owaisi's All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, work. Asaduddin Owaisi's All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen is one example of a changing Muslim-centred political party. This change in the way people talk about things is slowly letting Muslim groups build relationships with other disadvantaged groups that face the same threats and worries. In the past few years, this trend has been shown by the fact that most Muslims have supported Chandrashekhar Azad as head of the Bhim Army. However, the partnership between Muslims and Hindu Dalits is still not completely clear-cut because Muslim groups are dominated by upper Ashraf castes whose social and economic goals are not aligned with those of Dalit-led groups. All of this makes it clear that Indian Muslims are now in a post-Islamist era, where Islamic ideas are mixed with constitutional ideas of freedom, justice, and equality. Many people have lost faith in the mainstream liberal brand of secularism because it either didn't like religious symbols or didn't like seeing religion in public at all. This has made them more open to this localized form of secularism. At best, liberal supporters of secularism didn't pay attention to the economic problems of Muslims, especially low-caste and Dalit Muslims. Instead, they rallied behind meaningless arguments in support of secularism that didn't have much of an impact on the public. At its worst, Muslims were called a group of people who believed in things from prehistoric times. Indian Muslims' pro-democracy movements have given both secular and participatory democracy a new lease on life by bringing these flaws to light, though it is too early to say for sure. ----- A regular columnist for NewAgeIslam.com, Mubashir V.P is a PhD scholar in Islamic Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia and freelance journalist. URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-politics/indian-muslims-path-secularism-indian-democracy/d/132108 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism