1
INDIAN MUSLIMS, FIFTY YEARS IN
INDEPENDENT INDIA – AN EVALUATION
Asghar Ali Engineer
(Secular Perspective Feb. 16-28, 2002)
It is now more than fifty years since India became independent in
1947. India was unfortunately divided on the question of – and mainly on the question of
rights of Muslims in independent India and their share in power. Jinnah and his colleagues in
the Muslim League thought that “Muslim Homeland” was the best solution for Muslims to
enjoy their proper rights. For that Jinnah even propounded theory of two nations Muslims
being a separate nation and Hindus a separate one. Of course Lala Lajpat Rai had expressed
similar views in his articles in The Punjab Tribune in 1924. In fact all those who thought of
only one’s community, rather than the country as a whole, easily came to the conclusion that
each community is a nation and must have its own homeland.
In fact to homogenise the interests of a community itself is a communal way of
thinking. Neither all Hindus nor all Muslims have same interests. Each community is divided
on caste, regional, linguistic and cultural and class lines. Even Sir Syed when he talked of
education he meant education for what in those days were referred to as ashraf (upper caste,
upper class) Muslims and not ajlaf (lower caste artisans) Muslims as his speech in
Moradabad while inaugurating school for children of weavers shows.
Similarly there was nothing in common between dalits and sawarnas (upper caste
Hindus) as far as their political and economic interests were concerned. Baba Saheb
Ambedkar had to fight hard for bargaining for dalit rights. Jinnah, on the other hand, was
fighting for the interests of upper caste, upper class Muslims. He hardly, if ever, cared for
low caste poor artisans and indebted Muslim peasantry. When the noted poet Iqbal who was
then president of Punajb Muslim League, wrote to Jinnah for doing something for the poor
indebted Muslim peasantry of the Punjab Jinnah replied by quietly dropping Iqbal from the
presidentship of the Punjab Muslim League.
Thus no religious community should be treated as homogenous whatever the bonds
of religion. Religious bonds are important but cannot be the only player in the vast complex
of socio-economic life. But the communal leaders always use strong religious rhetoric to
confuse the religious and spiritual matters with material interests. Pakistan was created for
the upper caste and ruling class Muslims by using religious rhetoric and though it was called
‘Muslim Homeland’ overwhelming majority of Muslims in Pakistan still lives in poverty and
literacy rates are quite low, even lower than average Indian Muslims.
Also, Pakistan was created to solve the “communal problem” and to put an end to
communal violence in India. Even the Congress leadership thought that creation of Pakistan
will solve the communal problem. But this is the problem, which has not been solved since
partition in 1947. Except brief period of lull in fifties our country has witnessed riot after riot
in the post-independence period, some of which shook not only the country but also the
2
international community. The communal violence in Bombay after demolition of Babri
Masjid is an example of such riot.
Thus it is in this respect (i.e. in respect of communal violence) all Muslims, rich or
poor, Urdu speaking or Tamil or Malayalam speaking, have felt insecure in the independent
India. Still there seems to be no solution to this problem. Earlier Hindus were thought to be
much more tolerant than Muslims but now we see that it is the BJP-Vishwa Hindu ParishadBajrang Dal type of Hindus who are displaying real intolerance and fanaticism. Today, the
main pre-occupation of Saffron family seems to be Ram mandir in Ayodhya as if a great
country like India has no other problem. One would find hardly more intolerance than in the
Saffron family today. It is these people who brought disgrace to the otherwise secular and
tolerant politics of India.
The security-related issues have become highly worrisome for the minorities,
particularly the Muslims and Christians. The BJP’s claim that no communal riot takes place
under its rule is also bereft of any truth. Number of riots, in fact, have taken place under the
BJP rule. The latest example was that of Kanpur riot in March 2001 and PAC’s role in it was
flagrantly communal. Maximum number of riots of course took place during the eighties of
the twentieth century during the Congress rule but that gives no relief to the Janasangh or its
later avtar BJP. Most of these riots were planned and executed by the people of the Sangh
Parivar. The congress can be of course blamed for its complicity or laxity. The BJP was
mainly responsible for major communal riots during the eighties.
Though it was cleverly blaming the Congress for ‘appeasing the Muslims’ and
creating the Muslim vote bank but in fact what it was doing was to appease the upper caste
Hindus and creating its upper caste Hindu vote bank. Its Mandir agitation was nothing but
sustained efforts to create a ‘Hindu‘ vote-bank and it succeeded eminently in that effort, at
least for the time being. It was during the eighties when the BJP which had taken vow at the
Gandhi Samadhi to adopt Gandhian socialism and secularism in 1980 (and also earlier in
1977 while merging with the Janata Party) that it used the communal card to get the Hindu
vote most aggressively.
It was the competitive communalism between the BJP and the Congress in early
eighties, which resulted in aggravation of communalism in post-independence India as never
before. It was thanks to it aggressive communal politics that ultimately the BJP came to
power at the head of NDA coalition at the Centre. Thus the political parties are doing their
power politics at the cost of lives of minorities and hence the security-related issues become
most urgent for them. In each major riot that took place during the eighties more than 300
people were killed in every riot.
Apart from security-related issues there are other issues which are of material
existence. Generally the Muslims left in India after the partition were mostly artisan caste
Muslims in urban areas or landless peasantry and other categories of poor Muslims in rural
areas, the rich and the powerful among them having left for Pakistan for greener pastures.
The levels of illiteracy also have been lowest after dalits among the Muslims in India. Hardly
any thing concrete has been done to alleviate their poverty.
The economic and social backwardness among the Muslims can be compared only
with that of dalits even after fifty or more years of independence in India. There is no
3
religion-based data available but the Gopal Singh High Commission Report on Muslims and
dalits appointed by Mrs. Gandhi in 1980 gives us some idea about the economic
backwardness of Muslims. The report was submitted in 1983. The comparative data whatever
the Gopal Singh High Commission could gather, show that the plight of Muslims is no better
than that of dalits, and in many respects worse than that of dalits.
Data collected from sample survey done by GOI shows that while 66.6% dalits live in
kutccha houses, 65.9% Muslims too occupy kutchcha houses. And while 22.6% dalits have
access to piped water only 19.4% Muslims have such an access. The poverty head count
among the dalits is 50, among the Muslims is 43. And the capability poverty per cent among
the dalits is 60, among the Muslims it is 56.
Among the dalits and Scheduled tribes the percentage of literacy is 40 while among
the Muslims it is 50. The school enrolment rate among Muslims is only 62 percent almost at
parity with the SCs and STs whereas among the upper caste Hindus it is 72%. Total
percentage of matriculates among Muslims it is only 5.9 percent while among the SCs it is
4.9 per cent and among the caste Hindus it is 8.5 per cent.
What is deplorable is that most of the secular parties also have exploited Muslims to
get their votes without going further than rhetoric. All these parties have been very strong on
rhetoric but very weak in fulfilling their promises. The Muslim leaders have been no better in
this respect. Their rhetoric has been no less seductive for the common Muslims. These
Muslim leaders also have devoted much of their energy in bargaining for Muslim personal
law than on economic upliftment of poor and backward Muslim masses. Some of them even
use this rhetoric to fulfil their own ambitions. And some leaders have been even reckless in
their irresponsible postures thereby strengthening the hands of communal forces in the
majority community.
What is most urgent today is to build awareness among the Muslim masses of their
exploitation by both communal and ‘secular’ politicians in India and as to what role they
themselves can play by joining hands with those political forces with whom they can bargain
for their better future than relying on mere rhetoric of their own leaders. Minorities have to
be very skilful in utilising the space provided by democracy to them. The Muslim
intellectuals can play creative role by setting up think tanks in areas of Muslim
concentrations. For the first time the members of the Milli Council have conducted surveys in
such areas in U.P. to advise Muslims as to whom to vote for in different areas to defeat the
BJP. But this is one aspect of the problem. An over all strategy is also needed to do proper
bargaining for real uplift of Muslims masses.
This needs real hard work and without such dedicated work improvement in the
plight of Muslim masses along with others is not possible. Also, it is not enough to go for
political alliance with dalits; there is also need for alliance in the field of economic and
educational progress by drawing up common strategies with the weaker sections of the
society as a whole. For this dalit and backwards and Muslim intellectuals will have to join
hands to work out common strategies. Neither the Muslim political leadership nor the dalit
political leadership can be divested of their electoral rhetoric nor their power seeking politics;
it is only dedicated intellectuals who can play this role.
4
