Muslim
Dalits Denied Justice
By Irshadul Haque
27 June, 2007
Countercurrents.org
A
number of people are attending a unique marriage ceremony, being held
in a public space in a remote village in central Bihar. The bride and
the bridegroom move around the fire, a Hindu religious symbol, supervised
by a Pandit who recites Vedic mantras. The relatives and friends of
the couple are seated around them. As soon as the bride and the bridegroom
complete the seventh round of movement of fire, the priest declares,
'Now you are attached with the unbreakable bond of marriage. You are
now a couple according to the Hindu religion'.
But shortly after, the situation
takes a new turn and the environment changes like a scene from a traditional
Indian drama. The same bride and the bridegroom are seated clandestinely
in a locked house with only a few near relatives with them, under the
supervision of a Qazi, a Muslim priest who is responsible for performing
Muslim marriage ceremonies. The Qazi recites some verses of the Quran
and then asks the bridegroom in the presence of three witnesses, 'Do
you accept this girl as your life partner'? The bridegroom replies,
'Yes, I accept'. The Qazi declares the nikah, the Muslim marriage, to
have been completed and the couple to have been legally married under
Islamic law.
Is it possible for a person
to be follower of Hinduism and Islam at the same time, particularly
in such a society like India, where one's religious identity is given
such importance? Why did this couple follow the marital rituals of both
religions?
In fact, as it emerged, the
family of the bride and bridegroom used to be Muslim. However, they
found that certain constitutional rights and benefits are reserved by
law for Dalits or members of 'low' caste or socially marginalised communities,
like themselves, only if they declare themselves officially as Hindu,
Sikh or Buddhist. Hence, in order to be able to access these rights,
the couple had a formal Hindu marriage, declaring themselves as 'Hindus'.
The head of the family, who is in his early sixties, also changed his
Islamic name, and adopted a Hindu name. His wife did so too, after formally
declaring herself a Hindu. She keeps pictures of Hindu deities in her
sitting room, so that outsiders think of her family as Hindu, which
she says she is not. If the officials come to know that she is wrongly
claiming to be a Hindu, the family will be denied all Scheduled Caste-related
benefits.
A vital question is that
if they have declared themselves as 'Hindus', why did they follow the
Hindu as well as the Islamic way of marriage? Why did they not follow
only the Hindu way, as they had declared themselves 'Hindu'? Why did
they follow the Islamic way of marriage clandestinely, whereas they
got married the Hindu way in public? I asked this question to Dr Ejaz
Ali, head of the All-India Muslim Morcha, a Patna-based organisation
working for marginalized Muslims. He explained it as a result of economic
compulsion, although, he said, the couple still were emotionally attached
to Islam, evidence of which was the fact that they had also married
the Muslim way clandestinely. As he put it, "By officially declaring
themselves as Hindu Dalits in public, although still retaining their
affection for Islam, these poor people can get special constitutional
rights to government employment and reservations. But as Muslims they
cannot'.
This family belongs to the
Nat caste. The Nats are considered to be 'untouchables' by caste Hindus.
They are an impoverished nomadic community. Many of them survive through
begging. There are both Muslim as well as Hindu Nats. The Nats were
traditionally treated as 'untouchables' and so many of them converted
to Islam over the centuries, to escape caste oppression and in search
of social equality. After embracing Islam, the Muslim Nats changed only
marginally, in terms of religious beliefs, but their social, economical
as well as educational background remained the same.
As a Muslim, the Nat groom
referred to above had been observing various Islamic rituals. But one
day he formally declared himself a 'Hindu', because unlike Muslim Nats,
Hindu Nats are recognised as a Scheduled Caste by the state and can,
accordingly, benefit from various government programmes and schemes,
which Muslim Nats are legally denied, simply because of their religion
.Hence, the groom's conversion was tactical, not because of any religious
reason, but simply in the hope of some economic advancement. The man's
wife thinks that the law is iniquitous. 'If our brethren, the Hindu
Nats, can get special constitutional rights and on that basis can get
employment, then why not fellow Nats who are Muslims?. We are equally,
if not more, poor than them', she asserts.
According to a special provision
in article 341 of the Indian Constitution, 'untouchable' or Dalit communities,
termed as Scheduled Castes (SCs), get several special rights, including
reservations in education, employment and membership of Parliament as
well as states assemblies. But this special right has been extended
to only those who declare themselves to be Hindus, Buddhists or Sikhs,
while Muslim and Christian Dalits are denied these rights.
As Ejaz Ali argues, "This
constitutional provision compels Hindu Dalits not to embrace Islam or
Christianity. If they do they would lose the special constitutional
rights as well as several other benefits given by the states and the
union government." On the other hand, as the case of the Nat couple
shows, many Dalits who had historically converted to Islam feel that
it is better to declare themselves as Hindus and thereby access special
constitutional rights for Scheduled Castes'. As Ali Anwar, a veteran
journalist and member of the Rajya Sabha, who has written several books
on the socio-economic condition of marginalized Muslims, puts it, "This
constitutional provision is a violation of the Constitutional principle
of secularism'.
Irshadul Haque is a social activist and writer based
in Bihar. He can be contacted on [email protected]
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