Muslim
Deprivation: Some Thoughts
In The Context Of The Sachar Committee Report
By Yoginder Sikand
28 May, 2007
Countercurrents.org
[Paper presented at a conference
on the Sachar Committee Report, 19 May, 2007, Trivandrum, organised
by the Forum for Social Action]
This
presentation is not a rigorously-argued academic paper. Instead, it
seeks to offer stray thoughts on the very complex issue of the sociology
of Indian Muslim deprivation in the light of the Sachar Committee Report.
Rather than focusing on the deep-rooted historical causes as well as
dimensions of Muslim deprivation, about which much has already been
written, I would rather reflect on certain other aspects related to
this question, in addition to making a critique of some aspects of the
Sachar Committee Report and also offering some suggestions for Muslim
organizations to consider.
The first issue that I would
like to deal with relates to the literature and knowledge-base that
we have on the subject of Muslim deprivation. In this regard, reference
to an interview I recently conducted with a senior Muslim leader is
pertinent. I asked him what he felt about the Sachar Committee Report.
His reply was that the overall findings and conclusions of the report
were hardly novel. The same basic findings—that Muslims, by and
large, are a deprived community and suffer from various levels of discrimination
and neglect—have been repeatedly highlighted by Muslims themselves,
in addition to various committees and commissions appointed by the Central
and state governments in the past. After the Sachar Committee Report
was sent to the Government of India, he said, it had done almost nothing
at all, failing to act on the recommendations of the report. He was
not optimistic that the Government would do much in any case. It had
not tabled the Report in Parlimant, a sign that it was probably not
interested in doing anything about it. 'We'll just have to wait and
see', he replied, clearly not expecting much to come of the report.
He rightly made the point that it was quite possible that, as in the
case of numerous such committee reports in the past, this report, too,
would be left ignored by the Government and that it would simply be
used as a means to garner Muslim votes, at best to justify a few cosmetic
sops to some Muslims in order to preserve or expand the vote-bank of
a certain political party. I think that sums up the feeling that large
sections of the Muslims who are aware of the report have about it.
This Muslim leader I interviewed
made some other interesting points with reference to the Sachar Committee
Report. Although the fact of Muslim deprivation and anti-Muslim discrimination
was something that Muslim organizations and leaders have been constantly
repeating, he said, now it was the Government itself that was acknowledging
this fact, through the committee that it had appointed. Hence, the complaints
of Muslim leaders and organizations could no longer be taken as exaggerated
or false, he said. Nor could remedial measures to address the issue
of Muslim deprivation be dismissed as unwarranted 'minority appeasement',
as the Hindutva right-wing argues. Hence, he said, even if the Government
failed to act on the recommendations of the Sachar Committee Report,
at least now Muslims would have with them an official document issued
by the Government which they could use to argue their case of being
a deprived community and, therefore, deserving of positive discrimination.
Turning the question in a
somewhat different direction, I asked this leader why it was that we
have had to wait all these years for a Government-appointed committee
to tell or convince us of the obvious fact of Muslim deprivation. Why
is it, I asked, that Muslim organizations have not done any sort of
serious academic research and analysis on the subject in order to highlight
the fact of Muslim deprivation and to press the case for greater involvement
of civil society groups as well as the state in addressing the issue.
His answer simply was to say that if any Muslim organization had produced
a document of this sort it would not have been treated as 'reliable'
or 'authentic' by the state or by many non-Muslims simply because it
had been authored or commissioned by a Muslim individual or organisation,
even if it had been entirely accurate—a sign of the deep-rooted
prejudices in our society that are so difficult to challenge.
This point relates to the
broader issue of scholarship on Indian Muslims, including on the crucial
aspect of their overall deprivation. Obviously, understanding the roots
and the various facets and dimensions of Muslim deprivation and then
doing something practical about it requires serious scholarship, which
is seriously lacking today. There exist relatively few well-researched,
empirically based studies of contemporary Indian Muslim society. Much
that has been written about the Indian Muslims is simply historical.
It is as if Indian Muslim history stops at 1947, at the Partition. And
even here the focus is on the history of Muslim elites, be they various
Muslim ruling dynasties or Muslim princes or ulema who fought the British
in 1857 or the leaders of the Muslim League and Muslims in the Congress
Party. 'Ordinary' Muslims, that is to say, the vast majority of the
Indian Muslims, have received find very little attention in the existing
corpus of writings.
Coming to the post-1947 period,
here, too, there is a great paucity of serious scholarship on the empirical
realities and conditions of the Indian Muslims. Much that has been written
on the subject has been in a journalistic mode, lacking sufficient empirical
depth, and often tending to make overly broad and untenable generalizations,
thereby reinforcing negative stereotypes. Further, the limited corpus
of writings on the subject is dominated by the question of secularism
versus communalism, as if this were a unique Muslim concern or as if
Muslims have only this as their concern and that their other crucial
concerns, such as poverty, poor education, unemployment and so on, were
of no importance to them.
Two more themes have received
considerable attention in both academic as well as journalistic writings
on the post-1947 Indian Muslims—the question of the status of
Muslim women and the issue of the madrasa system of education. But even
here the focus has tended to be on certain sensational stories, which
were sought to be linked to the secularism versus communal debate in
some way or the other. Consequently, relatively very little has been
written on a range of other crucial social, educational and economic
challenges facing Muslims in India today, apart from some very broad
surveys that using quantitative data. Detailed, empirical, qualitative
studies on these issues are hard to come by. Few scholars have cared
to take the trouble of doing actual ground-level fieldwork that is essential
for this sort of research.
There are various reasons
for this lack of serious social science literature on these crucial
aspects of contemporary Indian Muslim society, which, as I mentioned
above, is essential for us to have a clearer understanding of the multiple
causes of overall Muslim deprivation and of the means to address the
issue. There are relatively few Indian Muslim social scientists of note
who have done such work. Sociology is probably not considered by many
as a means for a well-paid career that can attract serious students.
Scholarship on the subject by non-Muslim scholars is also, for a variety
of reasons, very limited. Indeed, extremely few non-Muslim Indian social
scientists have devoted their scholarly attention to Muslims in contemporary
India, other than dealing with such issues as women, personal law, communal
riots, and the secularism versus communalism debate.
While Indian Muslim organizations
run numerous research centres and institutes to do with Islam, there
are only a negligible number of such institutes for research and publication
on Indian Muslim social, as distinct from religious, issues. The only
such institution of note with somewhat of a national profile, presence
and reach I can think of is the New Delhi-based Institute of Objective
Studies. This is probably the only institution in the country that regularly
publishes social science-related works on the Indian Muslims, although
even here there is considerable room for improvement in the quality
of its research output. Considering the fact that the Indian Muslims
number more than 150 million, the fact that we have just one such institution
doing this sort of work is indeed very unfortunate.
The same pattern is reflected
in the Muslim publishing industry, at least in north India, which I
am more familiar with. Few such publishing houses deal in this sort
of social scientific, research-based literature on and about the Indian
Muslims. Instead, the issues they focus on are largely religious, historical
or literary. And so it is virtually impossible to find literature other
than on these issues in any Muslim bookshop.
One of the results of the
serious lack of scholarship on and about contemporary Indian Muslim
social reality is that talk about the issue is often framed in very
general terms, with broad generalizations being made that are, at the
empirical level, not really valid. This, for instance, is the case about
the very issue of 'Muslim deprivation', which this paper purports to
discuss. The extreme paucity of research on the subject feeds the tendency
to present the Indian Muslims as a monolith. This suits the interests
of certain Muslim elites who claim to speak for all Muslims, the state,
which relates to these elites as 'spokesemen' of the community, and,
curiously enough, Hindutva zealots, who, likewise, seek to tar all Muslims
with the same brush. Ignoring the internal diversities of caste, class,
region and gender within the broader pan-Indian Muslim community leads
to certain demands and arguments that claim to reflect the views and
interests of all the Indian Muslims, but, which, in fact, might benefit
only a very small elite of self-appointed 'leaders' of the community.
This, for instance, is the case for the demand, made by some Muslim
leaders, for reservations for all Muslims, based on the fallacious argument
that all Muslims are 'backward'. Obviously, this demand would benefit
only a small section of Muslim elites. In the absence of adequate social
science research on the subject of Muslim 'backwardness', such demands
are easily allowed to pass by uncontested.
Another illustration of the
disastrous effects of the lack of sociological research on the Indian
Muslims is the fact that, in the absence of such studies, the claims
by the Central and various state governments of providing various benefits
and schemes for Muslims are left unproven and so the state is able to
get away scot-free, without being challenged for reneging on its promises.
Thus, in recent years, the Government of India has set up numerous bodies
and commissions, such as the Ministry of Minority Affairs, the National
Minorities Education Commission, the National Commission for Linguistic
Minorities, the National Minorities Finance and Development Corporation,
the Maulana Azad Foundation and so on. One has no idea of precisely
what these organizations have actually done for Muslim welfare. Presumably
they have done but little. Take the case of a body that has been in
existence for years—the National Minorities Commission. That the
annual reports of this Commission have not been tabled in Parliament
for years now speaks volumes of the Government's supposed commitment
to minority rights and welfare. Had we rigorous documentation and research
on these organizations and the work they claim to have done, we could
have been able to argue against the claims of the state of having done
a lot for Muslim welfare. But because we have no such research, we cannot
do this effectively and so our case for greater affirmative action is
considerably weakened.
Of course, the state has
a major role to play with regard to Muslim empowerment precisely because
it has played a critical role in sustaining structures of disempowerment
and marginalization. But in addition to the agencies of the state, civil
society organizations need also to play a far more socially engaged
role both in terms of practical work as well as advocacy and lobbying
with the government. This is something that Muslim organizations, particularly
in the north, have not effectively explored.
The situation in the south
may be different, but in the north and the north-east, where the bulk
of the Indian Muslims reside, there appear to be relatively few Muslim
NGOs doing effective work in seeking to address the issue of Muslim
deprivation in concrete terms. Recently, a friend of mine published
a directory of Muslim NGOs. Glancing through it, I discovered that the
vast majority of these NGOs were engaged in providing religious education
and instruction. While this is, of course, very essential, there appears
to be a distinct lack of Muslim NGOs in the north doing practical work
to address the issues of Muslim poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and
so on. A study conducted by the eminent social scientist Imtiaz Ahmad
found that well over 80% of zakat funds provided by members of the community
is given to madrasas. While madrasa education is, of course, important,
one wonders if community leaders should not also seek to channelise
zakat funds to other sorts of organizations and institutions as well.
Serious measures need to be considered to promote voluntary organizations
in the community for purposes in addition to religious education, to
appraise such organizations of various government schemes and to promote
co-ordination among these organizations and also with non-Muslim or
secular organizations.
Another issue that needs
to be urgently addressed in the context of the question of Muslim deprivation
is that of media policy or the lack thereof. We need to ask if Muslim
organizations, including the Muslim-owned media, are indeed being able
to counter anti-Muslim or Islamophobic discourses that are now so deeply
engrained in large parts of the Indian (in addition to the Western)
media. Of course they are not. What are the reasons for this? What measures
need to be taken in this regard? Insofar as large sections of the non-Muslim
media do refer to Islam or Muslims, it is generally in the context of
some or the other sensational or dramatic news, whether real or imaginary
or exaggerated, often with the intention of further reinforcing negative
stereotypes. So, the media will highlight cases related to Muslim women,
or madrasas or violence committed on or by Muslims, but rarely, if ever,
does it have any positive stories on Muslims. Rarely, if ever, does
it talk about the issue and magnitude of Muslim marginalization. In
this regard, Muslim organizations need to be much more professional
than they are in reaching out to the non-Muslim media to have their
voices heard. They need to have a proper media and lobbying policy.
They need to establish contact and dialogue with elements in the media
that are concerned about Muslim rights and issues. They are several
such people in the media and they only need to be properly reached out
to.
The Muslim media also has
a crucial to play in the context of efforts to address Muslim deprivation.
I don't know what the situation is in the south, but in large parts
of the north, the Urdu media plays devotes little attention to the manifold
social, economic and educational problems besetting the Muslim masses.
Few Muslim magazines, journals newspapers carry in-depth stories and
reports on the plight of the poor among the Muslims or about efforts
by various individuals and social action groups engaged in trying to
practically address these issues. In this regard, it may be pertinent
to mention that there are just two English-language Muslim periodicals
of note in the country—the Bangalore-based Islamic Voice and the
New Delhi-based Milli Gazette. The former is more concerned with religious
issues, while it does devote some attention to community news. The latter
is more oriented to community issues, but, like the former, does not
have the network and resources needed for regular reporting on social,
economic and educational issues across the country. They are both urban-centric,
and only rarely do they carry stories about the conditions of Muslims
living in rural areas—that is to say, the considerable majority
of the Indian Muslim population. Sometime ago I did a random survey
of Indian Muslim online groups and I found the same pattern being repeated—the
discussions were mainly about religion and elite level politics, with
few, if any, references to the complex social, economic and educational
problems of the Muslim masses. This, of course, is a very important
issue that the Muslim media needs to take up with the seriousness that
it deserves. And in this way, the Muslim media can work towards getting
precisely these issues to be included in the agenda of various political
parties. One possible creative initiative in this regard would be to
start a features agencies specializing in Muslim social issues. Feature
stories could be translated into various languages and sent out to different
newspapers, Muslim as well as others, so that the concerns of Muslims
are made more public. As things stand today, the Muslim-owned media
is largely a Muslim ghetto, with few non-Muslims reading Muslim-owned
papers or watching Muslim television channels.
To come back to the Sachar
Committee Report—while its numerous recommendations are indeed
welcome, it is possible, as earlier mentioned, that the Government might
do little, if at all, to act on them. In welcoming the report, we must
not lose sight of its limitations. Thus, for instance, while talking
of the need for empowering the Muslim community, the Report speaks precious
little about the insecurity that Muslims suffer in large parts of the
country, often as a result of connivance of the state with Hindutva
forces. The link between this and Muslim economic deprivation is obvious,
but this is something that the report does not deal with in the manner
it should have. The report does not talk of deep-rooted anti-Muslim
biases in school textbooks and the Hinduistic ethos of the state school
system in several states in the country as a possible reason for Muslim
educational 'backwardness'. The report does not mention the particular
needs of Muslim women and the necessity of specific provision for them.
Nor does it talk about the policies of rampant exploitation in the garb
of globalization and liberalism that are playing havoc with Muslim artisans
and small manufacturers, driving them out of the market and into the
abyss of penury. Likewise, it leaves out the whole question of land
ownership, which is extremely crucial, given the fact that, as a whole,
Muslims suffer from a considerably higher degree of landlessness than
most other communities.
There is much more that one
can say with regard to the complex issue of Muslim deprivation, but
I think I would stop here. Briefly, what I have tried to argue here
is for Muslim organizations to take a far more active role in commissioning
research on the subject, lobby with the state and political parties
based on these issues and findings, dialogue with the non-Muslim-owned
media and encourage the Muslim media to take the issue of Muslim marginalization
much more seriously and to encourage the setting up of voluntary agencies,
not as a substitute for, but, rather, as complimenting state initiatives
to address the manifold problems facing the community.
The author is associated
with Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New
Delhi
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