Retributions  

With a title like this, the direction of Mark Sappenfield’s article on the state of Muslims in India is clear enough. Sappenfield’s piece is hardly unique as far as coverage of India in Western media is concerned-breathless reporting which either declares India as the next superpower without a dispassionate analysis of the huge challenges she faces or the one’s who ’suddenly’ discover India’s poverty or attempt to analyse the inequalities of her development.

How shallow is Sappenfields’ knowledge is clear from the first paragraph itself

By almost any measure, Salam Mohsin has set himself up well to succeed in India. He has completed his primary education, he speaks a little English, and he is now attending business college. Yet every time he has looked to a future beyond the rickshaws and repair shops of Hyderabad’s Old City, he has seen only closed doors

Mr. Sappenfield thinks that in one of the world’s most competitive societies, speaking a little English and attending some sort of business school should guarantee success-by any measure no less! And if it has not, then blame solely lies with discrimination and prejudice. Quite convenient but little else.

For the past 60 years, Indian Muslims have more often been the subjects of blame – for terrorism and the 1947 partition with Pakistan – than sympathyYet in November, a government-appointed panel suggested that ignorance and prejudice have now made Muslims an underclass on par with the lowest Hindu castes. Now, politicians who have long avoided the subject are openly talking of helping Muslims – potentially even setting aside quotas for Muslim admission into schools and political institutions. (emphasis mine)

I am not sure how he reached the conclusion that Muslims suffer because they are blamed for the partition of India, which is largely a non-issue. Except for a small section of loony Hindu extremists, no one is interested in reversing partition or even talks about it. Sappenfield misses the real debilitating effect of partition. Leaders of the Muslim League largely came from North India. Their en masse migration to Pakistan robbed Muslims of intellectual leadership, leaving them at the mercy of a weak, manipulative and sectarian leadership.

Second, Sachar Committee, despite questions about some of it’s findings has clearly spelled out the deprivation Muslims face. However, what it has failed to do or perhaps was not mandated to do is to examine the causes behind it. Muslims quite clearly have not faced the kind of historical discrimination Dalits did, yet Sachar committee claims that their position has become worse than that of Dalits. Without understanding the root cause of Muslim deprivation, attempting ameliorative measures is useless.

Mr. Sappenfield suggests that it is the lack of political participation of Muslims in this ‘Hindu’ country that has led to them being economically marginalized.

It is quite the opposite.

As any observer of Indian political scene would note, India must be unique among democracies in the world where the dividing line is ’secularism’ or perhaps more appropriately the Indian version of it. Muslims, because they tend to vote en bloc enjoy a disproportionate share in the political space. In India’s fractured polity, where majorities are manufactured largely on the basis of identity policies, Muslims vote can prove to be quite crucial.

It is this business of narrow identity politics which is the real cause of Muslim deprivation. While some blame can surely be laid at the door of B.J.P for falling back on aggressive Hinduvata from time to time, making security a key issue for Muslim voters, surely the malaise runs much deeper.

For one, even before the advent of B.J.P as a significant political force, Muslims were a vital cog in Congress winning strategy. The give and take was clear enough, in return for Muslim votes, Congress would tend to the most obscurantist elements in the Muslim population. One of such measures, the reversal of the Shah Bano judgment was responsible for the rise of B.J.P as a significant political power.

This has only been exacerbated after the downfall of Congress and the rise of regional parties in the post-Mandal India. Muslims have chosen ’saviors’ and have voted for them irrespective of their lack of administrative acumen, corruption and nepotism-Laloo Yadav in Bihar is a prime beneficiary. Even as he plundered the state, Muslim support for him never wavered and kept him in power. It is this tendency to seek a separate deal, which to a large degree, is responsible for their current state of backwardness.

No doubt, Muslims are one of the biggest victims of the politics of identity, but they are also among it’s worst perpetrators. As a means of achieving political power, identity politics surely has it’s benefits but as a tool of economic development it is largely useless. In fact, in the very success of identity politics lie the seeds of it’s failure. The success of identity politics hinges upon the ability to construct an artificial coalition of disparate groups on the basis of a narrow agenda. The benefits are clear enough-this group would enjoy the fruits of state largesse, conversely it would face disenfranchisement if another group came to power. However, it’s continuous success depends upon adding new groups to the coalition, naturally, groups which are too closely identified with the coalition and hence face a lack of choice are taken for granted. Also, as the size grows beyond a critical mass, state largesse is no longer enough and over all lack of development finally begins to tell. In states like Bihar and U.P, Muslims have suffered on both counts. Sadly, they still haven’t learned this lesson.

A comparison can surely be made with India’s other minorities. If ‘prejudice’ is the sole reason, then why have Sikhs, Jains and Parsis progressed? India allows it’s minorities the right to run educational establishments, Christians own some of the finest educational institutions in India. Why not Muslims? Surely if the hundreds of Madarsas which have come up in U.P and Bihar are any indicator, lack of resources is not a problem. Instead, Muslim intelligentsia seems to be focused on claiming Aligarh Muslim University funded by taxpayers money as a minority institution. That no comparable institution has developed in the last hundred years surely merits attention of those who claim to be concerned about Muslims and their development.

It is not my case that Muslims face no discrimination, but if the bigoted who calls every Muslim a terrorist deserves blame, so do those Muslims who vote for those who campaign with Osama look alikes or those who demand that India shape her foreign policies to suit their religious beliefs.

Post-globalization, seeing the world solely through the prism of religion is counterproductive. Rejection of globalization, obscurantist religious practices and virulent anti-Americanism are not compatible with development. The choice is clear enough; between sectarian identity and a larger national identity, between appeasement for ephemeral gains and true empowerment. India and her multitudes need to make the correct choice. In fact, this is the real message of Sachar report-better governed states deliver more to citizens, social justice which emphasizes that certain sections of society can be helped without broader development is a folly which harms the cause of those it seeks to support. This is why communal quotas must be stoutly opposed.

The strength of Indian Muslims in resisting the call of global terrorism is their Indian character, he and others say. Indian Muslims have marinated in the country’s multicultural masala for centuries and have become part of the recipe, adapting its tongues, traditions – and tolerance

I wish someone would have told Mr. Sappenfield that Muslims in India are not migrants, they haven’t ‘adopted’ the customs and the languages, they were born into it.

Finally, why is that every article about Indian Muslims never fails to mention that they have resisted the call of global terrorism? Should we be grateful for it? Is it against the natural order of things? Why is the connection between Muslims and violence is made quickly? Any comparison with India is perverse-simply because most such terrorists come from Islamic countries-do they face prejudice there too?

(link via Bong’o'pondit)