Title: Denial and Deprivation: Indian Muslims after the sachar committee and Rangnath Mishra Commission Reports; Author: Abdur Rahman; Publisher: Manohar Publisher and Distributer; Pages:569 ; Price (paperback): 695
By Badre Alam Khan
IPS officer Abdur Rahman in his well researched book ‘Denial and Deprivation: Indian Muslims after the sachar committee and Rangnath Mishra Commission Reports ’ has underlined that the successive governments have not taken serious efforts to implement the recommendations made by Sachar Committee Report (2006), Rangnath Mishra Commission (2007) and finally Prof. Amitabh Kudu Committee (2014). To note that both reports (henceforth, SCR & RMC) came into the public sphere during the tenure of the then PM Manmohan Singh led by UPA-I government. While discussing the relevance of SCR & MCR the book on the basis of academic discourse, launched by civil society reminds us that the discourse around minority rights, for the first time, had shifted from ‘security’ to the ‘development’.
However, while citing the W.W Hunter report(1871), a colonial administrator (to note that this report was constituted by the colonial state to study Muslim backwardness ),Rakesh Sinha an RSS ideologue now Rajya Sabha MP form BJP has said that if SCR recommendations will be implemented, will also sharpen the ‘communal divide’ as Hunter report had done in the colonial India. And hence for Sinha Congress constituted these reports to appease the Muslim for the sake of vote bank politics, points which Rahman has also noted in his work ( P-75 ). Under the banner of Bhartiya Vichar Manch, Mr. Sinha and others authored a book titled ‘Sachar Committee: Conspiracy to divide the nation’? In this book, they have questioned the constitutional validity of SCR and argued that it is empirically untenable to underlined that Indian Muslims’s socio-economic status are equal to that of SCs STCs. (P-75)
It is to be remembered that under the leadership of PM Modi, the BJP leaders often made the tall claim that we believe in Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas, ‘appeasement of none’ and ‘development of all’ etc. To put it simply, unlike secular and Left parties, BJP ideologues often underlined that we believe in the inclusive and developmental politics.
Contrary to the claim, the current volume has noted that the BJP-RSS combine has ideologically opposed the both SCR &RMC reports. Besides, this work in an epilogue has mentioned that during the last more than four years of BJP rule, incidents like mob-violence, lynching, Love jihad, hate crimes, atrocities against Dalits, and discriminations against the Muslim community has been increased tremendously (p-531). In this respect, a noted journalist like Ziya-Us Salam in his latest book ‘Lynch Files’, the forgotten saga of victim of hate crimes’ 2019 has also vividly captured the hate against Muslims, communal and targeted killings in the name of ‘Cow protections’. While doing so, Salam noted that Muslims and Dalits have been targeted by the communal forces and concern authorities have not done anything to punish communal fringes.
Recently Modi led BJP government has given10 percent reservation to the economically poor upper-caste going beyond constitutional norms and values. However, for the BJP-RSS both Dalit Muslim and Dalit Christians could not be given reservation because for them theologically there are no caste system in Islam and Christianity. Contrary to this, author observes ‘most of anthologists have accepted the presence of Dalits in Muslim and Christian communities. The Constitution (SC) Order, 1950 is a black spot on the Constitution and against the basic structure of secularism and freedom of religions’ (P-464). In this respect, grass-root activist and school teacher like Dr. Aiyub Rayeen in his series of works done in remote village of Bihar (Bharat Ke Dalit Muslaman,2018) has demonstrated that the conditions of Dalit Muslims are worst in compared to other socio-religious groups. This point has also been endorsed by the author in this work.
Let me mention here that while showing respect to Rahman’s extremely excellent work, I have also expressed my disagreements with him for not discussing about the caste and gender questions within community as raised by Pasmanda movements (for instance lower-caste Muslims often blamed that upper caste Muslims had have not taken the ‘caste question’ into account). In a similar way, the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, BMMA an umbrella organization of Indian Muslim women have questioned community leaderships for not seriously giving attentions to the problems like instant triple talaq and gender justice, enshrined in the Indian Constitution and the Quran. Besides, the volume is somehow silent about the impact of ‘neo-liberal Hindutva’ (it is be noted that current avatar of Hindutva is having an unholy alliance with corporate class, mainly dominated by upper-caste in the globalised world) on the subaltern Muslim masses.
A very excellent work recently produced by editors like Amir Uallah Khan and Abdul Azim Akhtar in light of SCR and other reports. Which has been published by the Institute of Objective studies, titled, ‘Vision 2025, Socio-Economic inequalities: Why does India’s Economic growth need an inclusive Agenda’, 2018. This vision document 2025 has covered and touched pertinent issues and problems confronted by the communities and made several good recommendations concerning issues like educations, waqf boards, Islamic banking, exclusions of Muslims in economic growth reforms within society etc. Knowingly or unknowingly Rahman has not touched all these points raised by community leaders, intellectuals and civil society groups at large. However, he has mentioned briefly about Dalit Muslims and some of issues documented in the Vision 2025 without referring to it.
The present volume in the introductory chapter has covered the response of community leaders and think-tank organizations along with the secular-minded public intellectuals in the larger public and political around the SCR & RMC. Unlike the communal forces, the community leaders, progressive academics and social activists have welcomed both reports and expressed opinions in the public sphere. The volume could be divided into broad three thematic sections. From chapter-4 to10, the themes and issues like minorities rights, Urdu, Madrasas, socio-educational conditions, and access to bank credit etc. have been touched and critically reviewed keeping into mind the larger literature produced by civil society groups and community think- tank.
Moreover, chapter -11 to 16 have discussed and critically analyses the pertinent issues like social and physical infrastructure, poverty, unemployment rampant in the Muslim community, Wakf properties and debates around the affirmative action’s based on the latest data. Unlike myth widely spread by Hindu nationalist forces, Rahman in these chapters has shown that the socio-economic and educational conditions of Indian Muslims have remained extremely pathetic. Besides, the author has successfully debunked the false arguments often propagated by communal forces that there is a rampant growth of the Muslim population. In addition to this, the last three chapters- from 17 to 19 are devoted to critically assess and evaluate the status of implementations of both reports ( SCR & RMC).
In chapter-19, titled,’ Reports after two reports’ the author has discussed about Prof. Amitabh Kundu Report which was submitted in 2014. Broadly speaking, Prof Kundu on the basis of SCR recommendations said that government must develop equal opportunity commission (EOC) and Diversity index (DI), and anti-discrimination legislations to stop discrimination based on sex, caste, religion and disability (P-469). In short, contrary to communal forces, Prof. Kundu has often said that SCR has wider vision to build up and construct an ‘inclusive’ idea of India.
While citing the points made by former vice-resident Hamid Ansari, the author writes, ‘M. Hamid Ansari advises Muslims to revisit its own tenets to retrieve traditions of ijtihad (interpretations of the ‘Islamic theology’ in light of Quran and Prophet teachings, to cope up the contemporary challenges) and Maslaha in order to confidently negotiate modernity’ (pp,503-504).
As for as issue related to the political under-representations concern, the present volume has shown that due to ‘De-limitation’ and First-past-the post (FPTP) election methods Muslim community is not able to get due political representations in a communalized political space. According to proportion of populations, Muslims should get elected at least 77 MPs. However, it is sad to note that currently in Lok Sabha there are only 24 Muslims MPs which underlined the huge political deprivations of community (P-494). Despite the huge political under-representation Muslim in the political sphere, it is sad to note that the mainstream secular party like Congress is reluctant to raise and articulate the Muslim community concerns.
Yet, in spite of my few disagreements with Rahman’s work, this is the first book which has covered and touched discourses which have been taken place in post-Sachar period. Keeping the complex and pathetic situations of Indian Muslims, he has also provided constructive suggestions to the community leaders. He appeals to shun radical ideology, adopt egalitarian values and teachings of Prophet to inculcate sense of serving poor and humanity at large and finally to use RTI (Right to information Act), for the advancement and articulations of community concerns and individual development too. More importantly, the author has suggested to draw some insights from Dalits, Tribal’s movements, resistance and struggle (p-500), and think on those lines to articulate community concerns in the larger public-political sphere from the vantage-point of constitutional and democratic and secular values.
The book is a well-come step and a timely intervention by Abdur Rahman. I kindly suggest and recommend to the scholars, journalists, politicians, community leaders the masses to have a look, to understand the current denial and deprivations of Indian Muslims in all walks of life.
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The Badre Alam Khan (badredelhi@gmail.com) is a research scholar at Department of Political Science, University of Delhi.