Indian Independence and the Muslims
The Hindu mentality in politics is such that they would a thousand
times prefer British rule to any Mahomedan influence,
even if it be only a little.
That was never the view of the Nationalists, even those who
were ardent Hindus who would prefer Moslem to British rule.
Even if Swaraj itself were postponed for a long time, it would
be less of a shock to anybody in the Ashram than if Mahomedans
got a little right
.
The Asram is not concerned with politics; but I cannot believe
without proof that this is the state of their mentality.
17 November 1932
http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Letters-On-Himself-And-The-Ashram.pdf
Justin Raimondo: India's 'Amen Corner'
However
strong the communal and disruptive force maybe, but the Indian society,
except for occasional perturbations, has shown its resilience by
reverting back to secular and composite values
It is a fact that representation of Muslims in Indian Politics, since the Independence, has been disproportionately low, ranging between 6 – 8%, as compared to their share in the Indian population which is estimated to be around 14%, but believed to be even higher.The reasons for such low representation are diverse. The lack of effective Muslim leadership may be one. Nepotism and favoritism of influential politicians, majority being non-Muslims, leads to multiple candidates being elected from the same family or clan, is another significant factor for low representation of Muslims. Yet another reason is that many Indian political parties, presumably, believe the electability of Muslims is too low for them to be fielded as viable candidates. The non-Muslims electorate, parties think, won’t vote for them because of their religious identity. Together, these factors have led to a condition where the Muslim community, the largest minority group in the country, has poor representation in the country’s politics.
There are other factors such as affirmative actions in favor of Scheduled Castes/Tribes (SC/ST), which have snatched away a significant portion, roughly 22% of the parliamentary seats and over 27% of the state assembly seats, of constituencies from Muslim candidates.
The Muslims, being nearly excluded from SC/STs, cannot even compete in the election in the reserved seats. And quite surprisingly, it has been observed that there is a deliberate attempt to discriminate against Muslim using the reservation policy.
The fact has been brought to light by media platform such as http://twocircles.net/ that on the one hand, many constituencies where SC/STs comprise the majority of electorates are not reserved for them.
On the other hand, there are a large number of constituencies where majority or a significant fraction of the electorate is from the Muslim community and a small population of the SCs but the seats have been reserved for SCs.
This seems to be a deliberate attempt to deprive the Muslim community of its leadership. Such moves, whether involuntary or deliberate, have further reduced the chances of Muslim candidates winning the election.
Another such apprehension, regarding the Women’s Reservation Bill, seems not entirely unfounded. At present, the level of Muslim women’s participation in public life has been minimal. If the Women’s Reservation Bill is introduced, as it reserves 33% of the seats for women, can very well take away some more of the seats that presently elect Muslim legislators. Given the electoral trends in India, the prospect of the reverse happening, that is, Muslim women getting elected from an otherwise non-Muslim dominated constituency seems negligible.
Considering a total disempowerment and underdevelopment of Indian Muslims in nearly all walks of life as pointed out by the Sachar Committee report, it becomes imperative to think of enhancing the share of representation for Muslims in the political machinery. Hence the question arises: How can the representation of Muslims be increased? What can be done about the affirmative action? Do we need to reshuffle the existing reservation policies? Should there be some political parties exclusively for or dominated by Muslims? Is it better if the mainstream parties provide equitable opportunities to Muslim candidates to participate in the elections?
The issue of the reservation needs to be addressed seriously. The Indian Muslims deserve more affirmative actions as recommended by the Ranganath Mishra Committee, which has recommended that the status of SC should be made religion neutral. This means that those castes and classes among Muslims, whose Hindus /Sikhs counterparts are SC should be included in SC list. This will vastly improve the socioeconomic condition of Indian Muslims in general, and their share in the Political Leadership, in particular.
Towards developing the Muslim leadership, there can be two approaches: Formation of pro-Muslim political parties or providing an equitable share to the Muslim leaders in mainstream political parties. If there are parties exclusively for or dominated by only Muslims’ interests, then the outcome is going to be inefficient and hence, is a loss for everyone.
For instance, when voting is done on the basis of religion/sect caste etc., the criterion for preference is something other than the leadership quality of the candidate. So the leader elected by such a partisan process may not be the best one for the electorate.
Another demerit of such process is that if Hindus vote on religious line in favor of pro-Hindu parties and or pro-Hindu candidates, and then Muslims follow the same and vice versa. Even worse, if the game continues, then Muslims will ultimately be the biggest losers. Since in majority of the constituencies in India non-Muslims dominate the electorate, it will be difficult for Muslim candidates to win the election.
Even if the Muslim candidates win a few seats, the Muslim affiliated parties will seldom have a majority to form the Government so they will be left in the opposition. If the Muslim representatives perpetually sit in the opposition, what benefits are they likely to bring to their constituencies? So the Muslim community ultimately suffers because of the partisan politics.
Another potential, and the gravest, consequence is that such partisan politics of Muslims supporting a pro-Muslim party will give the right wing parties a sound pretext to garner support in religious lines. Consequently, suppose, Hindus start supporting pro-Hindutva parties. This may potentially lead to a complete polarization of the Indian society.
Imagine a nation inflicted with partisan politics; a few Muslim leaders from pro-Muslim parties sitting helplessly in the opposition and reckless Hindu leaders from staunch Hindutva brigades ruling the assembly or parliament!
Can India, composite as it is, survive such a degenerate politics? How many more Babri Masjids will be demolished? How many more Gujarat Massacre will be repeated? Is there any prospect of socioeconomic development is such a scenario?
A partisan politics may, in the short run, benefit the right wing fundamentalist Hindutva parties but this is a mistake the Muslims of India can’t afford to make, since their number does not favor them. Muslims cannot afford to be communal.
The recent developments leading to formation of Muslim dominated political parties and winning quite a few seats in the state elections, except Tamil Nadu, can be viewed as a positive sign of change.
This shows the Muslim communities’ stronger spirit of political participation and increased confidence in the democratic process. However, this should not be construed as Muslims’ victory over non-Muslims. Rather this, should be viewed as, and in fact, is merely an indication that Muslims have not been satisfied with the policies of the mainstream political parties.
This development of Muslim dominated parties and Muslim religious organization such as the Jamat-e-Islami (Hind) joining mainstream politics is a call to the mainstream parties like the Congress, the CPI (M), the BJP, etc. that there needs to be a thorough change in their mode of functioning, especially, policies of nominating candidates for election.
Eligible Muslim candidates need and deserve an equitable share in the election otherwise things may go against the parties’ interests, and ultimately against everyone’s interests.
The fact that given a chance, Muslim candidates can do well in the election has been proven by the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. This is an example which other mainstream parties can emulate.
So far, the Muslim community led political parties have refrained from partisanship by inducting non-Muslim members and giving them key positions both in the party as well as while giving nominations. Such a balanced policy is a must for any political party in India, not only for the sake of political correctness, but also for its own survival.
Irrespective of who launches a party, the future course of action of a political party must display the spirit of democracy and utmost secularism; otherwise these new parties will also become the victims of communalism and sectarianism from which the older parties have already been suffering.
The Indian electorate has already dumped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for its communal character, signaled the left for its covert rightist bias, and shaken the base of the Indian National Congress for its incapability to maintain a secular character in action.
However strong the communal and disruptive force maybe, but the Indian society, except for occasional perturbations, has shown its resilience by reverting back to secular and composite values.
So it is a challenge before all the political parties, right, center, and left leaning, new and old alike - thrown by the people of the world’s largest democracy that prove yourself by uniting the communities and not by segregating one from the other, by effective leadership and progressive policies or you will be thrown out of the race and out of the place.
| Shahidur Rashid Talukdar: Write is a PhD student in Economics at Texas Tech University and blogs at http://glimpsesofatraveler.blogspot.com/ |
The
following article is based on a talk given by the radical intellectual
and activist, Sanjay Basu Mallick of Jangal Bachao Andolan (Save Forest
Movement) and NFFPFW (National Forum for Forest People and Forest
Workers) recently in Bangalore, who has been tirelessly working among
the Adivasis (Indian aboriginals) in Jharkhand for the past three to
four decades. While the adivasi struggles (especially in Eastern India)
have often been portrayed in the media as a Naxalite (Maoist) led
struggle, what is often deliberatly ignored are the many democratic
struggles taking place in many parts of Central India against the forces
of capitalist globalization, who have started to plunder the rich
natural resources in the lands inhabited by the adivasis. Sanjay Mallick has also played an important role in the Forest Rights Act (FRA) brought in 2006, which despite its flaws and weakness forced the Government to recognize community rights of adivasis all over India. However, like all other well intentioned Indian legislations that could have dented the interests of the profit driven system, this Act also suffers from lack of implementation.
Sanjay started his talk with a famous quote of Marx that all hitherto history is a history of class struggle, but what is also often ignored is the fact that throughout his writing Marx also talks about dissolution of indigenous societies that has been happening for thousands of years. Before the advent of British rule in India, Indian society based around the Asiatic mode of production was mainly a tribal kind of society, a fact that hardly finds mention in the mainstream history books.
What is also not mentioned much in the textbooks is that tribals have revolted throughout the British rule in India, the most famous being the Santal rebellion in 1855, which was the precursor to the well known sepoy mutiny (or the First War of Indian independence) in 1857. The most vicious change brought about by the British in the eastern part of India was the introduction of the extremely exploitative and the feudal Zamindari system that virtually created a feudal landlord (or zamindar) lording over the peasants and the tribals, who were hand and foot bound to the system.
Therefore, the killing and the destruction of the tribal way of life has been a continuous process and was always justified with the excuse that this was inevitable. Now the majority view in the Indian society also believes in this and that sacrifices have to be made for the sake of so called ‘development’ under capitalism. With the opening of the economy in the 90′s and with the advent of neo-liberal reforms came lot of foreign investments and inevitably the increased marginalisation and suffering of the indigenous population of India.
But parallel to this, as a response to the growing adivasi struggles in many parts of eastern India, came the Indian state’s response to try to appease these movements and brought in PESA in 1996 and FRA in 2006 with the intention of undoing the historical injustice wrought on the indigenous communities of India. But both the act deny the ownership of the natural resources to the tribals but grant them community rights over their lands and forests. So therefore the state on the one hand is trying to tame the adivasi movement and on the other hand, is paving way for the corporates to grab the rich natural resources.
It is in this context that one needs to understand Operation Greenhunt, which is essentially a war against the tribal population of India in the name of combating Maoist insurgency and at the same time paving the way for the entry of the multinationals to grab the natural resources. Thus the Indian state is trying to approach the issue with two sets of teeth: one trying to appear democratic and the other, Operation Greenhunt. Also the forest officials in collusion with the bureaucracy and the government have been sold out to the corporates.
Only a handful of tribal villages have benefited from FRA implementation, while thousands of villages have been deprived. For instance in Jharkhand, when the adivasis demanded their share of land as per their entitlement, none of them got more than 1 acre of land, while they were entitled to 7 acres of land as per the act.
Civil society’s response to adivasi issues have not been very encouraging either. While the middle classes all want development at the same time they want some sort of protection to the environment. But do not care much about the people living there who have in fact protected these pristine forests and the natural habitats for thousands of years. The mainstream communist parties (caught in their stages theory of revolution) have neither had any real association with the adivasi struggles nor do they recognise the significant contributions made by these movements and are incapable of doing anything.
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