Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 12, 2006
Those who have read William Dalrymple's The
Last Mughal, a masterly reconstruction of the final days of the Timurid dynasty,
would have noticed something odd about the rag-tag court of Bahadur Shah Zafar:
The near-total absence of Hindus.
It is not that the Delhi of early-1857 was
a Muslim enclave; Dalrymple suggests that half the city was Hindu. Indeed,
Hindus dominated the trade and commerce of the city. It was the loans from
Hindu bankers in Chandni Chowk which subsidised the dissolute lifestyle of
the Mughals. And yet, Hindus barely got a peep into the world spawned by the
Mughal court. India's majority community were the proverbial "extras"
in the official life of Mughal Delhi.
It is instructive to delve into this history
to comprehend the orchestrated tear-jerking by the advance guard of the Rajinder
Sachar Committee studying the condition of Indian Muslims. Based on Dalrymple's
reconstruction, two conclusions are in order.
First, that ghettoisation of the Muslim community
cannot be attributed to either the Gujarat riots of 2002 or the formation
of the RSS a few decades before. Like the British who naturally kept to their
own Civil Lines, the Muslims (the trading communities are an important exception)
have traditionally stuck to their community enclaves for the sake of social
comfort and solidarity.
Second, the status of Muslims as a disadvantaged
community is of relatively recent origin. For nearly 700 years, until the
British forged their Indian empire, the Muslims perceived themselves as the
rulers of Hindustan. The Muslim elite dominated the "high" culture
which set the tone for the others. The traditional Brahmanical culture and
learning was effectively marginalised. At the dawn of British rule in the
beginning of the 19th century, the Muslims were quite clearly a privileged
cultural minority in India.
That the Muslim elites didn't take to English
education with the same alacrity as upper-caste Hindus has been well documented.
The loss of political power proved quite traumatic for Muslims and a substantial
chunk of its elite retreated into a sullen sulk - a mindset that nurtured
the Wahabi movement and other efforts at socio-religious exclusiveness. The
small but influential English-educated middle class spawned by the Aligarh
Movement carried some of these separatist impulses into the political arena.
Pakistan was the outcome.
Most Indian Muslims did not make Pakistan
their home, but an overwhelming majority of the Muslim upper and middle classes
did. In 1947, the Indian Muslims sank into depression, having been deserted
by their traditional and emergent leadership. A strategic tie-up with the
Congress prevented this hopelessness from finding political expression but
it was always an awkward relationship born of desperation.
Have five decades of Independence made a difference?
If the statistics released by the Sachar Committee are any guide, Muslims
are broadly on par with Dalits in terms of socio-economic status. Considering
that the traditional Brahmanical social order reduced Dalits to sub-human
status, the progress made by the beneficiaries of reservations has been marked.
In addition, the ritually-disadvantaged Backward Castes have complimented
their clout in the rural economy with political muscle. Today, the OBC demand
is for a greater role in the modern sectors of the economy.
Since 1947, the Muslim progress has been tardy.
The community has enriched itself patchily - in the Malabar spice trade and
in the leather and carpet industries - and used its exploding numbers to perfect
the art of tactical voting. In social terms, however, the Muslim community
still appears unwilling to embrace modern and scientific education. Its record
of women's empowerment has been scandalous and there is even community resistance
to the polio vaccine. The Muslim leadership has successfully used the appeal
of religion and en-bloc voting to resist the encroachment of progressive social
legislation into the community.
The problem is not opportunities or institutional
hurdles; the real obstacle is an inward-looking and regressive mindset. The
Sachar Committee can shed tears for the plight of Muslims but unless the community
itself shows a willingness to eschew the past and embrace modernity, affirmative
action will become the instrument for the empowerment of medievalism. It will
tear India apart yet again.
