BJP's Pasmanda Muslims push and the great electoral math

With the resignation of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the opposition declared the current BJP government “Muslim free”. Certainly, religious diversity should be an important consideration for a political democracy like India. But religions are an extremely tricky category, hiding within itself multiple layers and contestations of caste and gender. The construct “Muslim community” does not simply signify belonging to a particular religion but its constituents also belong to different castes. For a long time, religion seemed to be the only marker through which political representation was given to Muslims; no one bothered about the caste of those Muslim members. However, in the name of inclusion, predominantly members of upper caste (Ashraaf) were given political representation from the Muslim community. So, the characterization of the “Muslim free” government needs to be corrected to “Ashraf free” government.

Ashraaf constitutes a minority within the overall Indian Muslim population. The Sachar Committee Report put their numbers at 60 per cent of the Muslim population which is patently absurd. Since there is no caste data available, one cannot have the exact numbers of various castes within Muslims. But relying on old census data (particularly 1931 Census), ethnographic studies, and estimates of political parties, one can safely argue that the Ashraaf are no more than 15 per cent of the Muslim population. The rest 85 per cent were called as Ajlaf which literally means low-born or ignoble. It is this Muslim majority which is now defining itself as Pasmanda (literally, those left behind/oppressed) and are articulating a brand of politics which has the potential to rupture settled narratives on Muslims. It is the contention of the Pasmanda movement that they have been denied their due share in representation, primarily because Muslim representation has been monopolised by the Ashraaf.

It is to this deprived section within Muslims that the prime minister made reference in the Karnataka BJP conclave. But certainly, this is not the first time that Narendra Modi has made such a pitch. In another television interview some months ago, he had wondered why issues of social justice are not raised within the Muslim community.

To get a sense of what the ruling dispensation is angling at, we need to look closely at the issue of social justice within Muslims historically. The first articulation of Muslim lower caste politics started in the 1940s when many lower caste Muslim groups started challenging the narrative of partition and Muslim League, identifying it as the locus of Ashraaf politics. But the substantive push came after the inauguration of social justice politics in the post Mandal age. The role of Ali Anwar, who established the All-India-Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz in early 1990s, was stellar since he raised the political and social consciousness of oppressed Muslims and argued for the need of their political empowerment.

Ali Anwar could get into the Rajya Sabha and there is evidence to suggest that large sections of Pasmanda Muslims gravitated towards Nitish Kumar in Bihar. But this could not get replicated elsewhere. More worryingly, other political parties continued to look at Muslims through the prism of religious identity alone. And not just parties but even so-called progressive civil society organisations did not pay attention to the question of internal stratification amongst Muslims. Needless to say, the left parties still do not have a clue about the issue. Pasmanda activists were keen to observe that while these organizations and parties talked relentlessly about social justice within Hindus, they were loath to do the same when it came to Muslims. Thus, despite the Pasmanda Muslims reposing their faith in various self-proclaimed secular parties, they have been disappointed as none of these parties have stood by them when the community needed them to raise their issues.

It was therefore natural that a section of Pasmanda Muslims felt the need to revise their strategy and look towards the BJP as a possible alternative. In the Uttar Pradesh elections held earlier this year, nearly 8 per cent of Pasmanda Muslims voted for the BJP. Commentators have argued that the BJP is hoping to augment such votes from this section in the upcoming 2024 general elections. The inclusion of Azad Ansari, a Pasmanda Muslim, in the Uttar Pradesh cabinet was a signal given by the BJP that it was willing to accommodate this section if they look at the BJP as an electoral option. If the warm reception by the Pasmanda society of such an appointment in Uttar Pradesh is any indication, then the BJP might have hit the right note.

Islam in danger has always been a call to unite the Muslim vote, but castes have always found ways to trump this call. If the All-India-Momin Conference could do so in 1946 elections, during the height of religious polarization, there is no reason to believe why it cannot be done now. The significance of this moment should not be lost on anyone, especially the political parties who depend on Muslim support. If a substantial section of the Pasmanda vote shifts towards the BJP, then parties like the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress will have to shut their shops in Uttar Pradesh.

However, let us not forget that the BJP has won the last two elections handsomely without the support of Muslims, be they Pasmanda or otherwise. And there are all indications that they will repeat this performance in 2024. Thus, we would be taking a narrow view of the current Hindu right engagement with the Pasmanda Muslim question by reducing it simply to electoral arithmetic. Read with the RSS position that Hindutva is incomplete without the inclusion of Indian Muslims, it appears that this is a long-term engagement with the Muslim question. In doing so, the RSS and BJP have, for the first time in Indian history, privileged the indigenous, low caste, over the Ashraf Muslims.

This shift will have important consequences not just politically but more importantly in the cultural realm. The life world of the average low caste Muslim is similar in many ways to that of the Hindus. Observers of Muslim life have noted that the life and death cycle rituals of lower caste Muslims were very similar to their Hindu neighbors. Over the years though, owing to Islamization, common cultural artefacts like sindoor and sari became Hindu religious markers in the writings of Ashraf theologians. But despite years of Islamization, the large majority of Pasmanda Muslims still retain indigenized customs and rituals. In privileging the Pasmanda Muslim, the Hindu right is trying to privilege the cultural life world of such Muslims, which fits into larger narrative of its program of cultural indigenization.

Much will depend on how the Pasmanda society reacts to this program cultural indigenisation. Over the years, the effect of Islamization has been such that the cultural realm has been very nearly subsumed by the religious. Matters of dress, spaces and interactions inside and outside homes are primarily being looked through an Islamic prism rather than a cultural or regional one. The Pasmanda Muslim society has to throw up its own organic intellectuals who are able to resuscitate the autonomy of the cultural and argue for its specificity in the Indian context. There are certain green shoots in this direction within the community but much would eventually depend on whether they are able to convince their own community members or not.

The author is an independent researcher on Islam and Muslims in South Asia. Views are personal.

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