#ali anwar

It is a bitter fact that in today’s India, Muslim lives and Muslim votes matter little. But it is also a bitter fact that the lives, property and dignity of members of other minority communities, of Dalits, of Adivasis and to some extent of all the poor and the backwards, are also under threat. Whether it is price rise or unemployment, epidemics or diseases, drought or floods, riots or violence – it is the Pasmandas of all religious communities that suffer the most. The solution, clearly, lies in the Pasmandas of all religions joining hands. Religion-based politics will destroy the nation.

“Secularism” is not merely a word that finds mention in our Constitution. Secularism is the soul, the basic foundation of the Constitution. Remove secularism and we would be staring at a theocratic State. Today, India is secular only for namesake. Muslims are being treated like second-class citizens. They are being openly targeted. Pasmandas form 80 per cent of the Muslim population of the country and their ratio among the victims of oppression and violence is also the same. Dozens of Muslims became victims of mob-lynching in the country but rare was a national leader who visited their homes to commiserate with their families. A horrific riot was orchestrated in Delhi. Dozens were killed. But no national leader rose to the defence of the Muslims? Why was it that the supremos of none of the national or regional parties deemed it fit to extend their support to the agitation against CAA and NRC? Will CAA-NRC create problems only for the Muslims? That is not so. The poor and the backwards of all communities will suffer. But barring a few statements and tweets and creating a mild commotion in Parliament, the opposition leaders did not come out openly against the twin measures.

In 1985, when Shah Bano, 57, a mother of five children, was kicked out from her home by her lawyer husband, these religious organizations and political leaders kept quiet. When Shah Bano fought – and won – a long legal battle all the way from the lower court to the Supreme Court and her husband was ordered to pay maintenance to her, these leaders kicked up a nationwide row. Under their pressure, the Rajiv Gandhi government overturned the Supreme Court judgment by amending the Constitution. To appease the other side, the government ordered reopening of the gates of Babri Masjid.

When Ali Anwar, one of the leaders of the Pasmanda movement, made up of Muslim backward-castes and Dalits in Bihar, declared during a conference in 2007, “Hum shuddar hain shuddar; Bharat ke moolnivasi hain. Baad mein musalman hain” (We are Shudras first; we are the indigenous peoples of India. We are Muslims later), he was in a sense altering the semantics of Indian politics. By privileging caste over his ‘religious’ identity, Anwar was also upturning the notions of majority and minority that are commonly invoked by the mainstream political discourse. He stressed that the Pasmanda sections were a minority only when they identified themselves primarily as Muslims. But once they begin identifying themselves as Shudras, Dalits or moolnivasis (original inhabitants), they immediately transform themselves into a majority (bahujan). Even after conversion to Islam such individuals continue to be identified with their castes by the upper-caste ashrafiya Muslims. A Dalit who converts to Islam is labelled an arzal Muslim, while a Shudra who converts to Islam becomes an ajlaf Muslim. And does not the insistence on endogamy (marrying within a particular group) on the basis of caste by the ulema perpetuate and legitimise these hierarchies?

Pasmanda and Dalit Muslims are aware that if, despite the recommendation of the Sacchar Committee and the Rangnath Mishra Commission, Scheduled Caste status has not been accorded to Dalit Muslims and Christians and if those tribes that have been left out are not being included in the Scheduled Tribes – the blame has to be shared by various governments, including that of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), and the traditional leadership of the Pasmanda Muslims. Will the BJP include the Dalit Muslims among the SCs? Will it include the Muslim tribes among the STs? The answer is a clear “no”. It won’t do it for the same reason it won’t conduct a caste census. It knows very well that such moves would take the wind out of the sails of its agenda to polarize people along communal lines.

Prior to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, leaders like Syed Shahbuddin and Abdullah Bukhari were pawns in the BJP’s game. For some years, BJP used the services musclemen-cum-politicians like Mohammed Shahbuddin (Siwan, Bihar), Azam Khan (Uttar Pradesh), Mukhtar Ansari and Atiq Ahmed Siddiqui to serve its interests. This “policy” yielded rich political dividends to the BJP. Since coming to power in Delhi the BJP is out to ruin them as it thinks they have lost their utility and should be finished off.

अली अनवर के नेतृत्व में बनेगी नई राजनीतिक पार्टी- The National Press

बगावत तेज़, नितीश नेे पूरी पार्टी को अंधेरे में रखा. शरद यादव को भी नहीं थी खबर