SC to GOI: How Can You Make it Compulsory?

April 21, 2017

The Supreme Court today came down hard on the Modi government over the issue of making Aadhaar compulsory in complete violation of the court's previous order."How can you make Aadhaar mandatory despite a clear order to make it optional. Is making Aadhaar by force the only way to tackle fraud?" a furious Supreme Court told the Centre while hearing a PIL against the government's decision making Aadhaar compulsory.

The Supreme Court bench led by Justice Sikri questioned the Centre as to how Aadhar can be made compulsory and forced on people. The Centre's argument has been that the earlier order merely applies for beneficiary schemes like LPG and food grains and the government is free to use it for other services like income tax.

Further the Court said on Friday said that it will decide on whether Aadhaar card can be made mandatory, for filing of Income Tax (I-T) returns, next week. The apex court asked the government to justify the need for making Aadhaar card mandatory for filing I-T returns.

The SC bench raised the pertinent question: “How can you make Aadhaar card mandatory when we have passed an order to make it optional?” In reply, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said the government now has an Act to use the Uniform Identification Number. “We found a number of PAN cards being used to divert funds to shell companies. To prevent it, the only option is to make Aadhaar card mandatory,” he said.

The Supreme Court, in it previous order on the issue dated August 11, 2015, said that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for government schemes. “The Union of India shall give wide publicity in the electronic and print media including radio and television networks that it is not mandatory for a citizen to obtain an Aadhaar card. The production of an Aadhaar card will not be condition for obtaining any benefits otherwise due to a citizen,” the court said in its judgement.

The Union government, last month, made providing one’s Aadhaar number a compulsory detail for filing IT returns and for obtaining and retaining the permanent account number (PAN). Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the move was aimed to link PAN cards with Aadhaar and to identify those who avoided taxes by having duplicate PANs.

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It took 11 Years, But Man who Raped Nun Finally Arrested: Jhabua

April 21, 2017

Eleven years after he jumped parole, a man convicted for the 1998 rape of a nun was re-arrested on Tuesday, a senior Madhya Pradesh Police officer said. The accused Pidia Singaria had jumped parole after his release from jail in 2006 following his conviction in the case and had successfully avoide re-arrest ever since.

Graphic: Times of India

Police had announced an award of Rs 10,000 for the arrest of Singaria, Superintendent of Police Mahesh Chand Jain news agencies reported.He said that Singaria was involved in committing armed robbery at the nun's house in Navapada in Kalyanpur police station area, apart from rape and attempt to murder.

The convict was re-arrested after locals in Runkheda complained to police about a person creating a ruckus in public. His subsequent questioning revealed he was absconding for the last 11 years after conviction in the nun's rape case, the police officer said.

Against the tide: why women’s equality remains a distant dream in Arab countries

April 21, 2017

The active role played by women in the Arab Spring of 2010-2011 was seen inside and outside the region as an example showing that a different kind of gender politics was possible, ushering in greater empowerment for women. However, as the Uprisings were increasingly met with resistance from regime remnants (“felool”) and conservative forces generally, the public sphere was “de-democratised” and women were excluded from it.

The Arab Spring has given way to conservative values. Shutterstock

Public opinion surveys, including the World Values Survey, the Arab Barometer and the Arab Transformations Survey, suggest that the majority of citizens are still resistant to gender equality. While there are considerable differences between Arab countries, when it comes to gender issues, conservative values are deeply entrenched, perhaps even more so since the uprisings.

Islam itself is often identified as the cause of this resistance. Some even identify a “clash of civilisations” between the West and the Islamic world, with the way women and girls are treated as proof of “backwardness” and “barbarism”.

But the lack of progress on equality between men and women is the product of external as well as internal factors, including the lack of political alternatives to Islamism and the way in which women’s equality agendas are disregarded by autocratic regimes

Excluding women

In some cases, this exclusion of women has been spearheaded by Islamist movements, a fact sometimes attributed to the increase in the influence of religious groups across the region – the so-called Islamist winter. In other cases, this patriarchal restoration is driven by self-proclaimed secular and democratic forces. Either way, the contract whereby men and women have separate and complementary – rather than equal – roles has seldom been successfully challenged.

While most societies across the globe are becoming more liberal when it comes to gender, not only are Arab countries the most conservative, there is also little evidence of change. Our research, which looks at how political and social attitudes changed after the Arab uprisings in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia, suggests that although women tend to be more progressive, both women and men share conservative attitudes and have, if anything, become more conservative since 2011.

In 2014, while women were generally less conservative than men, differences were relatively small. A clear majority of men and women believed that gender equality and the empowerment of women should be enshrined in the constitution, but there seemed to be little support for actually implementing it. On the Arab Transformations Gender Index, only 17% scored as definitely in favour. The proportion of women (25.1%) was noticeably higher than men (8.9%), and while the figures for men showed little difference across the six countries, varying from 6% in Egypt to 12% in Iraq and Morocco, women’s attitudes showed much greater variation, ranging from 10% in Egypt and Libya to over a third in Jordan, Iraq and Morocco. But they were still a relatively small minority.

Women’s equality is an issue that tends to be disregarded by regimes in Arab countries. EPA, CC BY-SA

There appeared to be fairly strong support for gender equality in education and for married women working outside the home, though relatively less for women being involved in politics. Strong support, however, remained for Islamic family law, which in most current interpretations treats women as second-class citizens when it comes to marriage, divorce, children and inheritance.

Support for sharia law

Men and women across the six countries wanted their constitution to enshrine sharia as the main source of law, although there is no single understanding of what this entails. While most Arab countries ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, most entered reservations to clauses relating to family law. Differences between the sexes were slight here, and in Jordan and Libya women appeared even more conservative than men.

So why do a clear majority of women support a second-class status for themselves? In the West, the resilience of such attitudes is often attributed to a patriarchal “essence” of Islam. Indeed, influential Islamist actors across the region – including governments – often make the very same claim. However, historians and others have shown that the conception of gender rights has not been constant across the Arab world.

It is clear that progress was made in the 19th and 20th centuries, but reversed in the late 20th century with an increase in conservatism perhaps since the neoliberal “open door’ (infitah) reforms of the 1980s and a superficial commitment to democracy. In addition, the idea that Islam is a barrier to gender equality is contradicted by the progress being made in other Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh and Senegal.

Women’s advocacy in the region is caught in a bind. On the one hand, male-dominated conservative Islamist leaderships are perfectly happy to accept a status quo that discriminates. On the other, a tokenistic gender equality is promoted by some regimes seeking to appease Western governments’ demands. Plus, the gradual retreat of Arab states from the provision of essential social services created the conditions for a de facto cooperation between state and religious groups: regimes accepted growing Islamist influence in return for welfare services they were no longer willing to supply.

Patriarchal attitudes persist not because Islam is incompatible with gender equality, but because in most Arab countries since the 1970s, progressive forces have been undermined by supposedly "secular” regimes. Surveys show that conservative gender attitudes are entrenched, but also that people remain profoundly dissatisfied with their ruling elites for precisely the same reasons for which they protested in 2010-2011.

During the Arab Spring, what protesters demanded was not just the removal of corrupt leaders, but an end to a system based on increasing economic injustice and political marginalisation, and held together by repression. Gender equality is an essential part of achieving that goal.

Pamela Abbott, Director of the Centre for Global Development and Honorary Professor of Sociology, University of Aberdeen and Andrea Teti, Director, Centre for Global Security and Governance, University of Aberdeen

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The masses have spoken, but not all hope is lost, for Turkey’s democracy

April 21, 2017

This inherent ability to cancel itself out is democracy’s paradox: to “sow the seeds of its own destruction”, succumbing to the electoral will of the majority.

The 51.3% win for the ‘yes’ vote means the country in 2019 will transition to a presidential system from a parliamentary democracy that it has lived under since 1945. Unlike the US-style presidential system, the Turkish model won’t have the separation of powers that provide strong checks on the executive. Rather presidency a-la Turka provides the executive with the keys to the state, legislature, and judiciary. The president will be accountable to virtually nobody, the country susceptible to the whims of a single person’s wishes.

These victories fuelled the perception of the AKP as the architects of contemporary Turkey who alone understood what was best for the country.

Turkey has for many years witnessed the steady dismantling of democracy under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s rule. Consecutive electoral victories since 2002 by Erdoğan’s AKP allowed the party to govern single-handedly with an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly. Over time, these victories fuelled the perception of the AKP as the architects of contemporary Turkey who alone understood what was best for the country. Ruling with a strong majority in parliament for Erdoğan and his AKP comrades was equated with the unrestricted exercise of a power carried out with systemic efficiency.

Indeed, the early years witnessed some democratic gains but after the 2007 victory the trend began to reverse, picking up full speed from 2010 onwards. During these years, the legislative actions indicated a government taking great strides at pulling apart any democratic institutions and practices. Turkey’s already fragile democracy couldn’t withstand the onslaught of their overwhelming majority. Erdoğan’s government became comfortable, at times gloating, in their efforts to muzzle, marginalise and repress their opposition. What little tolerance existed disappeared altogether for any opposition and critics.

What little tolerance existed disappeared altogether for any opposition and critics.

In the face of the erosion of political and civil rights of their fellow countrymen, freedom of assembly, the press, independence of the judiciary and social harmony withered away, replaced by an extremely polarised and divided society. The public continued to re-elect Erdoğan.

The period of democracy’s cessation was neither brief nor sudden. Rather the coming end of democracy was slow and steady. Developments following the failed coup on the night of July 15, 2016 marked the inevitable termination of democracy, formalised with the slim victory for the ‘yes’ vote in the referendum.

Reversible democracy?

Turkey’s experience flies in the face of assumptions that the path of democratisation is near irreversible, at the least difficult to reverse. The country’s experience is another lesson that in democracy nothing is out of the question if the majority so choose. It demonstrates democracy has no inbuilt mechanism to deny anti-democratic ideals from slipping into its midst. When supported by enough numbers anything can be put into question, interrogated, repealed – even the idea of democracy itself.

The cancellation of democracy indeed remains a perpetual risk, which no democracy can legitimately guard against. This inherent ability to cancel itself out is democracy’s paradox: to “sow the seeds of its own destruction” as Mark Chou has stated, die at its own hands, succumbing to the electoral will of the majority.

All is not lost

Yet, all hope for Turkey’s democracy is not lost. The coming end of democracy need not be permanent or assured. As the masses can choose to end democracy, they are as capable of reviving it.

In opposing the presidential system, 49% of the country voted ‘no’. This by no means is a small minority in a country in which around 46 million are reported to have cast their ballots. The difference between the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ vote is around one million, by no means irreversible. Despite utilising the state’s resources to drive his campaign, control over 90% of the country’s media, imprisoning politicians, activists and journalists, and creating an alliance with the Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (Nationalist Movement Party, MHP), Erdoğan failed to receive a decisive victory, hardly the “strong mandate” he was striving for. The combined vote share of the AKP and the MHP was more than 60% in the 2015 elections, and the April 16 result did not yield a similar result from their union. This 51% signifies a significant drop in both their vote potentials.

Worryingly for Erdoğan, the ‘no’ vote won in Turkey’s largest cities Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

A solid belt along the Aegean and Mediterranean regions rejected the proposed executive presidency. Worryingly for Erdoğan, the ‘no’ vote won in Turkey’s largest cities Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. Together with other major cities of Antalya, Adana and Mersin, where ‘no’ also prevailed, they represent the country’s financial, industrial and touristic heartlands all opposed to Erdoğan’s vision for Turkey. In addition, the majority of the Kurdish majority regions in the south and southeast voted overwhelmingly against the constitutional changes.

Peak Erdoğan?

Perhaps, this is an indication that Erdoğan has reached the limits of his electoral power and could have a hard time sustaining his narrow popularity in the lead up to the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Subsequent developments from the referendum suggest there are credible claims that voter manipulation occurred to hand the narrow victory to the ‘yes’ campaign. The two main opposition parties Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (Republican Peoples’ Party, CHP) and the Halkların Demokratik Partisi (Peoples’ Democratic Party, HDP) and hundreds of citizens have appealed to the election watchdog for the annulment of a critical referendum that resulted in a narrow win for the government, arguing that unsealed ballot papers and envelopes were counted in open violation of the law.

The European Commission has also urged Turkey to launch “transparent investigations” into alleged voting irregularities in the constitutional referendum. The international observers charged on April 17 that the referendum campaign was conducted on an “unlevel playing field” and that the vote count was “marred by late procedural changes that removed key safeguards.” Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Board (YSK) made a controversial last-minute decision on April 16 to count ballots that had not been stamped by officials. This has brought into serious disrepute the legitimacy of President Erdoğan’s victory domestically and internationally, which will further stimulate the “no” camps.

Indeed, the outcome shows a deeply polarised society. As troubling as this is, the staunch resistance by the opposition groups signifies that the fight for democracy has yet to be concluded. Given that this group did not wilt away in the face of undemocratic and illiberal practices in the lead up to the vote, there is no indication that they will disappear now that the decision has handed him victory. Further slight shifts on the political landscape provide further hope. There are murmurs that experienced and established former politicians from MHP like Meral Akşener, or the AKP, could be getting ready to form another centre-right party in the post-referendum era. Depending on the names involved, a new centre-right party might challenge Erdoğan’s electoral power.

Erdoğan’s likely response will be to… extend his grip over the state to expend all his power to advance his personal vision.

Erdoğan’s likely response, in the short term, will be to press ahead with his victory and extend his grip over the state to expend all his power to advance his personal vision. It will be hard for him both to extinguish the deep tradition and spirit of competitive politics and completely erode the organisational power and support of party’s like the CHP and HDP, that have shown immense resilience.

Erdoğan is experienced enough to know that this slim victory, in spite of his efforts, will not allow him to take steps as freely as he could with a greater margin. Turkey’s parliamentary system has been replaced with a presidential one that is not restricted by any checks and balances, with no quick reversal in sight. Yet, the world’s political history is littered with the many lives and deaths of democracy. Turkey will be no exception. As grim as it might seem at this point, there still beats a pulse of hope. The tussle between the two diametrically opposed camps will create the space and tension to keep political pluralism alive in Turkey, just enough to sustain the flame for democracy.

Tezcan Gumus is a PhD candidate at Deakin University, Australia. His work and research interests lie in contemporary Turkish politics, democratic theory, and political elites and democratisation.

Courtesy: Open Democracy

We cry Islamophobia in foreign lands, but we bully minorities in our own: Bangladeshi writer

April 21, 2017

"I shudder to imagine a scenario where we’d be on the receiving end — whether it’s vandalism of our places of worship, or physical assault on believers of our faith"

Would a truly religious person hurt someone else like this?/MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU/Dhaka Tribune

A few years back, I witnessed something that I, ever since, have identified as the prime example of a despicable direct attack on religious minorities.

It was a Friday afternoon. I was wrapping up my prayer mat, scanning the area for some shade to complete the munazat, when I saw few men storming towards an under-construction building. I grew genuinely alarmed, if not interested, when I saw one of them pick up a piece of metal rod before entering the construction site.

I was a curious little boy and had the time, so I followed. I quietly followed them as they made their way up the stairs. The end of the expedition had all of us walking into a small room on the fifth floor facing the mosque, to find an old labourer tirelessly working his razor-sharp saw at some steel beams, trying to cut out small segments. It was a noisy business.

The same people who provide moral support to hate crimes on religious and ethnic minorities, turning a blind eye to the culture of belittling other religions, kowtowing to radical fundamentalists and their backward visions for Bangladesh — the very same people cry dirty and loud about Islamophobia in foreign lands.

At that moment, it hit me why they were there, as the events began to unfold.

The men presented their allegations. As the story went, the old man had not stopped his work for the prayer, and the sound had bothered the men in prayer. Now, they were the judge, jury, and executioner.

The accused was met with frantic blows to his body with the rod, and once the sentence had been carried out, the religious police headed back downstairs. On their way out, they found another worker, much younger, fast asleep on top of a stack of bricks. I assumed that what he was up to must’ve been a very profane thing, because the man was immediately awakened with a few hits of the rod, and he was then asked to explain why he was in slumber instead of attending the prayer.

The bewildered worker mumbled, trembling with fear: “Ami toh Hindu,” (But I’m Hindu) to which the leader of the posse replied: “Tahole puja kor, ghumabi na,” (Then do your puja, don’t sleep) which was punctuated with cursing.

With that, they left, but I lingered on for a couple of more seconds, trying to process what just happened, accidentally catching sight of the terrifying look of despair on the young man’s face.

This story ends here. The story of the suffering of minorities throughout the country, however, doesn’t.

Some months back, a group of men in Sylhet got out of a mosque after their prayers and walked straight into an Iskcon temple and vandalised it, because the temple hadn’t paused their religious hymns.

Such was the prayer these devotees had just concluded. Such was their respect for the sanctity of their wudu, which is supposed to be the sacred state of sanctity in which Muslims can offer their prayers to the Almighty.

But we understand — the men felt disturbed. It doesn’t matter that it was something that might as well be an essential part of the religious proceedings.
It doesn’t matter at all. The majority wins.

Earlier this week, a news article quoted a fundamentalist leader trying to offer an explanation regarding the issue of the sculpture in front of the Supreme Court, saying the sight of Lady Justice may arouse, or otherwise agitate a man in prayer in the neighbouring Eidgah Mosque should he catch a glimpse of it. Such is his resolve, and his focus on his prayer. But we understand. It’s quite alright.

Almost every Thursday night, I, along with the entire neighbourhood, lose sleep to the ungodly screams of “scholars” preaching in Waz Mahfils. Among their scholarly wisdom, which they feed to the ordinary working men, are arguments like: “In some country’s tree we saw Allah’s name, but have you seen Bhagwan’s name? This means that Allah exists, He is real.”

And that’s just one such program, in one neighbourhood, and that too in the capital of our great nation.

There are those among us who take to defending fundamentalist ideologies with the excuse that ours is a Muslim-majority country (despite there being no recognition of that in the constitution), saying how ceding to the “majority” would be for the greater good, for averting another large-scale religion-based conflict, thereby justifying minorities being bullied over and over again through time.

To them I say: The murder of the freethinkers, innocent priests, and followers of different faith, the woes of the Santals of Gaibandha, the woes of the Hindu families of Nasirnagar – these are on you. Does that make you uncomfortable? It should. By God, it should.

Time and again, our Facebook newsfeeds buckle under the weight of rants calling out such “acts of religious intolerance” and preaching “humanity.”

All it takes them is a two-minute clip from NowThis or LADBible. Most recently, the instigator was an Indian singer who had tweeted something which, it is worth noting, was grossly misinterpreted.

I shudder to imagine a scenario where we’d be on the receiving end — whether it’s vandalism of our places of worship, or physical assault on believers of our faith.

Sayrat Salekin is a freelance contributor to Dhaka Tribune. Republished with permission..

Kashmiri students thrashed in Rajasthan University; hoardings in Meerut warn, ‘Quit UP or else’

April 21, 2017

Photo credit: Hindustan Times

Taunted as being “stone-pelters”, a group of Kashmiri students studying at Chittorgarh’s Mewar University, a private educational institution, were allegedly beaten up by locals on Wednesday.

This is not the first time that they have been targeted in this university which has around 500 students from Jammu and Kashmir.

“Six of us were assaulted in three separate attacks that took place at the same time in the market. The attacks seemed coordinated,” said Bahar Ahmed Giri, a student of pharmacy told the media.

“They hurled abuses, called us terrorists and said we throw stones at the army. They told us to go back to Kashmir and threatened that they won’t let us study here,” Giri told the Hindustan Times.

Though none was seriously injured, the students particularly agitated over the university administration’s failure to protect them demanded action against the attackers.

The police have registered an FIR against two unknown persons. The police said following an argument in the local market two persons hit two students who in turn retaliated.
“There is nothing serious. A little scuffle happened between the students and outsiders,” said the university’s director Harish Gurnani.

Meanwhile, a day after the thrashing of Kashmiri students in Rajasthan, hoardings were put up in different parts of Meerut city in Uttar Pradesh warning Kashmiris living in the state to quit or else.

Photo credit: The Hindu

The warning has reportedly been issued by the extreme rightwing Hindu group, Navnirman Sena.

“Boycott the Kashmiris who pelt stones at (the) Indian Army. Kashmiris leave Uttar Pradesh or (the) face consequences,” said the hoardings.

The hoardings are believed to be a response to videos circulating on the social media showing clashes between protesters in Kashmir valley and the security forces.

The hoardings were pulled down on orders of the district administration. The police said they would be filing a case under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.

The Sena chief Amit Jani told the Hindu, “We want to boycott Kashmiris socially and financially so that they can tell their brothers in Kashmir not to trouble the Army. This is an important thing which must be done in order to ensure the safety of the Army in Kashmir.”

Jani was arrested last year for threatening to kill JNU student leaders Umar Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar.

A large number of students from Kashmir study in educational institutions in and around Meerut, such as Swami Vivekanand Subharti University.

When contacted by the Hindu, the vice-chancellor of the university said “the students from Kashmir were not aware of the hoardings but we are taking all precautions and safety measures”.

A second non-bailable warrant within a week issued against Televangelist Zakir Naik

April 21, 2017

Photo Credit: India Times

A special NIA court in Mumbai issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) on Thursday against controversial televangelist Zakir Naik, who is wanted in connection with his role in a terror case.

The warrant was issued following the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) submission before the court that Naik had failed to respond to three summons in cases filed under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act against him last year.

The NBW will enable the NIA to seek the help of Interpol in bringing Naik back to India.

Only last week, the Special Prevention of Money Laundering Act Court had issued an NBW against the controversial preacher in a money-laundering case filed by the Enforcement Directorate, after he failed to appear before it.

The NIA had filed a case against Naik and other members of his Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) after the Dhaka bomb blasts in July last year. Intelligence agencies in Bangladesh had alleged that some of the youth responsible for the blasts were inspired by Naik’s teaching.

In recent months, the Union Home Ministry has cancelled the FCRA registration of IRF and Naik’s educational trust, barring the organizations from receiving any foreign funds.

Telangana Muslim Reservation Bill: Exercise in Deception, Unjust in Maths & Likely to Fuel Communal Populism

April 21, 2017

A leading intellectual and leader of the Pasmanda movement, the author dissects the recently passed Backward Class, Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribe Reservation Bill, 2017 and explains it's deep flaws, most dangerous of all being the communal polarisation that will undoubtedly follow in a quota likely to be struck down

Muslim artisans making the pots for the Chhat pooja: Bihar

The recent Bill passed by the TRS government in Telangana that increased the quota for OBC (Pasmanda) Muslims and STs in public employment and education is flawed on many counts. Let me turn to the mathematics first. As we know the reservation structure in Telangana before the passing of the Bill was OBC 29% [Group A: 7%+Group B: 10%+Group C: 1%+Group D: 7%+Group E: 4%], SC 15% and ST 6%. The Bill has increased the OBC-E quota, which included 14 Muslim backward castes, from 4% to 12% and the ST quota from 6% to 10% thereby taking the quantum of reservations in the state to 62%.

The population of Muslims in Telangana is 12.68%. As far as Muslim castes are concerned while OBC-A includes Muslim scavengers (mehtars) and OBC-B includes the Muslim cotton carders (known variously as dudekula, laddaf, pinjari or noorbash) along with other Hindu backward castes, the OBC-E exclusively recognizes 14 Muslim caste groups. According to the Sudheer Commission Report (2016) about 81% Muslims were already covered in the existing OBC sub-quotas (A, B and E) and it were mostly the forward ashrāf castes like the syeds, pathans, mirzas, moghals, etc., that were excluded. One may therefore infer that 10.27% Pasmanda Muslims (81% of 12.68% Telangana Muslims) were already recognized in the OBC (A, B & E) quota before the passing of the recent Bill. However, the dudekula caste alone constitutes about 35% of Telangana Muslims and 4% of Telangana population. So after adjusting for the dudekula and mehtar castes the OBC-E group actually includes around 6% Muslim population. In that case the existing 4% quota for OBC-E was quite reasonable. The increase in OBC-E sub-quota from 4% to 12%, almost double the population that it actually encompasses, defies all rational argument to say the least.

How then does one interpret the recent move?

Before going further a few preliminary remarks would be in order here to contextualize the discussion:
A. Indian Muslims, like all religious groups, are differentiated into various caste groups. Historically, the high caste ashrāfs conceived Muslims as a ‘nation’ and mobilized for self-determination through the Muslim League before 1947 (When I say this I mean ashrāfs as a class. Indeed, a few nationalist ashraf Muslims like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and others opposed the Pakistan movement).

The 1946 elections which is dubbed as the consensus on Pakistan and in which Muslim League won handsomely was marked by a restricted electorate and ‘nearly 85% of the population was excluded…’. It is mostly the propertied and educated classes among Muslims, the high caste ashrāf, that voted for Pakistan and the vote of subordinated Muslim caste groups was not even put to test. In fact, lower caste Muslim organizations like the Momin Conference were actively contesting the two nation theory at the time, a factor much ignored in the dominant discourse.

It is due to the tragedy of the Partition that Muslims lost the reservations in Independent India that they enjoyed as a ‘community’ in the pre-1947 phase. One cannot simply demand a separate ‘nation’ and ‘reservations’ at the same time. The ashrāf class have already got what they desired—the nation-state of Pakistan—and now they have no moral claim left for reservations any longer. It is only the subordinated Pasmanda Muslims who can negotiate with the state for reservations now.

B. Since the category ‘Muslim’ had already become a suspect category due to the Partition tragedy the ideologues of the Pasmanda movement have mostly preferred that similarly placed caste groups across religious communities be clubbed together for purposes of reservations.
In Bihar the OBC list is subdivided into Annexure I (Most Backward Classes) and Annexure II (Backward Classes) with most of the subordinated caste Muslims being recognized in the MBC category along with other Hindu castes. P. S. Krishnan has argued that sub-quotas like the “Backward”, “More Backward”, “Most Backward” and the “Extremely Backward” (Pichade, Ati Pichade, Atyant Pichade and Sarvadhik Pichade) could be crafted and similarly placed castes across religions and thereafter be judiciously accommodated. In this scheme while Extremely Backward refers to those castes which have neither skills nor assets (nomadic people or service providers), Most Backward to those who have no asset base but have skills (the artisans/craftsmen), the More Backward castes to the castes of small peasants, especially tenantry without rights, and the Backward to caste groups which have relatively substantial asset base but are yet socially backward. From the Pasmanda vantage point the Bihar Formula works well without triggering off communal polarisation and therefore the politics of exclusive ‘Muslim’ sub-quotas has been often criticized.

C. Historically, religion has emerged as a political category in its own right and has been dominated by the interests of higher castes across religious groups in South Asia. It is indeed unfortunate that in the post-Partition phase due to their cultural capital and control over the community institutions, the ashrafs who had not migrated to Pakistan continued to represent the Indian Muslims. The persistence of the episodes of communal riots and symbiotic discourses of ‘Muslim backwardness’ and ‘Muslim appeasement’ whipped variously by high caste Muslim, Hindu or Secular nationalists have effectively worked to bury the substantive demands of survival and empowerment for the subordinated sections across religions. The limitations of secular-communal or majority-minority duopolies are too evident to be ignored now. I have called this the ‘post-minority condition’ elsewhere.

D. However, in the last few years with the substantive erosion of the state from employment and education, even the policy of reservations has become a useful tool for the hegemonic classes. The tendency to exploit the contradictions among the populace emerging from the principle of graded inequality in a caste-based social order is glaring. Hence, the politics of social justice has been effectively reduced to social engineering with all parties working to galvanise various caste/religious interest groups for electoral dividends. In this game reservation has become an affective rallying point for the bahujan salariat but has little to offer to the vast majority of other deprived community members. One has to rethink the overemphasis on the symbolism of reservations in social justice politics.

It is from the vantage point of the aforementioned discussion that one could understand the recent Bill. In all likelihood the revised quota will be struck down since it exceeds the Supreme Court ceiling of 50% for reservations and confronts the impossibility of being placed within the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution due to an unfavourable government at the Centre. While the TRS government credits itself for having realized one of the key promises in its manifesto by chalking out a 12% quota for ‘Muslims’, the BJP has predictably responded by suggesting that religion-based reservation may lead to creation of another Pakistan. While the almost coeval timing of PM’s recent statement concerning Pasmanda Muslims in Orissa (April 15) and the passing of the Bill by the TRS government (April 16) is indeed intriguing, commentators like Kingshuk Nag are not wrong in arguing that the Bill will pave the way for dangerous competitive communal populism and may advantage the BJP.

In fact, this drama could have been entirely avoided had the Andhra Pradesh government followed the Bihar Formula in 2004 itself when it first introduced the OBC-E category exclusively for Muslim caste groups. The subsequent Andhra High Court interventions rejecting this move as a ‘communal quota’ are sensible, but absolutely inconsistent because even OBC-C (which includes only Christian caste groups) and OBC-D (which includes only Hindu caste groups) are not technically immune from such a charge.

At the beginning of 2017 the AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi had asked the Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao ‘to exercise caution while increasing Muslim reservation to 12 per cent as it may give rise to legal complications and cause Muslims to lose the existing 4 per cent quota’. However, with both the AIMIM and Congress supporting the Bill now it seems that those fears have been probably allayed in their view. In fact, ‘Syed Ahmed Pasha Quadri (Majlis) supported the Bill and suggested an official amendment to create BC-F category to cover those groups among Muslims who had been left out. He wanted the existing 4 percent reservation for BC-E group containing 14 groups should be retained as it is and the additional 8 per cent hike proposed to cover Syed, Moghal, Pathan and local Arab groups’.

According to this position, Pasha suggests that one must continue with 4% OBC-E and the remaining 2.41% ashrāf Muslims (19% of 12.68% Telangana Muslims) should get 8% reservations as OBC-F. This suggestion is again problematic because reservation is not a poverty alleviation exercise. Only socially backward and underrepresented sections can be included in the OBC quota. Ashrāfs are not socially backward and are already overrepresented in the Telangana government services (the representation of Muslims in Telangana government services is 7.36% which would be mostly cornered by them). There is no case at all for inclusion of ashrāf Muslims in the Telangana OBC quota. The poor sections among ashrāf, or any other group for that matter, have to be addressed by other affirmative action/poverty alleviation programs and not through reservations.

Broadly speaking, the recent Bill appears to be a short term ruse by the TRS government to galvanise the Muslim vote-bank. It is bound to pave the way for communal rhetoric from which BJP is bound to benefit in the long run. Indeed, if one chalks out a 12% quota for 6% Muslim population segment then the charge of ‘Muslim appeasement’ doesn’t really appear off the mark at all. While being critical of TRS one may also ask that if the BJP is really serious about Pasmanda Muslims then it must work towards ensuring inclusion of Dalits belonging to Christian and Muslim communities within the SC quota. This has been a long pending demand of the Pasmanda Muslims and the BJP at the centre is well placed to execute that.

All in all, the recent Bill appears to be an exercise in deception, unjust in its mathematics and has the potential to ignite a spiral of dangerous communal populism. The strategic blunders of secular politics have turned out to be the biggest blessing for the BJP over the past few years. Since this is now understood even by a lay person on the street yet the persistence of such self-defeating moves, such as the recent Bill, pushes one to ask further: are they merely innocuous strategic blunders? Or worse?

[The author is Director, Dr. Ambedkar Centre for Exclusion Studies & Transformative Action (ACESTA), Glocal University (India). However, the views expressed here are personal. He can be reached at khalidanisansari@gmail.com]

1. ‘Stop pandering to the elite Mussalmaan’

2. Politics over Muslim Personal Law and UCC: The Pasmanda Position

3. For Dalit-Muslim unity, Mayawati must focus on caste, not religion

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