In 1908-09, Maulana Haji Abdul Jabbar of Sheikhpur tried to create a Pasmanda organization which wasn’t successful. He felt a deep sense of grief about this. In 1911, after reading “Tarikh-e-Minwal wa Alahu” (History of Weavers), he was prepared completely for the movement. At the age of 22, he started a five year shceme (1912-1917) for educating adults. During this time, whenever he went to his native Bihar Sharif, he would keep make people aware by organising small gatherings.

In 1914 , at the young age of 24 years old, he started a Society called “Bazm-E-Adab”(Chamber of Literature) that started a library under its aegis, in his native location of Khasganj, Bihar Sharif in Nalanda district. In 1918, a study centre called “Darul Muzakra”(House of Conversation) was established in Kolkata, where labourers and others used to gather in the evening to discuss writings and contemporary issues – these meetings would sometimes go on all through the night.

In 1919, after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, leaders like Lala Lajpat Rai and Maulana Azad were arrested. Aasim Bihari then started a nationwide postal protest for the release of those leaders, in which people from all the districts, towns in the entire country sent about 1.5 lakh letters and telegrams to the Viceroy and Queen Victoria. This campaign was eventually successful, and all the freedom fighters were freed from jail.

In 1920, in Tanti Bagh, Kolkata, he created the organisation “Jamiatul Mominin” (Party of the Righteous), whose first conference was held on March 10, 1920, in which Maulana Azad also delivered a speech.

In April 1921, he started the tradition of the wall written newspaper “Al-Momin” (The Righteous) in which text was written on large sheet of paper and stuck on a wall, so that more people could read. This style became very famous.

On 10 December 1921, a convention was held in Tanti Bagh, Kolkata, in which Mahatma Gandhi, Maulana Jauhar, Maulana Azad etc., participated. In this convention, about 20 thousand people took part.

Gandhiji on behalf of the Congress party proposed to donate a huge amount of one lakh rupees to the organization, with some conditions. But Aasim Bihari, at the very beginning of the agitation, considering it better to keep the organization away from any kind of political compulsion and surrender, refused to accept the amount of one lakh, a big financial assistance, which was highly needed by the organization.

From 1923, the wall newspaper Diwari Momin began to be published as a magazine Al-Momin.

In the beginning of 1922, with the intention of giving an all-India look to the organization, he started a tour of villages and towns, beginning from Bihar.

On July 9, 1923, a local meeting of the organization (Jamiatul Mominin) was held at Madrasa Moinul Islam, Sohdih, Bihar Sharif, in Nalanda district, Bihar. On the same day his son Kamruddin, whose age was only 6 months and 19 days, died. But the passion of bringing society into the mainstream was such that he reached the venue on time and delivered a powerful speech for one hour.

In these constant struggles and travels, he had to face many troubles as well as financial difficulties. Many of the times had to deal with hunger issues too. At the same time, his daughter Baarka was born in the house, but the whole family was drowning in debt and hunger for long.

During this time in Patna, Arya Samajis defeated the Muslim Ulemas (Clerics) in debate as nobody was able to answer their questions. When this was reported to the Maulana, he then took a loan from a friend for travel fare. He carried roasted corn in his bag and reached Patna. There he defeated the Arya Samajis in such a manner, by his logic and arguments, that they had to flee. A regional level conference was convened in Bihar Sharif on 3-4 June 1922, after nearly six months of rigorous travel.

It was difficult to arrange for the expenditure of the conference and the funds collected were not sufficient. The date of the conference was getting closer. In such a situation, Maulana requested his mother to lend the money and jewellery that he had kept aside for his younger brother’s wedding. He hoped that more funds would be arranged as the date of the Conference got closer. Unfortunately, not enough funds could be collected. He felt despair and even after being invited for the wedding, he didn’t attend it and left the house, out of guilt. He could not even dare to be a part of it.

In the will of God, I have surrendered my being
His wish is my wish, what He wills shall happen

All such setbacks, however never affected his passion.

In spite of all the troubles, anxieties and frequent travels, he never missed studying newspapers, magazines and books in addition to writing articles and daily diaries. This study was not limited to education, or knowledge of only social or political activities, but he wanted to research science, literature and historical facts and reach their roots. In certain instances, he would not hesitate to write letters to the writers of famous newspapers and magazines of that time.

In August, 1924, the foundation of a core committee called ‘Majlis-e-Misak’ (Chamber of Covenant), was laid down for the solidarity of selected, dedicated people.

On July 6, 1925, ‘Majlis-e-Misak’ (Chamber of Covenant), started publishing a fortnightly magazine named Al-Ikram (The Respect), so that the movement could be further strengthened.

The “Bihar Weavers’ Association” was formed to organize and strengthen the weaving work, and its branches were opened in other cities of the country, including Kolkata. After creating an organization in Bihar in 1927, Maulana turned to Uttar Pradesh. He visited Gorakhpur, Banaras, Allahabad, Moradabad, Lakhimpur-Kheri and other districts and created quite a stir. After UP, the organization was set up in Delhi, Punjab area too.

On April 18, 1928, the first All India level grand conference was held in Kolkata, in which thousands of people participated. In March 1929, the second All India Conference was held in Allahabad, third in October 1931 in Delhi, fourth in Lahore, and fifth on November 5, 1932, in Gaya. In the Gaya conference, the Women’s Wing of the organization also came into existence.

Similarly in Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Delhi, Nagpur and Patna, State Conferences were organized.

In this way, the organization was established in places like Mumbai, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Chennai, and even in countries like Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Burma and hence Jamiautul Mominin (Momin Conference) became an international organization. In 1938, there were nearly 2000 branches of the organization in India as well as abroad.

A weekly magazine called ‘Momin Gazette’ from Kanpur also started to be published. Keeping himself behind the scenes in the organization and pushing others forward, Aasim Bihari never made himself the President of the organization. Only after many requests of the people, he kept himself confined to the post of General Secretary only.

When the organization’s work increased a lot, and the Maulana did not have the opportunity of doing hard labor to raise his livelihood and family — in such a situation, the organization fixed a very modest amount to be paid to him every month, but unfortunately that was also not paid to him many times.

Wherever the branches of Momin Conference were opened, small meetings were held continuously, and education and employment counseling centres and libraries wwere also established.

From the beginning, Maulana tried to ensure that Pasmanda castes other than the Ansari caste, were also made aware, active and organized. For this, he used to include people, leaders and organizations of other Pasmanda castes in every conference, their contributions in the Momin Gazette were also given equal space.

Meanwhile, the news of his brother’s severe illness reached him and he was told “Come soon, he can die anytime”. But the Maulana couldn’t go home due to frequent tours. Even when his brother died, he could not even go for the funeral.
In the election of the Interim Government in 1935-36, the candidates of the Momin Conference also won a good number of votes across the entire country. As a result, a large number people also realized the power of the Pasmanda movement. This is where the movement began to witness opposition.

Already in the mainstream politics, the upper caste Ashraf Muslim class started defaming the Momin Conference and its leaders, by employing different types of allegations, religious fatwas, writings, magazines. In fact, they even made a song called ‘Zulaah Naama’, that indulged in the character assassination of the weaver caste as a whole and was also published.

During the campaign in Kanpur, a Pasmanda activist named Abdullah was murdered. Usually, Maulana’s speech used to be about two to three hours. But on September 13, 1938, his five hour speech in Kannauj and the speech in Kolkata in October 25, 1934, that lasted a whole night became landmarks in human history, setting an unprecedented record.

The Maulana played an active role in the Quit India Movement. In the year 1940, he organized a protest in Delhi against the partition of the country, in which about forty thousand Pasmanda people participated.

In the elections of 1946, some candidates of the Jamiatul Momin (Momin Conference) were successful and many of them won against candidates of the Muslim League.

In 1947, after the storm of the partition of the country, he revived the Pasmanda movement with full rigor. The Momin Gazette was republished in Allahabad and Bihar Sharif.

The failng health of the Maulana started influencing his untiring hard work, travels. But he was determined to revive the tradition of Hazrat Ayyub Ansari (the Companion of Prophet Muhammad) . When he reached Allahabad, he did not have the strength to even walk a step. Even in such a condition, he was busy in the preparations for the Conference of the Jamiatul Momineen in UP State, and kept guiding people.

But Allah had taken from him whatever work he could. On the evening of December 5,1953, he suffered a sudden heart stroke and there was trouble in breathing; the pain and uneasiness of the heart grew, his face became sweaty, he fainted. Around two o’clock at night, he found himself in the lap of his son, Haroon AAasim. With a gesture he indicated his head be rested on the ground so that he could offer himself to Allah’s favor and demand forgiveness for his sins. In these circumstances, on Dec 6, 1953, on a Saturday, in Haji Kamruddin’s house, in Atala, Allahabad, he breathed his last.

In his forty years of vigorous and active life, the Maulana did nothing for himself, and where was the opportunity to do it? But if he wanted, he could have gathered many material things for himself and his family. But he never gave attention to this aspect. The Maulana kept lighting the homes of others throughout his life but he did not try to illuminate his own house with a small lamp.
 
 Faiyaz Ahmed Fyzie is a freelance author and is working as a Research Associate in the Ministry of AYUSH. The English translation is done by Vinay Shende, who is an Ambedkarite working in the Corporate Sector.

The original Hindi article was published in RTI-Hindi here.

The post Alternate History: Maulana Ali Hussain ‘Aasim Bihar’, Father of the First Pasmanda Movement and Freedom Fighter appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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]
 

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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

The post Telangana Muslim Reservation Bill: Exercise in Deception, Unjust in Maths & Likely to Fuel Communal Populism appeared first on SabrangIndia.