Most writings on the Muslims of contemporary India have tended to focus on the religious, social and political elite.
If elite Muslim understandings of Islam tend to focus on memories of Muslim grandeur, subaltern understandings tend to stress Islam as a force for social justice and liberation from oppression.
LARGE MUSLIM FOLLOWING
The growing articulation of dissatisfaction with and protest against the traditional Muslim religious leadership by sections of the community.
This article is based on a study of writings by Muslims in the Bangalore-based English fortnightly Dalit Voice, which articulates this new Islamic vision in contemporary India.
Established in 1980, Dalit Voice is India’s most widely read Dalit journal edited by the well known journalist V.T. Rajshekar, Dalit Voice describes itself as “The Voice of Persecuted Nationalities of India Denied Human Rights. Although Rajshekar is not a Muslim, he has a large following among the Muslims of the country for his unstinting commitment to Muslim causes, for his favourable views on Islam as a force for social liberation and for his fierce opposition to “upper caste Hindu aggression. Dalit Voice passionately advocates a broad-based unity among all marginalised communities of India. These are identified as all religious and caste groups other than the “upper” caste Hindus. Taken together, these groups form some 90% of the Indian population. They are said to be victims of “upper” caste Hindu domination and oppression, which, Dalit Voice insists, can only be effectively challenged if they all unite and struggle together against their common foe.
Several Muslims write regularly for Dalit Voice, and the magazine gives considerable coverage to Muslim and Islamic issues. It has a large number of Muslim readers, estimated at around a fifth of its total subscribers.
JAMATE ISLAMI
Many, though not all, of the Muslims who write for Dalit Voice belong to marginalised biraderis or caste groups considered low in the caste hierarchy, being descendants of “low” caste converts to Islam. All of them are “lay” believers, not a single
The following excerpts are taken from the Economic & Political Weekly (Sept. 14 20, 2002) article titled: “Islamic Perspectives on Liberation & Dialogue in Contemporary India”.
one being identified as a madrasa-trained alim. None of them is a professional writer, being, for the most part, students, teachers, social activists, local-level politicians and traders. Most are ardent advocates of the cause of the unity of all oppressed groups that Dalit Voice argues for. Interestingly, most of them are also critical of the existing Indian Muslim religious leadership.
They regard the principal Islamic groups in the country, the Jama’at-i-Islami (JI), the Tablighi Jama’at (TJ), as well as the custodians of the Sufi shrines, as having betrayed what they see as the true teachings and spirit of Islam.
This article looks at these voices of protest against and critique of the traditional Muslim leadership, examining it in the context of the increasing political awakening of the Muslim masses.
HINDU AGGRESSION
Our main argument is that the growing dissatisfaction among some Muslims in India with the traditional religious leadership must be understood in the light of the failure of the latter to respond to the concerns of the Muslim masses and their inability to protect Muslim lives and interests in the face of the increasingly menacing threat of upper caste Hindu aggression.
The new Islamic theology of liberation and pluralism is suited to the specific conditions of contemporary India.
Several Muslims who regularly write for Dalit Voice are advocates of what they call an “Islamic revolution”. They are critical of the established Islamic leadership in the country, seeing it as having “sold out” to the “upper” caste Hindu elite for preaching restraint, instead of struggle, in the face of mounting “upper” caste Hindu aggression, and having in the process betrayed Islam’s “revolutionary” message. Thus, for instance, Rahmatullah, a frequent contributor to Dalit Voice, alleges that the Muslim religious leaders have “spiritualised Islam” and hence, he says, they must be “thrown out”. Many of them, he alleges, have “become stooges of the Aryan (Hindu) upper castes’. Qurban Ali Zameenzad, another frequent contributor to the journal, writes that by preaching peace in the face of rapidly escalating attacks on Islam and Muslims, Muslim leaders have fallen prostrate before Hindu” fascists”, an unforgivable crime because in Islam, prostration (sajjada) is to be made to god alone. In a similar vein. Muhammad Kamran comments that there are, in fact, “no Muslim leaders worth the name in India today”.
BRAHMINISM AS ENEMY
Another Muslim contributor to Dalit Voice laments the fact that the leaderships of Muslim organisations in India have failed completely in their Islamic duty of championing the cause of the oppressed (Mustadifin) and crusading against oppression, the root cause of which he identifies as Brahminism, whose victims he regards as not just the Muslims alone, but all Indians other than upper caste Hindus.
Thus for instances, S.A. Mujeeb, a senior Bangalore-based advocate, writes that “maulanas are a pest on the Muslims”, and says that there is no room in islam for a separate priesthood, which he sees the ulama as having taken the form of. Maulanaism, he says, is a cult that is playing havoc with the Muslims in India, with the ulama reducing Islam to merely a few rituals.
In a similar vein Shamsul Arifin, another frequent contributor to Dalit Voice, warns Muslims to “beware of the maulanas and their brand of Islam”. He accuses them of “working at the behest of upper caste political leaders and United States’ imperialists”.
Maududi envisaged the Jl as the vanguard of the Islamic revolution, crusading against all “man-made ideologies and political systems, striving to replace them with Islam as a comprehensive way of life and by an Islamic state.
MOUDUDI BETRAYED
It has a strong support base among lower middle class Muslims in towns and has, unlike the TJ, for instance, failed to emerge as a mass movement.
Advocates of a new radical Islamic leadership in Dalit Voice are bitterly critical of what they see as the JI having reneged on the principles and vision of Maududi, diluting his revolutionary message and allegedly collaborating with upper caste Hindus. Thus, N. Sirajuddin writes that JI had today become “dormant” and “senile”, drained of the ‘zeal, courage and ambition” of its founder.
Voicing similar concern, the JI, alleges Abdul Ghaffar Shah, has betrayed the Islamic revolution by silently watching as upper caste Hindu chauvinists wreak havoc on the Muslims.
Iqbal Ahmed Sheriff, a regular writer in Dalit Voice and editor of the Urdu edition of the paper (now no longer being published), argues that because of its strict membership conditions and its reified understanding of Islam, the Jl is cut off from the Muslim masses.
As a result, he says, the JI’s understanding of Islam does not take cognisance of the acute problems of the Muslim masses.
Thus, Sheriff castigates the JI för seeking to win the hearts of the upper caste Hindu minority.
The Ji’s alleged failure to take seriously the question of Dalit-Muslim unity and dialogue, Shariff says, shows that despite all its scholarship, it is “totally cut off from the realities of life”.
TABLIGHI JAMAT
Many Muslims writing in Dalit Voice see the Ji’s efforts to combat the rising force of Hindu fascism as ineffective and as indeed counterproductive.
Like the ulama and the Jl, the TJ also comes under sharp critique by many Muslim contributors to Dalit Voice, the reasons being, broadly similar. The TJ is said to be the largest Islamic movement in the world today, with a presence in most countries, its activists numbering several millions.
Several Muslims who regularly write for Dalit Voice are vehemently opposed to the TJ, principally for what they consider as its other-worldliness, which they see as only further helping the upper castes.
Voicing similar concern, in a lengthy article on the TJ, Nafisul Hasan comments that TJ leaders insist that the problems afflicting the Muslims can only be solved through prayer. P.A. Salam says that the TJ completely ignores its Islamic duty of opposing “brahminical oppression”. Echoing the same sentiment, Mushtak Ahamed remarks that the TJ propagates an “elitist, shallow and ritualistic Islam” that has no relevance for the real world concerns of the oppressed.
Likewise, S.M. Ebrahim Madani laments that by confining Islam to the mosque and to mere ritual actions, the TJ has sought to drain Islam completely of its radical social programme.
MONOPOLY OF ULAMA
The TJ’s supposed aloofness from political affairs is condemned by several Muslims writing in Dalit Voice.
Shamsul Arafin writes of the Faza’il-e-Amal that it consists largely of concocted tales of great heavenly reward for ritual acts that serve the function of a bed-time story to lull the Muslims into deep slumber so that they cannot rise up to fight oppression. Likewise, M.N. Mustafa voices his concern that by effectively denying Muslims access to the Quran preserving it as a monopoly of the ulama, the TJ has snatched from the Muslims the only effective weapon to fight all anti-Islamic forces.
Naveed Hussain writes that many mujawirs are hardly different from the Hindu pandits, in claiming an almost divine status for themselves.
Thus, he writes, both the Brahmins as well as the mujawirs are an Aryan priestly class, while the institution of a clergy is anthithetical to the democratic spirit of Islami.
These Hindu customs, says another Muslim writer, Mahboob Subhan, have turned Muslims into cowards, draining them of their enthusiasm for jihad against oppression.
Many Muslims writers press the case for a revolutionary Islamic leadership.
It is interesting to note that almost none of the Muslims writing in Dalit Voice refer to matters of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), the domain that the ulama have been most concerned with.
By developing a new understanding of Islam, writers associated with Dalit Voice call for a new Muslim leadership, branding the existing leadership as corrupt, inept, and above all un-Islamic.
Many Muslims writing in Dalit Voice see the particular regional and ethnic origins of the established Indian Muslim leadership as itself a major cause of the problems affecting the community as a whole, and hence advocate a new leadership emerging from the subaltern classes to take their place.
ASHRAFS ARE DEAF
Ejaz Ali, a Patna-based doctor and president of the All-India Backward Muslim Morcha, writes tat the upper caste (ashraf Muslims from among whom the traditional Muslim leadership is largely drawn, are deaf, dumb and blind to the sufferings of the other Muslims.
Shafiq Ahmad writes that among the ashraf are descendants of upper caste Hindus who converted to Islam simply due to the attraction of power.
Intezar Ansari, a Backward Caste Muslim from the Julaha (weaver) caste, writes that the Ashraf are actually Aryans like the upper caste Hindus with whom they share much in common, working in close collaboration with them to oppress all other communities.
Nizamuddin Ansari points out the struggle for Dalit-Muslim unity can be carried out only by the non-Ashraf Muslims because most of the Ashraf still consider themselves as ruling class”.
Several Muslim contributors to Dalit Voice stress the need for a new Islamic vision and a radical reinterpretation of Islamic theology.
This new understanding of Islamic departs from traditional Islamic theology on several important counts.
QURAN IS NOT MANTRA
Quran is not to be treated, Masood Azhar puts it, as an idol to be adorned, used as a magical charm or recited like a mantra without understanding its meaning as is the common practice among many Muslims in India.
Zameenzad is one of the more articulate and scholarly writers who have argued for a new interpretation of Islam in the columns of Dalit Voice.
Darvesh writes that the Spirit of Islam is of far greater importance than the “Rituals of Islam”.
Conversion assumes a new meaning for advocates of this new Islamic vision.
Isa Haque whose articles appear frequently in Dalit Voice, says, there is no need for Dalits to convert to Islam first in order for Muslims to help them.
This can be seen as a borrowing of ideas and themes from the writings of Islamist ideologues such as Maududi and Imam Khomeini.
A crucial consequence of these new voices that are now being articulated, in the columns of Dalit Voice as well as in new backward caste Muslim journals and papers, is the challenging of the authority of the ulama.
Writers clearly state that what they are opposed to is brahminism and Ashraf prejudice and not to individual upper caste Hindus and Ashraf Muslims as such.
