This is in continuation of my article, “Why blame Backward Hindus for anti-Muslim riots engineered by minority vaidiks?” (DV guest editorial April 16, 2002 p.3).
The participation of Dalits, Tribals and Backward Castes in Gujarat carnage has raised several questions with regard to the Dalit-Muslim unity. Hindu nazi forces have succeeded in making such a unity very difficult. With the Gujarat genocide and with the formation of Mayawati Govt. in UP with BJP support such a unity seems to be impossible.
The Muslims unlike the Christians do not know how to understand the caste question and handle the rioting situations. The persisting unfriendly relations between Muslims, Dalits and BCs mainly in urban areas is a real cause for worry.
After the BJP came to power, when there were Hindu nazi attacks on Christians the Dalit and Tribal participation in those attacks was almost nil. The Dalits and Tribals have very close relations with Christians but such relations do not exist with Muslims. The BCs have very ambiguous relations with Christians but they too have inimical relations with Muslims.
Making enemies fight: The causes for this situation need to be probed by the Muslim intellectuals seriously. Otherwise the Hindu nazis will use the muscle power of the BCs against Muslims more and more by creating violent situations. Since every riot ends up in more killing of Muslims, Dalits and BCS, such clashes will increase. This mode of constructing enemy image within the oppressed communities is the main agenda of the Hindu nazis to divert the attention of all of them from their basic needs.
Ever since the oppressed sections started asking for socio-economic and political rights, the nazis have set agendas of communal riots as that would divert their attention.
Christian global campaign: By attacking the Christians, the nazis lost credibility in the Western world as the Christian intelligentsia of India has taken up a global campaign against the Hindu fascist nature. Because of that the attempts of a Hindu nazi outfit, VHR, to get a NGO status in the UN were thwarted. All global NGOs and govt. bodies have got full information of the attacks on Christians and the
American Congress and the EU Parliament had noted such attacks. Because of the loss of face the Hindu nazis had planned to instal P.C. Alexander, a Syrian Christian, as the President of India.
But the Muslim intelligentsia failed to establish a rapport with BCs at the ground level. Nor did it launch an international campaign about the attacks on Muslims. Though there are considerable number of Muslim intellectuals who can form a victims forum and document the atrocities against Muslims and place such facts before the UN and other global human rights bodies, they never did it.
Muslims suffer from an inward-looking self-image. The Muslim intelligentsia left the whole communal issues to mass defense and politics of retaliation. This is quite unfortunate situation because the UN as a global body is giving more credibility to the voice of victims. Instead of allowing the Muslim community to indulge in retaliatory politics, the UN involvement may reduce the scale of violence in India.
English-speaking Muslims: The responsibility for not taking the Gujarat genocide to the UN human rights wing entirely lies on the English-speaking Muslim intelligentsia of India.
The Muslim intelligentsia is also responsible for its indifference to the caste and untouchability questions.
The Editor of Dalit Voice is fully right in criticising the Muslim leadership for ignoring his 20-year old plea to work for Dalit-Muslim unity.
Historically before the British came, the Muslim rulers and scholars did not bother to understand the caste question. Not a single Muslim thinker made any effort to study the problem of caste and untouchability.
A visiting Muslim scholar like Al-Beruni threw a cursory glance at the caste question but no Indian scholar or poet wrote at length about the agony of untouchability. Quite surprisingly they did no social or educational work among Dalit-Bahujans. Because of the influence of the brahminic ideology the Muslim scholars thought that the caste system and untouchability were spiritual and they should not interfere with that system.
A small number of Sufi propagators mingled with the sudras/Chandals of that period. But in the modern period particularly in the post-“independence” period A not a single Muslim intellectual worth the name worked among the BCs. Ever since Dr. Ambedkar started the liberation struggle of Dalits, no Muslim intellectual stood by him. Even after the Mandal movement, not a single Muslim scholar wrote at least one serious book formulating an Islamic understanding of caste and untouchability. How do bridges get built among communities? They get built only when an oppressed community gets the support of the other community, and each community understands the other on day today basis. For that a theoretical formulation is very essential.
This piece is based on the article by Prof. Kancha Ilaiah of Osmania University, Hyderabad, India, and a leading activist in the Dalit-Bahujan movement (Hindu May 29, 2002). His radical book, Why I am not a Hindu, needs careful reading.
