Caste Data Can Break the Illusion of a Monolithic Muslim Identity

Pasmanda voices have long been politically sidelined. A caste census could change that.

Caste enumeration in the census may lead to the visibility of Muslim caste groups—not only in the political domain, but also by educating the masses on the need to distance themselves from the binary of communal politics.

(Photo: Arbab Ali/ The Quint)

The recent decision by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government to add the column of caste in the next census is a historic move given the impact it may have on the construction of communities and quest for social justice.

Just before the Independence, in 1931 and in 1941, the colonial state conducted the censuses with caste enumeration and counted over 4,147 castes and sub-castes associated with all religions of the nation. The data from 1941 was not tabulated or published due to difficulties that arose out of World War II, leaving us with authoritative data on caste groups only from the 1931 census.

Following Independence in 1947, the Nehruvian state continued with the colonial practice of conducting a decennial census, but caste-wise data was kept out of its ambit, as the new ruling elite felt such an exercise would only aggravate caste consciousness and social cleavages in the ‘modern nation.’

However, due to the constitutional mandate on affirmative action, the new state had to collect data on the number of Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in the postcolonial census exercise that began in 1951.

The census is just not about putting statistical tables and numbers; it also shapes our world through administrative categories and definitions. Historically, the census helped shape fuzzy communities with porous boundaries into enumerated communities, which later became political communities competing in the claim-making process vis-à-vis the state.

Scholars like Gyanendra Pandey argue that modern tools like census allowed the British regime to identify, catalogue, and classify people they ruled over, thereby sharpening the boundaries of religious identity between Hindus and Muslims.

From Matia Kunbis to Partition

In a way, the colonial census told us who the Hindus and Muslims were—despite the fact that social and cultural practices among these communities were often inseparable.

For instance, the 1911 census recorded a group in Gujarat called ‘Matia Kunbis,’ who used to invite Brahmins to officiate their main ceremonies, but claimed to be the followers of Pirana saint Imam Shah and his successors, and buried their dead as Muslims.

We can blame the census exercise for introducing the binary of Hindus and Muslims in the political domain, which led to competitive communalism due to demographic anxiety and distribution of resources.

Ultimately, this communalism resulted in the Partition of our nation and remains a potent tool in Indian politics today.

Questions were asked as to why the census of independent India continued with the colonial statecraft of categorisation based on religion, and published demographic data of size and growth of religious communities. This process by then was very much recognised with communal conflict in the past.

If suppressing caste consciousness is important for the modern nation, then why not religious consciousness?

Professor RB Bhagat provides us with an interesting logic for this. In order to ensure social justice to the members of SC, who according to the post 1947 legal regime could only be from Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, it was imperative to include religion in the postcolonial census.

Muslim Caste Realities: What the Numbers (Don’t) Say

The NDA government declaration to include caste enumeration in the census for the first time since 1931 may upend many of these prevailing logics dominant within the binary of Hindu-Muslim politics in India.

Most prominently, it may augment the process of politicisation of caste within the Muslim community who are divided along the categories of Ashraf (Upper Caste Muslims of noble ancestry), Ajlaf (belong to converts from functional groups like weavers, oil pressers, peasantry etc), and Arzal (converted from ex-untouchable castes).

In the absence of caste census, it is estimated from different surveys and academic studies that only 15 percent of Indian Muslims are Ashrafs, and 85 percent of them are of Ajlaf (backward) and Arzal (Dalit) background.

Following Indian Independence, the Union government set up the Kaka Kalekar Commission in 1955 and studied social hierarchy and divisions within the Muslim community. Similarly, the Mandal Commission in 1978 did an extensive survey of Muslim caste groups and recognised the social and economic backwardness prevailing among them.

After studying these caste surveys and recommendations of the Mandal Commission, along with the old data from the 1931 caste census, many state governments in India have extended the benefits of Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation to the backward and the Dalit Muslim caste groups.

In the last two years, following the INDIA parties’ campaign on caste census, the state governments of Telangana, Bihar, and Karnataka had conducted a caste survey and almost everywhere, four-fifths of the Muslims are found to be non-Ashrafs.

However, the recent ruling from the Calcutta High Court cancelling the OBC status of 77 Muslim groups on account of inadequate data shows the limit of such political moves from regional governments. Caste enumeration of the Muslim caste groups under the Census of India Act, 1948 have the power to challenge such judicial intervention to deny them OBC status.

Pasmanda Politics and the Limits of Political Literacy

In recent times, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has championed the cause of Pasmanda politics and have consistently argued to end the domination of Ashraf in Muslim politics and ensure broader participation of non-Ashraf Muslim castes in the socioeconomic and political activities.

However, his message has not been resonating well with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership of certain states, who often display sheer ignorance on the matter of caste among Muslims. Such as in West Bengal, where BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari had posted a tweet to complain about a statewide survey of Muslim castes to include them in the state OBC list.

He shared some individual forms with ‘Darji’ written in the community column and wrote that "these community names were never ever heard before as existing communities and are completely make-believe, fictitious and imaginary.”

A mere Google search would have informed the leader that ‘Darzi’ (or tailor) is a recognised Muslim OBC caste as per the notification from the National Commission for Backward Classes.

Caste enumeration in the census may lead to the visibility of Muslim caste groups—not only in the political domain, but also by educating the masses on the need to distance themselves from the binary of communal politics.

We can also be optimistic that in the process of participating in the caste census, Muslim groups will engage in the politicisation of their caste identities and engage with social justice discourse with more vigour and enthusiasm.

(Adil Hossain is a faculty at the School of Development, Azim Premji University. He can be reached at @adilhossain. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)