21 Minorities and religious identities

Saidalavi P.C.

Self-identification is the key component of any identity construction. No less important is the recognition of the same identity by others. Even if we consider ourselves as belonging to a particular identity, we may not be recognized as such by others. The external component of our identities may be groups, castes, communities and state institutions. Our simultaneous identifications with many categories may also create tensions within us and among groups. In the construction of a single identity, many other identities get submerged and unaddressed. It means that the construction of identities is not a transparent process. Keeping these complexities at the outset, this chapter aims to shed some light on the ways in which minority identities are being constructed in contemporary India.

Nation and Minorities

Rajeev Bhargava (1999) argues that there are two ways of conceding the notions of majority/minority. While one is from certain conceptions of democracy, the other is from the problematic of nationalism. In the democratic conceptions, the term minority and majority are related to electoral vocabularies where they refer to their flexible and shifting nature. The flexibility derives from the not yet solidified and reified idea of an identity imposed on the group in electoral calculations. He calls such formulations ‘preference-based’ majority and minority. In the nationalistic conceptions, the designations of majority and minority are assigned to certain social groups without considering their political affiliations and desires. When the terms are assigned to imply a social group, the flexibility of the term is overlooked and their identities become inevitable part of their numbers. The resultant reifications lead to categorising and constructing certain identities once and for all. He calls these ‘identity-dependent’ majority and minority.

The nation-state is constructed by creating a mainstream or core, the essential part of the nation. Along with the construction of the core or the majority, the minorities or the peripheries of the nation are also constructed. It is against the foil of the minorities, the not yet core, the majorities are constructed. In other words, both the minorities and the majority are two sides of the single coin. The core of the nation somehow gets constructed, almost invisibly and non-politically. This invisibility makes them the natural citizens of the nation. Those who do not occupy this core are often asked to show the proofs of the loyalty towards the nation. They may be allowed a part in the nation but only conditionally and never completely. As the nation-state tries to unite heterogeneous groups of people under a single territory, it strives to emphasize some form of a national culture. This is reflected in the selection of national heroes, national symbols and a certain reading of history. The national culture may be claimed as neutral and secular, but it often reflects the symbols and culture of dominant ethno-linguistic or ethno-religious group.

The processes and methods of constructing the core of the nation is not quite an ingenuous process. For example, during the nationalist struggle, the figure of the ‘nationalist Muslim’ referred to those who were advocates of Indian National Congress. It does not have an equivalent category for the Hindus or any other religious group in India. To speak about the politics of the Hindus, the term is often reversed to read ‘Hindu nationalists’. This term does not simplistically refer to Hindus who are nationalists; rather the reference here is to their brand of nationalism, a nationalism where considerable weight is ascribed to the ‘Hindu’ moment. It is a nationalism where Hindu community, Hindu traditions and Hindu culture would constitute the essence and pride of place. Along with this exclusivism, a more inclusive nationalism also emerged in the nationalist struggle which was known as the secular nationalism. Given the existence of both these trends during the nationalist struggles, and the predominance of them in the 1940s, politically conscious Hindus were readily divided into ‘Hindu nationalists’ and ‘secular nationalists’. There was a growing ‘Muslim’ nationalism over the same period. However, the Muslims were not divided into Muslim nationalists and secular nationalists. They were instead divided into ‘nationalist Muslims’ and ‘Muslims’—“and here the proposition extended of course to more than just those who were politically involved” (Pandey: 1999). The Hindus were nationalists first and foremost. Whether they were secular nationalists or Hindu nationalists was a secondary question. “All Muslims were, however, Muslims. Some Muslims were advocates of ‘Indian’ nationalism, and hence ‘nationalist Muslims’. The remainder of that community, however, were not likely to be supporters of Indian nationalism on account of their being Muslim” (Pandey: 1999). This method of easy takeaway whereby Hindus naturally becomes what constitutes the nation and those who are not Hindus becoming the suspect elements within the nation is the cornerstone of the construction of nation-state in India.

Constitution and Minority Rights in India

The problem of minority rights has a long and peculiar history in India unlike those contexts in which such issues are being debated in democratic, political theory. In western liberal democracies, such questions are being discussed as the cultural rights of the communities. Such demands are being made by the indigenous populations and immigrant groups. These groups have to justify their claims by questioning the liberal idea of homogeneous citizenship and replacing it with the notion of multicultural pluralism. In India, by contrast, the minorities, whether linguistic or religious, are the integral part of the nation-state from its inception. Moreover, concern for the minority rights was coeval with the establishment of democracy in India. This concern with the idea of the majority and minorities was part and parcel of anti-colonial movements in India. The understanding of India through the dichotomy of majority-minority was introduced by the British administration in India, who understood particularly the Muslims and the Hindus through the lens of religion as undifferentiated and bounded communities. The introduction and employment of decennial census cemented this process by showcasing its demographic evidence. Separate electorates were created for Muslims by the Morley-Minto reforms and the Government of India Acts of 1919 and 1935 expanded the privileges of reserved seats and separate electorates to other sections of the population including Indian Christians, the Sikhs and the Depressed Classes (Robinson: 2012). Rina Verma Williams (2012) further argues that the construction of Muslims as a minority was accomplished cumulatively rather than in an instant. The creation of separate electorates and subsequently the codification of Muslim Personal Law were crucial steps in this process.

By the time of Independence and Constituent Assembly debates, the categories of ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ were very much entrenched in political discourses. Though the idea of ‘minority’ is understood as stigmatizing and stereotyping, it is on the basis of the same idea that the group rights of those belonging to minorities are conceded. It was understood that the idea of the citizen and a common civil and political rights on which the modern, liberal nation-state is founded cannot accede to rights of particular groups. It means that certain groups have both individual and group rights. In India, for example, Muslims have both fundamental rights and personal rights as a religious minority. The institutionalisation of minority rights in India was coeval with the adoption of the Constitution. In Articles 29 and 30, the Constitution speaks of the rights of linguistic and religious minorities. But the Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights of Citizens and Minorities had, as Gurpreet Mahajan (1999) notes, representatives of religious minorities alone. Consequently, the ideas about community rights were shaped by the anxieties and requirements of religious minorities alone. The rights of the minorities are enshrined in the Articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution. Article 29 gives the right to any section of citizens with a distinct language, script or culture of its own to conserve the same. Article 29 (2) prohibits any citizen from being denied admission into any educational institution maintained by or receiving aid from the state on the grounds of religion, race, caste or language. Article 30 gives the right to all minorities, whether religious or linguistic, to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. It further lays down that the state will not discriminate any educational institution in matters of funding on the basis of whether it is under the management of a minority.

Gurpreet Mahajan (2010) has noted that despite the protection and acknowledgement of welfare-related functions of religious communities, such as running charities or schools, the state does not consider these communities as central to concerns of social change and national development. In fact, with their potential for assertion and mobilization, they have been considered as possible impediments to social change. This was a major concern with personal laws of religious communities. While the state was successful in implementing more gender-just laws for Hindus with respect to marriage, divorce, succession and inheritance, the state was largely unsuccessful in implementing similar laws among other religious communities. The provision for cultural autonomy of communities has delimited the state’s capacity to institute equal rights. There are also problems with the definition of majority in the Constitution. The description of Hindu in Article 25 of the Constitution and its ratification in the Hindu Code Bill, the Untouchability Abolition Act, and other legislations treat Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains as part of the Hindu community, refusing to acknowledge their particular identities or give them minority privileges. For the state, conversion would imply only a change to Islam, Christianity, Judaism or Zorastrianism, but not to the ones subsumed under Hinduism.

Muslims as a Minority

On what account is Muslims considered a minority in India? Do Muslims constitute a homogeneous category to be referred to as ‘Muslim minority’? Before analysing the constitution of the minorities, it is important to problematise what is considered as the core of the nation. If minority is the counterfoil against which the majority is constructed, the homogenisation process is evident here too. Who is a Hindu in India? Are untouchables, who were systemically denied dignity, education, access to sacred Hindu sites and texts and so on, Hindus? The majority were Hindus, even if the appellation did not bring any kind of meaning to a substantial number among them.

In the tumult of Partition and Independence, the Hindus (sometimes including Sikhs) were spoken of as a homogeneous entity ranged against Muslims. Since the Hindus did not have a country other than India, their attachment to the nation was beyond doubt. Hindu or Indian was an irrelevant distinction. What Partition did was to establish these categories for Indian society and politics in a countrywide sense. The Muslims were the minority, as of course were Sikhs, Indian Christians, Parsis and Jains, although all these did not matter much on account of their small numbers. The Muslims were now the ‘minority’ even in taluks, districts where they were a numerical majority. They were the minority that clamoured for Partition and they now had to choose not only where they belonged but also to showcase the sincerity of their choice. As an adequate proof of loyalty and its sincerity, Muslims were asked to do a number of things. Many called for disbanding the Muslim League and giving up of any demands that even remotely smacked of separatism such as quotas for Muslims in legislative assemblies and appeals for separate electorates. The fact is that the choice between India and Pakistan did not any clear meaning for those living in those areas which were called ‘Muslim minority’ provinces in British India. Even in areas where the idea of Pakistan had a relevance, only those who had resources for migration could think of the idea as an option. The majority of the Muslim masses could not imagine the fruition of the idea even in their wildest dreams.

Along with the reification of Muslims as a minority also happened the redesignation of local castes and communities. Those who had long adhered somewhat loosely to either Hindu, Sikh or Muslim were now categorically christened as one or the other. The Mappilas of Malabar, the Meos of Mewat and Momins of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar simply became ‘Muslims’ and nothing else for some time. The regional, caste and occupational markers and designations by which the members of these communities had been privileged, despised and even declared to be only ‘half-Muslims’ for generations seemed to lose much of their significance.

It is also important to note how Muslims respond to the category of ‘minority’ in contemporary India. In a recent article, Tanweer Fazal (2014) shows, in the context of Delhi, how Muslims resist such a category, especially by claiming that they are ‘the second biggest majority’ in India. Consideration of the community as the minority suggests its subjugated existence, its aberrations from the majority and its dependence on the state for patronage and protection.

Minorities within the Minority

The construction of the minority as a homogeneous category in national imagination has obfuscated any debates on the divisions within them. Though Muslims are considered to be a minority, implying a homogeneous consciousness among them, the empirical verifiability of such a claim is unfounded. Rather, Muslims are divided into various castes and social groups, religious denominations, and so on. Muslims are observed to follow social hierarchies similar to Hinduism. They are divided into occupational and endogamous groups and marriage between the endogamous groups are rare. Whenever such marriages do happen, they are endogamous in nature, meaning the higher castes may take women lower to them but women from higher social groups will not be sent in marriage to those considered lower to them. Various reasons have been furnished for the occurrence of such marriages. Some scholars argue that such marriages are results of concern for matching spouses in terms of economic, cultural and religious backgrounds. Some others find the rationale in considerations of purity of blood as among Hindus. Many assert family genealogy as means of asserting its ritual purity of blood and intermarriages are considered polluting. Even in terms of occupational specialization, a close link exists between social groups and their assigned jobs. In most of the cases, a close correspondence exists with reference to Hindu caste system whereby locally dominant castes serve as the nucleus of the exchange of goods and services. However, there is a degree of difference in correspondence between social groups and occupation at various levels of hierarchy. Such links are apparently stronger at the lower levels of hierarchy than the higher. But this pattern does not enunciate a departure from Hinduism because even among Hindus the correspondence between caste and occupation is greater at the lower levels rather than the higher. Moreover, occupational association should not be seen not in terms of who is engaged in what occupation but the way occupation is hierarchically graded and thereby affects the status of the people traditionally associated with such jobs.

There are notions of hierarchy among various social groups among Muslims though the criterion of ranking among them does not strictly correspond with caste among Hindus. Among Hindus, caste hierarchy is based on the idea of pollution which is elucidated by relations between the notions of pure and impure. While some scholars argue that in most of the Muslim communities in India, the hierarchy is part and parcel of a deference structure which emphasised inequality of status, some others anchor hierarchy, among other things, also to the conception of purity and pollution. In such cases, those belonging to the higher castes refuse any commensal relations with the lower castes and refuse to take food or water from them. However, the notion of purity and pollution among Muslims is not as elaborated among Hindus. The status is more often based on various other characteristics like hypergamy, deference, privilege and descent. The social divisions among Muslims are similar to social divisions among Hindus and thus it can be termed caste, though an exact replica cannot be found. Since the majority of Muslims in India are converts from the lower and intermediate castes among Hindus, they would have maintained their cultural practices even after assuming Islam.

Considering Muslims as a minority, it is also assumed, quite imperceptibly, that they follow a single religion, Islam. The diversity among Muslims across India in understanding what constitutes Islam is obfuscated in such a conception. They are divided into various religious groups and denominations and there is no single conception of Islam. There is a near perfect harmony in claiming that Koran and Hadis, the sayings of the Prophet, constitute the pillars of Islam. However, it is the contestations and rivalry in defining and following what is contained in Koran and Hadis that various religious groups among Muslims become distinct from each other. There is no uniformity in understanding this ‘single’ religious tradition. The contestations and rivalry between the groups often border on violence. In comprehending the diversity in in terms of practices and beliefs, some scholars attribute them to the influence of larger living environment. Whatever be the reasons, it amply proves that the idea of a homogeneous ‘Muslim’ as an empirical category is without evidence.

Minority Representation

Along with the proclamation of numerical criterion and cultural specificity, the demands for allocation of power in political processes were critical to minority articulation in India. The colonial response to these demands was the provision of reservation of seats and separate electorates that assured representation in proportion to their population. For the colonial state, minority was a religious category that referred particularly to Muslims as beneficiaries of special privileges. Later, the Government of India Act, 1919 conferred Sikhs the same status. Subsequent interventions included many more groups and communities within the ambit of minority. Government of India Act of 1935 proclaimed representation in elected bodies and public services to Muslims, Indian Christians, Sikhs, Anglo-Indians, Europeans and the Depressed Classes. The Depressed Classes (the Untouchables) were strictly drawn from the Hindus.

The anti-colonial movements were also grappling with the idea of ‘minority question’ during the same period. But their response was largely centred on abolishing separate electorates and reserving seats in joint electorates for them. During the Constituent Assembly Debates, the question of minorities was delinked from that of socially and historically disadvantaged groups such as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Moreover, the idea of minority came to be established on the idea of religion. In the aftermath of Partition, Muslims were asked to divest of their claims to reservation of seats in legislature and public services as the proof of loyalty to the newly found nation-state. Religious minorities had, in the conception of the new state, the recognition of a cultural collective with rights to sustain and propagate their mother tongues, religions and traditions, without any claims of political or economic privileges. However, although these rights were floated as safeguards for the minorities, cultural rights were given to all the communities. While Muslims were governed by Muslim Personal Law, the Hindu majority was governed by the Hindu Civil Code. The cultural rights were understood to be necessary for equal representation and membership of different groups within the nation-state.

Categorization and enumeration of the minorities is useful in a democratic context where claims can be made on the state on behalf of the communities. To that extent, there is an inherent tension between the exigencies of homogenizing the category and obfuscating the empirical heterogeneity.

Reference bibliography:-

• Bhargava, Rajeev (1999) ‘Should We Abandon the Majority-Minority Framework?’ in D.L. Sheth and G. Mahajan (eds), Minority Identities and the Nation-state. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 169-205.
• Fazal, Tanweer (2014) “‘Being Muslim’ in Contemporary India: Nation, Identity and Rights”, in R. Jeffrey and R. Sen (eds) Being Muslim in South Asia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 201-223.
• Mahajan, Gurpreet (1999) ‘Contextualising Minority Rights’, in D.L. Sheth and G. Mahajan (eds), Minority Identities and the Nation-state. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 59-72.
• ________ (2010) ‘Religion, Community and Development’, in G. Mahajan and S. Jodka (eds) Religion, Community and Development: Changing Contours of politics and Policy in India. New Delhi: Routledge, pp. 1-35.
• Pandey, Gyanendra (1999) ‘Can a Muslim be an Indian?’ Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 41 (4), pp. 608-629.
• Robinson, Rowena (2010) ‘Introduction’, in R. Robinson (ed.) Minority Studies. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-48.
• Williams, Rina Verma (2010) ‘Making Minority Identities: Gender, State and Muslim Personal Law’, in R. Robinson (ed.) Minority Studies. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 73-94.