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CEPECAMI, 2-Nazir Ahmad Road, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh-202002. Price : Not stated
Muslims of Uttar Pradesh are a noisy lot. The divines from Lucknow and Deoband who descend down on every metropolis in the country, are rich in rhetoric. But their shiny faces, long flowing beards, Arabized looks, language laced with Urdu couplets and Persian proverbs, hardly ever purvey the seamy underside and grim social realities that engulf the community at large.
The book under review knocks off a lot of myth. It holds mirror to the diversity of a community that has been misunderstood as the Muslim mainstream. It sharply focuses on the decline that has set in among the Muslims of State.
Muslims of Uttar Pradesh by Dr. Abdul Waheed puts under powerful searchlight the causes for decline of the community which is pathetically enmeshed in illiteracy, poverty and drudgery. It is a compilation of papers presented at a seminar held under the aegis of CEPECAMI (acronym for an institution entrusted to look after the cultural interests of Indian Muslims under the constitution of the Aligarh Muslims University.)
Of every 100 Muslims in India, 22 live in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in the country. Eighteen per cent of the state’s people are Muslims. Nearly 37 per cent of the Muslim population lives in urban areas. Muslims constitute almost half of the people in three of the state’s districts namely Rampur, Bijnore and Muradabad. But literacy is at its lowest in the three districts. While general literacy rate in UP is 54, Muslims are only 48 per cent literate. And literacy is just a benchmark, it does not suffice to make one educated. World’s 90 per cent polio cases occur in India and India’s 90 per cent polio victims are in Uttar Pradesh. And of these, 70 per cent of the polio afflicted persons are found among Muslims of Gonda, Bahraich and Basti, three districts in UP.
Muslims in UP were the worst victims of bias, discrimination, prejudice, hate and communalism. Reasons were obvious: the state was the hotbed of communal politics which led to creation of Pakistan. Migration of technocrats and leadership material to the new state orphaned the UP Muslims. The large residual population consisted of peasantry, landed gentry, artisans and nationalist ulema.
With the passing away of leaders like Maulana Azad, Hafiz Mohammad Ibrahim and other such visionaries, the community came to be led by a set of ulema who vied in outstooping each other in dogmatism. Aligarh movement had never appealed to this class. Even the enlightened alumni of Aligarh reduced it to Sir Syed Day dinners. Sir Syed Ahmed had seen the British rule not merely as a political change but a cultural change as well. He was impressed with the use of reason and science in the West and wanted his own people to follow this. He was astonished to see how servants read newspapers in England during his stay there and how universalized education had led to general awakening of the masses. P. K. Mathur’s insightful essay throws ample light on the contribution and role of Sir Syed.
Imtiaz Hasnain’s essay on Urdu is a marvelous analysis of how Urdu’s departure and identity politics marginalized the community in administration and politics. Urdu though Indo-Aryan in nature and origin, got narrowed down to Muslim due to political and economic exigencies of the time. Urdu’s shared space with Hindi became a reason for identity politics. The author questions the fact that even if it is conceded that Urdu is language of Muslim minority, it should not be a cause for being denied the rightful place in education in the democratic framework of India.
He argues that the covert policy of discouragement of Urdu as a medium of instructions and examination has made Urdu suffer immensely in UP, but not so much in Bihar. A field survey in 1996 reveals that only 16 per cent of Muslim literates were educated through Urdu medium in UP whereas it was 84 per cent in Bihar. Biases in the education system were deeply entrenched. Linguicism, the urge to learn dominant language, currently rules the roost. When people educate their children, they also want returns from education. So when Muslim artisans, peasants and people in petty jobs such as tailoring, carpentry etc find no returns from this education, and see that it distances them from their traditional occupation, they find no value in such education. This sums up the plight of Muslim education in Uttar Pradesh.
Several other factors also exacerbated the situation. In UP where Hindi is seen as imposition on Urdu-Muslim population, the children view it negatively and therefore do not develop competence or excellence in it.
Similarly, Urdu not only came to determine religion (i.e., Muslim) but also nationality after 1947. This was derived from Liyaqath Ali Khan’s speech in 1951 who considered Islam and Urdu as ingredients of Pakistani nationality. Hasnain also debunks the myth that Urdu was the language of majority of Muslims in UP. Even in 1951 Census, only 48 per cent of UP Muslims returned Urdu as their mother tongue.
Mohd. Shahid’s study on Muslim representation in local bodies of Aligarh districts with 18 per cent of Muslim population, statistically etches to relief the deprivation in matters of political representation. Study says the deprivation in zila panchayat, kshetra panchayat and gram panchayat is 25, 33 and 44 per cent respectively.
Contrary to popular belief and the rhetoric and raucous cries of the protest brigade from the state, Muslims in the State are as widely heterogenous as are Hindus. Surprisingly, of the 267 communities listed under OBCs in the state, 67 are Muslim, all following the centuries old Biradri (fraternity) customs which largely decide the hierarchy, leadership, social organization and mores. With forces of modernization, urbanization and democracy exerting their own influence, and new economy, literacy and professional education also changing their mindset, it is left to one’s guess as to how much scope remains for the religion and Biradri panchayat to shape their lives. Dr. Abdul Waheed, the author of the exhaustive study, etches to relief the caste, nay Biradri characteristics of the Muslims of Uttar Pradesh with a brief introduction of socio-economic status and ethnographic profile.
In another essay, Dr. Waheed painstakingly figures out discrepancies in scheduling Muslim OBCs in central and state lists. As many as 37 of the 88 castes among Muslims are included neither in the central list nor in the state list. He raises the pertinent query as to why religion should not be the basis of reservation, when it is the basis for excluding certain Muslim group from the list of Scheduled Caste communities while they carry out the same menial assignments that their counterparts on the other side of the religious divide do.
The book is a valuable addition to the corpus of literature on Indian Muslims and excels in dissecting a community which was mistaken for Muslim mainstream in India. CEPECAMI deserves kudos for initiating work on topics that have long been ignored. Though editing has tremendous scope for improvement, the work as a whole is path-breaking.
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