Living on the Margins. Minorities in South Asia - EURAC

Muslims. There are three kinds of writings that emphasise directly or inferentially the
multi-community nature of the Muslim population in India. One set of writers argues
that this is due to the survival, as strong and visible residues, of previous modes of
living habits, thinking patterns and worshipping styles among Muslims from times
before their conversion to Islam. iii The second group points to the deep impact on
Muslims of the caste and ritual practices of the surrounding Hindu milieu, which
resulted in perceptible differences in the outlook and behaviour of Muslims even
across short distances. iv The third viewpoint holds that the multi-community character
is due to the implications and consequences of being embedded in the larger social
structure and the demographic features of Indian society. v
I disagree with this naïve application of an anthropological categories which are
notoriously oblivious of the underlying political process vi . This is true not only of the
anthropological approach to the Muslim problem in India but also in the case of
various adivasi communities undergoing processes social/and or political
unification. vii Ethnic and other diversities, linguistic differences and social
differentiation can all co-exist with growing political unification or an emergent sense
of ‘community’. I argue that a pan – Indian Muslim community has begun to take
shape.
Earlier, however, to have talked of a pan-India Muslim politics was an over
generalization for there was an absence of a unifying democratic strand informing the
political debates among the Muslims or the demands raised by them in the different
regions or sub-regions of India. The politics of Muslims in Hyderabad or the
Telengana region of Andhra Pradesh had little to do with what existed in Malabar or
the northern region of Kerala. Likewise what prevailed in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar had
little connection with the southern regions. Bengal had its distinct pattern. Muslims in
each region had, and still have, their specific problems and in their differentiated
articulation, the politics of these regions had acquired a distinct flavour. Also, there
was very little actual contact between the leadership of the Muslims in these regions,
although they all knew one another and sympathized with each other’s politics.
The regionally specific nature of Muslim politics is rooted in the very nature of the
presence of Muslims as minorities in the various linguistic – cultural communities of
India; to put it another way as the minority component of the different nationalities (a
term deeply suspect and disfavoured as usage) in India. There are two aspects of this
difference. One, is that Muslims as a people, before Independence and up to the present,
did not get culturally integrated within their (linguistically determined) nationality
groups.. The other aspect has to do with the differences in the nature of the relationships
between the Muslim minority and the nationality of which it is a constituent part. For
example, the nature of the relations between Muslim Bengalis and Bengali Hindu as
compared to those in Kerala or Tamil Nadu or those in U.P is bound to give rise to
different flavours in Muslims politics in the different regions
Some of the region specific political formations have been parties of a communal
nature, most prominently, the Muslim League in Kerala and the Ittahad ul Muslimeen in
the Hyderabad, Telangana region and on a smaller scale the Muslim League in Tamil
Nadu. viii In these southern states these communally oriented parties have become the
main electoral voice of the Muslims. Each of these parties’ posseses distinct histories,
context and a pattern of development.ix It is surprising that Muslim communal
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