RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav’s “full” support to ‘Muslim quota’ has transformed the affirmative action debate into a highly contentious political issue. Senior leaders of the BJP have accused the former Bihar chief minister of engaging in ‘vote-bank politics’. They have even tried to create an impression that reservation for Muslims somehow stands for ‘anti-national separatism’.
It is stridently argued that INDIA bloc, especially the Congress’ 2024 election manifesto, has made a categorical promise that Muslims will be given reservation on religious basis; and for that purpose, the existing quota for OBC, SC, and ST would be substantially reduced. This claim is evoked to justify the BJP’s adherence to the existing structure of affirmative action and its standard argument that Congress indulges in politics of ‘Muslim appeasement’.
The Congress manifesto, it is important to note, does not make any comment on Muslim reservation. In fact, there is no mention of the Sachar Committee report, one of the most important policy documents concerning Muslim backwardness in postcolonial India. Restoration of the Maulana Azad Scholarships, which was stopped by the Ministry of Minority Affairs in February 2024, is the only promise related to Muslims that the Congress has made in its manifesto.
Interestingly, the Congress leaders do not want to get into the ‘Muslim quota’ debate. There is an apprehension that any direct reference to Muslim backwardness will eventually help the BJP. Even the senior party leaders are reluctant to talk about the Congress’s official position on religious and linguistic minorities. This political apathy has strengthened the popular media-driven perception that ‘Muslim quota’ is a socially unwanted, communally problematic, and politically separatist phenomenon.
Three questions are relevant here: Do Muslims have reservations in the current affirmative action framework? What is the nature of Schedule Caste reservation? And, do Muslims want reservation on the basis of religion?
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Do Muslims receive quota benefits?
Affirmative action in India has always been a secular project. The postcolonial Indian leadership, especially Nehru and Ambedkar, was very critical of religion-based communal representation in jobs and political institutions. That was the reason why the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) were introduced as secular administrative categories. The same logic was applied when the Other Backward Classes (OBC) came into existence as an additional category for affirmative action. Even the term ‘minority’ was not defined by the Constitution simply to make it impermeant and context-specific.
The outcome of this secular structuring of administrative apparatus was obvious. The socio-economic backwardness of a particular group of people became the ultimate criterion for affirmative action. Consequently, the backward and marginalised communities from all religious groups (including Muslims) became eligible for reservation under the established schema as SCs, STs, and OBCs. No government in India has ever opposed this secular structure of affirmative action. Even the Narendra Modi government never questioned the presence of Muslim communities in the OBC and ST lists.
What is the nature of SC reservation?
The Presidential Order of 1950 was the first official move by the postcolonial state to deviate from this secular administrative framework. The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order—notified on 11 August 1950 and amended several times since then—restricts the entry of Muslim and Christian castes into the SC list. The Order says: “no person who professes a religion different from the Hindu [the Sikh or the Buddhist] religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste.” As a result, Muslim Dalits and Christian Dalits eventually become ineligible for SC reservation.
This Order is problematic in two ways. First, it makes a distinction between two sets of religions—the religions that were historically born in South Asia (Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism) and the other religions that originated outside (such as Islam and Christianity). This distinction is often invoked to justify the popular perception that caste-based exploitation is inextricably linked to Indian religions. It is argued that Islam and Christianity do not support social stratification of any kind. But that’s not true, which makes this justification unconvincing. Various studies have shown that caste-based discrimination is not specific to Hinduism. The Muslim and Christian societies in India are also divided on caste-lines. The rise of Pasmanda Muslim politics is a good example in this regard.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the Order does not consider the objective criteria, namely the socio-economic backwardness, to determine the relative marginalisation of a group of people. In this sense, it goes against the secular principles, which the Constitution invokes, for the identification of substantive backwardness.
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Do Muslims want quotas on religious grounds?
The All-India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz’s recently published report, ‘Bihar Jati Ganana 2022-2023 Aur Pasmanda Agenda’, is very relevant here. This report makes two very powerful demands. First, the scope of reservation under the SC category must be expanded so that Muslim Dalits and Christian Dalits could easily be accommodated in the SC list. This argument, in a way, goes against the allegation that inclusion of Muslim Dalits in the SC category will harm the interests of Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist Dalit communities.
Second, reservation on secular lines must be implemented in the private sector, simply to make it inclusive and accountable. The report raises this demand after highlighting the fact that employment opportunities in the public sector are decreasing in a significant way. At the same time, the private sector has emerged as the key economic player in the job market. As such, the sector must be made accountable to the society.
These demands from the Pasmanda Muslim communities do not deviate from the secular principles of affirmative action, which the Constitution of India established to deal with communalism and separatism of all kinds in the 1950s. It is ironic that the political class does not have any interest in this form of subaltern secularism, which has been intellectually articulated, socially nurtured, and politically practiced by Pasmanda Muslim groups for over two decades.
Hilal Ahmed is a scholar of political Islam and associate professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi. He tweets @Ahmed1Hilal. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)