The contemporary Muslim political discourse in India seems to revolve around the question of political
underrepresentation of Muslims. There is a strong
legal-constitutional argument,
which recognises the Indian Muslim community as an identifiable
religious minority and envisages its appropriate representation in
legislative bodies so as to ensure the effective implementation of the
minority rights. The observations, recommendations, and views expressed
by various government reports in recent years (such as the Sachar
Committee Report and the Rangnath Misra Commission Report) are invoked
to legitimise the relevance of such claims. Although one should not
underestimate the declining number of Muslim MPs and MLAs, particularly
in relation to the overall Muslim marginalisation, there is a need to
problematise the idea of political representation.
Three very commonsensical questions could be raised in this regard: What are the Muslim
issues in India? Who is responsible for the present
crisis of Muslims? And, what could be the way out?
The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS)-Lokniti
conducted a national survey on India's Muslims in 2006 to explore these
issues. This was an all India survey which aimed at collecting the views
of a variety of Muslim respondents in the country. The outcomes of this
experiment are quite revealing: a complex configuration of a
postcolonial Indo-Islamic identity seems to determine the aspirations,
anxieties and expectations of a highly diversified Muslim community. For
instance, poverty and unemployment are identified as the most important
Muslim issues by Muslims (69 percent). Instead of Hindu communalism or
lack of religious freedom, a majority of the respondents (60 percent)
feel that the government is responsible for the present situation of
Muslims in India. In fact, 16 percent Muslims say that Muslims
themselves are responsible for the present predicaments of the
community. Affirmative action policies are considered as the possible
way out to get rid of socio-economic backwardness. A majority of Muslims
strongly support the view that Muslims must have some kind of
reservation in educational institutions (72 percent) as well as in the
Parliament and the State Assemblies (82 percent).
Interestingly, these overtly socio-political demands are not
addressed to Muslim elites. In fact, the question of Muslim leadership
was not at all given any considerable importance. Only four per cent of
respondents find that the “lack of the right kind of Muslim leadership”
has been a problem for Muslims in this country. On the basis of these
findings, it would suffice to suggest that the question of Muslim
leadership is not a fundamental issue for Muslims at all. On the
contrary, Muslims, like other deprived and marginalized sections of
society, seem to recognize the State as a reference point for making
political claims.
Can we, therefore, say that Muslims in India do not want to be
represented by Muslim political and/or religious elites? I do not think
that this complicated question can be answered merely on the basis of
evidence/data we have discussed here. It requires a systematic
exploration of a different kind by which we can make sense of the
contextual placing of Muslim elites in the socio-cultural universe of
Muslim communities. Yet, we can certainly argue that Muslim
participation in different forms of politics should be taken seriously
to understand the multiplicity of the political representation debates.
