BEYOND THE IDENTITY OF “MUSLIM”: THE DEMAND FOR RECOGNITION OF PASMANDA MUSLIMS

SOCIAL SCIENCE, POLITICAL SCIENCE

Muslim society is seen as a homogeneous entity ignoring the caste and class reality for a long period of time. However, contrary to the textual representation of Islam, the Muslim society of India is deeply divided not only on the religious and sectarian lines but also on caste and class lines. The Muslim society is divided into three categories on caste lines. The Ashraf constituted castes like Syed, Sheikh, Mughal and Pathan. They are elite, resourceful, politically empowered, and socially dominated section. The second category is Ajlaf which constitutes various clean occupational castes like weavers, tailors, vegetable sellers, cotton cadres, black smiths and carpenters, bracelet-makers, oil presses, Dyers etc. They are socially, educationally, economically and politically deprived. The third category is Arzal consisting of unclean occupational castes and equivalent to the Dalits of India. This category includes most marginalised castes like cleaners, barbers, washer men, cobblers, etc. In 1990 backward Muslim castes got included in reserved category under the purview of OBC. Under this purview total 82castes were included from Muslim society. By the time various castes have been included time to time. But they have been not included in the scheduled caste category despite ample studies and justification for the inclusion. This paper primarily discusses the caste division among Muslims. Along with that the present study is an attempt to give an insight into the struggle for social recognition and redistributive justice of Pasmanda Muslims. The study is a basic attempt to find the reason of why Pasmanda Muslims have not been included in the scheduled caste category and why should they included.

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