Contemporary ‘Pasmanda’ Leadership and the Hindutva Politics in Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

The article explores the positioning of the political elite of a marginalized minority community in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The co-option of Pasmanda elites within the BJP has seemingly transformed the nature of Pasmanda politics. The article argues that the non-ideological assertion of the Pasmanda elites leaves little room for politics of autonomy. These elites are drawn from the newly-educated, self-interested, middle class amongst the Pasmanda. They draw a distinction between the political, social and cultural needs of the community. They attempt to invoke politics for developmental gains, keeping aside the cultural and social predicaments of the Muslim community within the hegemonic Hindutva politics of the BJP. The old agenda of democratizing Muslim politics has been replaced by promoting the individual interest of the new Pasmanda elite. For the BJP, Pasmanda is a tool that enables inclusive political posturing.

Leaders play a significant role in social movement and democratic politics. They are the carriers of democratic consciousness and channels of redistribution via institutions. They are also the gatekeepers that define politics and determine its nature. The emergence of Pasmanda leaders within Muslim politics was considered a positive development that democratized it and created space for politics of autonomy. It changed the balance of power within the Muslim political elite, and Pasmanda leaders prioritized the idea of social justice, followed by secularism, later on. The emergence of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and its hegemonic politics pushed aside the inter-community political differences within the Muslim society for some time. They engaged in the politics of survival as a unified Muslim minority. Of late, we see a re-emergence of Pasmanda politics within Muslims on the call of the BJP. The engagement of the new Pasmanda elites with the BJP has transformed the nature of their assertion.

The importance of the Pasmanda debate within Muslim politics has been recognized by scholars (Alam, 2003, 2007, 2022; Fazal, 2020; Ansari, 2009, 2018, 2023; Levesque & Niazi, 2023). However, the BJP’s proactive outreach towards Pasmanda Muslims being new, not much academic work has been done to analyze it. Nevertheless, a handful of studies look into the dynamics of the BJP’s overall Muslim outreach, and they remain divided on the intention and result of such an initiative. Some claim that it is a natural consequence of the long neglect of backward classes by the Muslim elite, yet others see it as performative politics with dangerous intentions. Felix Pal (2020), in his study of Muslim Rashtriya Manch (MRM), argued that Muslims have joined the organization, but it is not due to the ideological commitment towards the Rashtriya Swamsewak Sangh (RSS). He argued that most Muslims are frustrated with the traditional leadership of Muslims in politics, namely, Ulemas and upper caste Muslims. Hence, they drifted towards the BJP, which sought a foothold in Muslim society. However, another scholar (Vachani, 2022), who analyzed MRM, argued that Muslims’ association with the organization is part of their performative politics.

What political reasons compel the BJP and the Pasmanda to come closer? What principles do the two opposing ideological strands negotiate with each other? Can a marginal minority assert autonomy within a hegemonic political system? Who gains from cooption? These are some of the questions that the article attempts to engage with.

The article argues that things have changed in the case of the current outreach that aims to build on the old strand of Pasmanda politics. The entry of the BJP into Pasmanda politics has brought about significant change in the orientation of the Pasmanda political elite. The schism within the Pasmanda block is much more visible now. There is a group that is eager to join the bandwagon of right-wing politics, sidelining the old cultural politics of elite Muslim leaders. A new kind of Pasmanda politics that lacks cultural and social linkages and that has no ideological basis is emerging. The old agenda of democratizing Muslim politics has been replaced by an agenda of promoting the individual interest of the new Pasmanda elite. For the BJP, Pasmanda is a tool that enables inclusive political posturing. The article limits its exploration at the level of leaders as it is a new trend, and its percolation to the community level might take some more time.

The article maps various outreach activities of the BJP for the Pasmanda leaders in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP). Significant Pasmanda leaders in the state were interviewed from multiple locations to capture a broad spectrum of opinion. The article mainly focuses on the All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (Registered) (AIPMM^→), an interest group of Pasmanda that is functional in UP. The presence of many prominent Pasmanda leaders and activists in the organization makes it an ideal platform to study the changing nature of Pasmanda politics.

The Background of Pasmanda Politics

Scholars have established that Muslim politics in India revolved around the upper caste, that is, Ashraf leadership, until the gradual rise of Muslim OBCs and Dalit Muslim politics in the 1990s (Ahmed, 2019; Ali, 2010, 2012; Anil, 2023; Wright, 1964). Among the Muslims, the Ashrafs were the first to pick up the English language in the colonial period, giving them the initial advantage to emerge as leaders (Ali, 1971; Kochhar, 1992; Rahim, 1992). However, the Ansaris, Kunjaras, Quraish and Mansoori communities developed political consciousness in the pre- and post-independence period owing to their political and economic mobilization. Thus, these castes challenged the Ashraf hegemony. In the post-independent period, the Ansari caste benefitted from the growth of power looms. In the late 1970s, they made inroads as middlemen and wholesale traders in the Varanasi-Mau-Tanda handloom/powerloom belt of UP. A similar transition from ordinary butchers and meat sellers to owners of integrated abattoir-cum-meat processing plants has occurred within the Qureshis (Damodaran, 2008). The changing sociological profile of the Muslim elite questioned the political dominance of Ashrafs in the 1990s.

The emergence of Pasmanda politics resulted from the existing heterogeneity within the Muslim community. Theorists have recognized caste practices within the Muslim community, including untouchability (Ahmad, 1973; Ansari, 1960; Anwar, 2001; Kumar, 2020; Risley & Gait, 1901). The word Pasmanda, meaning backwards, has been used for Ajlaf ¹ and Arzal ² . The term came into use in Bihar in the 1990s, when Ali Anwar launched ‘Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz’, an umbrella organization of many Dalit and backward Muslim organizations, in 1998. Ansari (2009) argues that the category Pasmanda represents Dalit and Backward Muslims.

Before this period, Pasmanda was not a popular category of political articulation. The two Backward Commissions appointed by the government, namely, Kaka Kalelkar and Mandal, did recognize caste among Muslims but did not subsume the backward Muslim castes in the Pasmanda category. Before these Commissions, in the pre-independent period, Census 1901 noted the presence of Ashraf, Ajlaf and Arzal categories among the Muslims (Risley & Gait, 1901). While countering the Muslim League propaganda, A. Q. Ansari, in 1938, tried to articulate the stratification among Muslims under Sharif (noble) and Razeel (lower) (Ghosh, 2010).

Ansari (1960) clearly distinguished Ashraf as a foreign-origin Muslim and clean occupational Muslim caste (they now come under Ajlaf). Zarina Ahmad stratified Muslims into Ashraf and non-Ashraf categories. Mutatkar and Ansari (1966) recognized various castes among Muslims but did not club them under any broader category. The most crucial scholarly intervention was made by Ahmad (1967), where he noted the insufficiency of the categories Ashraf and Ajlaf, as E. Gait used to draw a parallel similar to the Hindus Dwija and non-Dwija caste, to describe the social hierarchy among the Indian Muslims. ‘[T]he division of Muslim society into the “ashraf” and the “ajlaf” has tended to produce a wrong and distorted picture of the nature and complexity of Indian Muslim social stratification’ (Ahmad, 1967, p. 890). Imtiaz Ahmad further highlighted that this categorization is a construct of the medieval period, uncritically borrowed by colonial sociologists as they only considered a macroscopic picture.

For an extended period, the issue of ‘recognition’ of the Pasmanda category within the Muslim social order was pursued by individual social activists in certain pockets of the country as early as in 1980. For instance, Mohammed Parvez Iqbal, Fateh Mohammed Ansari, Shabbir Ahmed Ansari, Hasan Kamal and others in Maharashtra started working among the Backward Muslim castes in Maharashtra (Mahajan & Jodhka, 2012). However, only in the 1990s did the Pasmanda category emerge as a reflection of academic discourse on categorizing various caste-like entities within the Muslim community on a political platform. In the academic literature, multiple nomenclatures became popular, recognizing the heterogeneity of the Muslims. Implementing the Mandal Commission recommendation significantly created a political consciousness within the backward and Dalit Muslims, resulting in the Pasmanda movement. The central government included a few Muslim castes in the OBCs and extended the benefit of reservation (27% reservation to OBCs in 1990) to them.

A similar desire for a share in affirmative action started getting articulated among Muslim Dalits. They joined hands with the backward Muslims under the umbrella of Pasmanda and advocated the removal of the 1950 Presidential Order concerning Article 341 ³ of the Constitution. Many all-India programmes were organized under different banners during this period, pushing the Pasmanda agenda forward. For instance, the Insaaf Sammelan (Justice Conference) was organized by the All India Backward Muslim Morcha (AIBMM) in Delhi in 2002. Their primary demand was the removal of the religious ban from Article 341. The conference was attended by Muslim leaders of all hues, including Maulana Asad Madani of Jamiat-Ulema-i-Hind, Maulana Asrarurl Haq Qasmi of Milli Council, Shia leader Kalbe Jawwad and others. Besides them, several non-Muslim leaders also rose in support of the demand. Former Union Minister Chaturanan Mishra and Dalit leaders Udit Raj and J. N. Nishad made fervent appeals to the Union government to amend the article in favour of Muslims and Christians. Supporting the demand of underprivileged Muslims, the Chairman of the All India Confederation of SC/ST Organization once said, ‘We have to fight together to remove this religious ban from Article 341, which will bring all Dalits under one category in the Constitution also’ (Akhter, 2002).

On a similar line, Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (PMM) organized the ‘Dalit Muslim Mahapanchayat’ in December 2004. Along with this demand, Mahapanchayat also asked for rehabilitating victims of communal riots, pro-farmers and workers’ policies and employment to the youth. The Pasmandas’ organizational effort for the first time in post-independent India created Dalit-Muslim unity within Muslim society. They jointly opposed the dominance of the upper-caste Muslim elite in the political and social domain. They began to speak against the reactionary politics of Ashraf Muslim leaders and demanded their long-delayed rights from the state. It reflected the aspirations of underprivileged Indian middle caste and Dalit Muslims, who were neither able to claim a share in the affirmative actions nor had a place in the Muslim politics that, till now, remained dominated by the upper caste elites. The Pasmanda movement pushed the cause of Backward and Dalit Muslims in the public forums, which was later recognized by two significant commissions that studied the status of Indian Muslims. Sachar Committee (2006) argued that ‘The third group (Dalit Muslim), those with similar traditional occupation as that of the SCs, may be designated as Most Backward Classes (MBCs) as they need multifarious measures, including reservation, as they are cumulatively oppressed’. ⁴ The National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (2007), led by Rangnath Mishra, also suggested reservations for Dalit Muslims.

In northern India, AIPMM was the most significant organization in this period. Ali Anwar established it and was the most influential in Bihar. The organization drew inspiration from the ideological position of Asim Bihari, Abdul Qayyum Ansari and the Momin Conference against the Muslim League. Its leaders rejected the RJD’s Muslim-Yadav alliance, in which elite Muslims took the lead and joined hands with JD (U). However, their friendship with JD (U) did not last as they refused to get coopted. Likewise, regional political parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) in UP got stuck with the ‘Welfare of Muslims’ formula, generating cynicism among the backward Muslims. They did not address the undesirability of political dominance by Muslim elites within their parties. Pasmanda leaders sought socio-cultural gains and were disappointed by major political parties that provided none. There was pessimism within the organization for the way forward. The inability of its leaders to raise voices within Parliament and on the streets to promote the interest of Pasmanda pushed it into hibernation.

It needs to be noted that all this while the Pasmanda movement and its politics were chiefly led by the Ansaris—an OBC caste among the Muslims. Their economic mobility, overwhelming presence in urban centres and large-scale participation in education made them the apparent leaders of the Pasmanda (Damodaran, 2008; Fazal, 2020; Zaidi, 1988). At the same time, they led the movement and took along the Mansooris, Kunjaras and the Dalit Muslims. This combined front may be contrasted with the individual attempts of the weaver community in the pre-independence period when the concerns were community-centric. The Momin Conference politics in pre-independent Bihar concentrated on mobilizing the Julaha caste (Arfi, 2016; Rai, 2006). In the post-Mandal phase, Pasmanda politics became diversified and consciously attempted to address the concerns of backward Muslim and Dalit Muslim communities. There were some dissenting voices, but they remained bleak (Fazal, 2020).

A significant change happened when this movement from below or the movement of insiders faced the challenge of Hindutva politics. The communal fear and polarization since 2014 shifted the focus to questions of minority survival in politics and in society. Issues like Love Jihad, Cow Vigilantism, Shaheen Bagh’s protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the Hizab controversy constructed a homogeneous Muslim front against the dominant BJP. The majority-minority framework imposed by the politics of the BJP compelled the Muslim leaders and the community to respond in one voice (Alam, 2022). There was one Muslim ‘other’ that existed for outsiders and insiders alike. However, this too proved to be a transient phase. The Pasmanda question/category returned unexpectedly when a space was given to it in the speech of PM Modi at the BJP’s National Executive meeting in Hyderabad 2022. A new political energy was infused in Pasmanda activists and groups. A new political equation started getting built, especially in UP. The following section spells out the nuances of negotiations by the new Pasmanda politics. The reaching out by the BJP from the position of power towards the Pasmanda questions has its own traps and compulsions.

BJPs Pasmanda Outreach

The anti-Muslim posturing of the BJP since its inception is a well-known fact. The ‘othering’ of Muslims is the anchor that connects the diversified voters of the BJP. This meta-narrative irons out inter-community differences (Kanungo, 2022). The emergence of regional parties helped accommodate more Muslim representatives in the post-Congress era, as Muslims were part of their support base in one form or another in the politics of the State (Farooqui, 2020; Sharma, 2021; Vaishnav, 2013). However, the triumphs of Hindutva politics post-2014 Lok Sabha elections questioned the relevance of the Muslim vote. The entire BJP campaign of the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, and then the 2017 and 2022 UP Vidhan Sabha elections, was designed for othering and sidelining the Muslim minority (Chatterji et al., 2019). The primary support base of the BJP has been Hindus, and the comfortable vote share position ratified its strategy of pushing behind Muslims from the politics of the state. BJP was known for not fielding Muslim candidates in successive national and state elections, starkly contrasting to significant parties in the state such as BSP, SP and even Congress. Dalit-Muslim alliance and Yadav-Muslim alliance have worked for other parties in the state. BJP successfully carved out a Hindu support base by consolidating the upper caste and non-dominant backward castes in the state (Chhibber & Verma, 2014). A part of the mobilizing strategy was communal politics targeting Muslims, and the other was the relative backwardness of the non-dominant OBCs, whose growth potential remained stunted under the hegemony of the Yadavs. Of late, we see a conscious effort by the BJP to enter the domain of Pasmanda politics that has been challenging the dominance of the upper caste/class within the Muslim politics in the state. BJP’s cultural idea of Hindus, in which all those who live in India are Hindus irrespective of their religious affiliations, helps them to come closer to its Pasmanda section. The pretext remains the same as in the case of Hindu non-dominant OBCs, namely, relative deprivation.

Prime Minister Modi has been mentioning the backwardness among the non-Hindus in his various rallies and meetings. In 2017, when BJP’s national executive deliberated on the resolution to grant constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes, PM Modi intervened and argued that all the schemes’ benefits should also go to Pasmanda Muslims. Sabir Ali, an MP in Rajya Sabha, who left Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and joined the BJP, organized a rally of backward Muslims in Delhi in 2017. Even then, observers recognized that Pasmanda groups and individuals would engage with the BJP. However, the anti- CAA movement followed by COVID-19 halted the progress. Again, in 2022, PM reiterated that the outreach agenda should not only be restricted to the Hindus, and that marginalized sections among the non-Hindus should also benefit from the schemes. The PM urged the activists to take out ‘Sneh Yatra’ (Affection Journey) in a marginalized locality.

Following the PM’s advice, the BJP, especially in Bihar and UP, is actively planning to reach out to the Pasmanda social groups and individuals. Senior BJP leaders of UP used social media to spread the message that yaduvanshiyon, ravidasvansiyon ke saath Pasmanda Muslimo ko bhi bhajpa ke saath laayenge! 2024 me UP ke har booth me kamal hi kamal khilayenge (We will bring Pasmanda Muslims along with Yadav and follower of Ravidas in BJP and bloom the lotus on every booth in 2024). The President of UP’s BJP Minority unit speaks of an elaborate plan of local meetings and academic help in the minority area for mobilizing Pasmanda in the BJP’s fold. The seriousness of the outreach can be assessed through the massive training camps organized by the party’s minority units for its office bearers (Venugopal, 2022).

Prior to such a direct address to the Pasmanda cause, the BJP, particularly the RSS, started addressing the Muslim constituency by constituting the MRM in the year 2002. MRM mirrors the RSS thought on Indian Muslims. MRM also represents an experimental manifestation of ‘wrongness’ in Indian Muslims due to their deviation from ancestral culture. MRM is a kind of tool to fix the historical deviation through the ‘indanization’ of Muslims. However, it cannot be done by totally rejecting what Islam in India today stands for. Thus, RSS opened a window in 2002, the year of the Gujarat riots, to reach the Muslim community as a whole. MRM tried to project the image of RSS as a friend of Muslims. This can be seen through their involvement in Muslim festivities such as celebrating Eid, Eid-ul-Azha and Milad-ul-Nabi in various parts of the country. However, these celebrations have a clear imprint of RSS’s effort of re-interpreting Islam and its values. For instance, MRM decided to donate cows on the eve of Eid-Ul-Azha (PTI, 2023a). It creates a kind of self-confessionary image of cow slaughter by the Muslims.

MRM provides legitimacy to the Hindutva project of Hindu rashtra by providing support to RSS and BJP on contentious issues like Babri Masjid, Gyan Vyapi Masjid, Mathura Masjid, Article 370, PoK, UCC and CAA. MRM planned to launch ‘One Nation, One Flag, One National Anthem’, a nationwide campaign with a message of Sachcha Musalman, Accha Nagrik (PTI, 2023b). It is a classic extension of the Western understanding of good and bad Islam and Muslims. Here, a true Muslim is a good citizen. There lies a deeper meaning to this idea. A good citizen does not protest; he/she abides by the laws and performs his/her duties rather than pursuing his/her rights. This became clear when MRM argued against the stone pelting by Muslims who were protesting against the remark made about the Prophet. MRM advocated to outcast such Muslims (PTI, 2022a). MRM also objected to the protest against the CAA and organized a meeting in favour of the Citizenship Act (Joy, 2020).

MRM has worked closely with the Muslim community to ensure access to social welfare schemes. Besides government schemes, MRM also runs Parivar sulah kendras (family reconciliation courts) in opposition to the Sharia courts. Since the very beginning, MRM primarily worked at the societal level, and its political benefits to the BJP remained marginal. The direct benefits were neither desired nor required in the initial phase of the BJP’s political consolidation. Muslim constituency was to act as a reserve army that could provide back-up when the Hindus consolidation come under strain due to anti-incumbency and opposition pull built by other parties.

It is noteworthy that in recent years, the Pasmanda political elite has remained silent in articulating cultural resistance against BJP’s Muslim targeting in its campaign and otherwise. Rather, it is the upper-caste Ashraf Muslim youth who have been at the forefront of organizing protest rallies on social media campaigns, and resources to compensate the victims of communal hatred that increased in the BJP’s regime. Pasmanda activists have been focusing on the development dialogue and gains through affirmative action. They look for a share in power for material benefits to flow down. They treat ‘cultural politics’ as a diversion for Pasmanda issues.

Recently, BJP’s outreach has shown some political gains for BJP. As per ⁵ the Centre For the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) data, 8% of the minority supported the BJP in the 2022 UP assembly election. In the June 2022 by-poll for Lok Sabha seats in Azamgarh and Rampur, BJP won the seats fighting against the SP, the all-time favourite of Muslims in the area. BJP went on to claim that 24% of Muslims supported the party in this election. In a recent state urban local body (ULB) election, BJP fielded 395 Muslim candidates for various posts, breaking all records. Of these, 61 candidates won, most belonging to the Pasmanda community. Buoyed by these developments, the BJP plans to mobilize Pasmanda Muslims in a big way for the upcoming 2024 Parliamentary election. The party has identified almost 65 Lok Sabha constituencies with 30% and above minority populations nationwide (Mishra, 2023). Out of these, 13 Lok Sabha constituencies are in UP. In many Minority Concentrated Districts (MCDs) of Western UP, the BJP has started the campaign of identifying ‘Modi Mitra’ (Friends of Modi). Modi Mitra is a certificate for Muslims who do not want to be in the BJP but appreciate the governance of PM Modi (Mishra, 2023). Such initiatives are expected to set the stage for further engagement.

BJP is looking for a breakthrough in the Eastern UP constituencies where BJP faced a tough fight in the 2022 UP Assembly polls due to Muslim consolidation against it, as in the case of Ambedkar Nagar, Gazipur, Jaunpur and Azamgarh. These districts have pockets of Ansari and Mansoori castes belonging to the Pasmanda group. The BJP resorted to the cooption of Pasmanda leadership from these districts. By selecting Danish Ansari, of Julaha caste, over the Shia leader for the Department of Minority in UP, the BJP tried to strengthen its Pasmanda representation. There were many similar appointments from the Julaha caste, for example, Choudhary Kaif-ul-Wara was appointed Chairman of Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy, Iftikar Javed Ansari was appointed Chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madrasas and Ashfaq Saifi was elevated as the Chairman of the Minority Commission in UP.

The practicality of the continuous pursuit of a support base for electoral gain is undeniable for any political party. In the ascendency phase, the party focused only on othering the Muslims to consolidate the national Hindu front. No political consolidations are immune to change, and the diversity within the Hindu fold poses its own challenges to BJP’s hegemony. Hence, post the hegemonic phase, now the party is attempting to build a support base within the Muslim community by working on the existing fault line within the community. Women issues such as Triple Talaq, Hijab, Halala and sectarian differences ⁶ are examples of few fault lines that are being used to carve out a constituency within Muslims using MRM and other agencies by the BJP.

The party has its priorities and is pushing for its own new demands, sidelining the older ones. Since the announcement of its outreach, the BJP has not raised the expected issues of Pasmanda. The new demands are phrased in such a way that they do not disturb the existing balance of power between the Muslims and the Hindus. In a Pasmanda Muslim Conference held on 6 August 2022 in Delhi, K. Laxman, the BJP OBC Morcha President, argued for a 50% reservation for Pasmanda in all the minority institutions (Salam, 2022). The existing minority space is being refashioned to accommodate Pasmanda concerns, highlighting the intra-Muslim privileges and discrimination. This might strain the meagre resources at the disposal of the minority institutions. The entire attempt is to create a new social base among Muslims that is in line with the Hindutva vision of society and is politically supportive of the BJP.

The Pasmanda Response

With the announcement of an outreach programme by the BJP, many new Pasmanda organizations mushroomed in UP. The most prominent among them today is AIPMM^→. This organization is kind of a splinter group of the old informal network of Pasmanda (AIPMM) that continues to exist in a dormant form. The prime difference is that the new organization took a formal route and registered itself. Most members continue to claim they were part of the older informal network, but due to its inability to cater to their needs, they thought of starting afresh. The name remains unchanged, but the composition, structure and functional principles have changed. The members claim that the old network was too informal, and was run on the whims and fancies of few people. During the field work, a member shared with the researcher,

We are a structured organization. Roles and responsibilities are known to everyone. There are office bearers at the national, state and district levels. The structure has helped to widen our base; district-level committees help mobilize support for our candidates in the local body elections. Our people have won the chairmanship of many panchayat bodies…we are not just a deliberative group like the older network. We work on the ground.

Currently, the organization is headed by Parvez Hanif, who belongs to a weaver community (Julaha caste). Apart from the President, there are 11 core committee members, including the vice president, general secretary, executive director, treasurer, sangathan mantri and others. Committee members mostly meet on social media to discuss future courses of action. In its home state, UP, the organization organizes frequent physical meetings and is expanding its virtual presence in multiple states. There is a continuity of Pasmanda issues as the front agenda of this organization is similar to that of previous Pasmanda groups, including AIPMM, such as proportional representation, amendment in para 3 of Article 341, sub-categorization of OBCs list, appropriate share in government schemes and government protection for the Pasmanda-driven occupational sector. However, there is a clear distinction in their approach. This group carries no ideological baggage and is open to moving across the ideological spectrum as long as it promises to give space to its leaders. Today, office bearers and activists in UP-based AIPMM has no aversion to engaging with the BJP. ‘We are working for the representation of Pasmanda, and we have no hesitation in engaging with government of any party, including BJP. Our approach is pro-elected government, and our method is non-confrontation’, ⁷ argued a prominent office bearer. Another prominent activist in Lucknow argued that ‘our priority is our issue…we do not have any problem engaging with Brahman or any other caste if they pay attention to our demands’. While carving out their separateness from the Ashraf Muslims, Pasmandas claim that they are indigenous Muslims whose ancestors were Hindus. They assert this distinction against the ‘foreign origin’ claim of the Ashraf caste. This brings them closer to RSS, which has been saying that Muslims are all converted Hindus.

Elites among the Pasmanda have eulogized the BJP for providing space to Pasmanda aspirants. The enthusiasm over the appointment of Danish Azad Ansari as Minister in UP has been recognized by the Pasmanda leaders. A prominent Pasmanda activist shared,

Yogi has made our brother from Pasmanda a state minister. This is a sign of friendship with Pasmanda. We should be united for the development of Pasmanda under Yogiji…whichever governments are in various states, we do not hesitate to engage with them. Our role is to ensure proper access to government schemes for the poor Pasmanda community. We are not brokers for parties …people are free to choose their representatives.

When asked about their reaction to the announcement of outreach by the BJP, every single activist welcomed the decision. They see the decision as long due. The Pasmanda leadership sensed two positive outcomes: it brought national recognition, and now, other political parties may give importance to the Pasmanda demand. They view the outreach as the result of their consistent and sustained campaign. There is a visible desire to break the minority label and put forth the identity of Pasmanda. This, on the one hand, downplays the religious tone and, on the other hand, highlights their underprivileged position within the Muslim community. A prominent Pasmanda activist from western UP shared,

We intend to keep the religion and politics separate. On the cultural and religious aspects, we are one with all other Muslim brothers and sisters, but in politics, we want our share. We come to politics to bargain for our share … it is a democracy…we are more in number within the Muslim community and have been most forthcoming in political participation of all kinds …but when it comes to representation, we are pushed behind…the privileged Muslims claim and occupy that space…this was the case before independence. It continued after that…education has given us a voice, and now we want our space in politics.

This space in politics is for a fair share of the state’s resources. These Pasmanda leaders feel that the debate of secular political forces is a trap. It is a trap that keeps them in a subordinate position within the community. They articulate that the so-called secular parties do not wish to engage with the heterogeneity within the Muslim minority. They remain apprehensive that such a recognition might weaken their support base. A senior Pasmanda leader shared,

We have been raising the need to accommodate Pasmanda leadership with all the parties, but they are not ready to listen…they say that they wish to work for the entire Muslim minority, but when we raise the question of Pasmanda, they ignore us or register their objection…their promise to provide reservation for Muslims has not yielded any result….how will they work for all …they have been giving tickets to Muslims, but they are largely elite Muslims…what about us?…BJP has given us legitimacy…now others may also give us recognition…that is precisely what we need.

There is a realization that the benefits need to be transferred to the community, and it is here that the schism within the Pasmanda leaders becomes evident. Some feel that the current BJP government has been nondiscriminatory when distributing benefits through its schemes. They claim that the Muslims are the beneficiaries of all government schemes like the Hindus. They have received free rations, LPG connections, subsidized gas cylinders, fund support for housing needs, medical insurance and other similar benefits. They do not blame the BJP for communal frenzy as they feel that the poison of communal hatred was not the creation of the BJP. They see it as a problem of society and feel that no party has been able to give them any respite, as communal violence happens in every regime. A leader shared,

We can blame Modi for all the communal sins that happened after 2014, but what about those that happened before it in our state and even elsewhere…if we compare and see how many Muslims died in the communal incidences like mob lynching in the BJP’s regime then they would be much less than the number of Muslims who died in the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013 before BJP came to power in the centre and in the state…. who is communal and who secular in the political circle is an irrelevant question.

Being part of the ruling dispensation reaps its benefits, and it is precisely this benefit that the Pasmanda leaders want to share. The justification for the share is not merely personal but also has a larger social angle. A prominent Pasmanda leader shared,

We have missed the bus in the first tenure of BJP thinking that they will not do anything for us…by voting to defeat BJP we unnecessarily built an oppositional frontier… the communal violence against Muslims is not initiated by BJP but by various other fundamentalist groups that support BJP. As a party, the BJP depends on their electoral support and cannot take a radical stand against them so easily. However, if Muslims start supporting BJP then the party may reduce its dependence on such lumpen elements… their feeling of mistrust has to be reduced…they now trust us…when we move around, our vehicles are not checked the way they used to be considering us as minority …now they do not say Muslims have come…they say oh they are Pasmanda our friends.

It would be significant to mention here that the Pasmanda identity is necessarily interpreted as a nationalist identity. It is here that they distinguish themselves from the Ashraf Muslim elites. They recognize that they are all converted Muslims, and there are cultural similarities between all Indians. They make it a point to reiterate their Indianness by putting nationalist slogans on their social media platforms.

In order to create a balance between the cultural and the political requirements, the leadership acquires an accommodative posture. It downplays the religious identity on the political platform and invokes backward identity to mobilize public support. They feel that engaging with the BJP and its supporters is crucial to create a harmonious relationship. A leader recalls,

A backward BJP leader once asked for our support when visiting our area. We were going to visit him with our group of supporters, and he was coming our way with his supporters…they were all chanting slogans, and one of the slogans was Jai Shri Ram…but when we came in front of them, they stopped chanting Jai Shri Ram…nothing unpleasant happened we joined the procession and went together chanting other nationalist slogans…if you only chose to be the bystander then nothing will change…get involved.

Some voice a note of caution and realize that mere announcements will not work and that they need to get concrete policy assurance on the article. A few among these leaders have joined the Mahaz to explore the possibilities, but they are not very hopeful. They recognize the limit of Pasmanda politics within the BJP. A senior leader shared,

Our organization is demanding the Pasmanda Commission, among many other things, and it seems BJP might agree for it….this would be an achievement but not a major breakthrough as commissions have limited powers…we already have a Minority Commission; what was it able to do when crimes were committed against Muslims, ..it did not even raise its voice…it recognized the backwardness of Muslims but then it can only recommend…Again, once one of our demands is fulfilled by the party, then they will also draw a line and ask us to abide by the boundaries…but still, I would say there is no harm in negotiating for our space.

The leaders and activists associated with the older AIPMM still do not favour alignment with the BJP. When PM Modi announced the ‘outreach’ and Sneh yatra, Ali Anwar wrote a letter to the Prime Minister (The Satyashodhak Staff, 2022). His letter reasoned out,

Pasmanda Muslims want ‘Samaan (equality and dignity), not “Sneh” (affection)…’ Sneh’ denotes that Pasmanda is inferior…We are not fighting to achieve ‘dominance’ over other groups inside or outside Muslim society. Our fight is for equality…Our fight is not against any caste, creed, or community…our fight is peaceful and within the constitutional framework…We have firmly believed since the beginning that the Pasmanda Muslims alone cannot win this battle. We can succeed only with the help of Pasmanda and Dalits of all religions and other progressive and justice-loving people…We do not want to continue as Pasmanda; we aspire to become ‘Peshmanda’ (the one who leads from the front) …Sneh Yatra will prove effective only when communal harmony is maintained in society…Will you stop the hate campaign that has been on unchecked against Muslims?… If not, then how and why should Pasmanda trust ‘aapki sarkar’?

Indeed, the MRM and the coopted Pasmanda elites have neither succeeded in toning down the cultural antagonism against Muslims in the Hindu public, nor have the incidents of physical attacks against Muslims declined. AIPMM^→ leadership has censored its activists and supporters from opining against physical violence, showing the affinity with the BJP’s ‘Nation First’ ideological position. Simultaneous invocation of the ‘Attack’ and ‘Assimilation’ strategy by the BJP is selectively accepted by the new Pasmanda elites as the majority are ready to engage with the BJP. However, they recognize the difficulty of justifying their position in Muslim society. A leader who has recently joined the AIPMM^→ shared,

It is not easy to side with the BJP…to praise Modi within the Muslim community is a challenge…we try to convince our people that in a frenzy to oppose BJP, they are losing out …there is need to recognize the good works done by the BJP government…. we tell them that our people in power will enable flow of benefits to them despite all odds…. we tell them that our backwardness is due to the exploitation done by the Muslim elites and not because of non-Muslims.

Again, there are multiple voices within the Pasmanda block, which is not a homogeneous group. The absence of Azral and Azlaf Muslims from the cadres of AIPMM^→ questions its representational claims for the Pasmanda community. Even in Bihar, the Pasmanda organization has been fragmented with the creation of Ansari Mahapanchayat. The President of AIPMM^→ argued that the elite Muslims want to divide their (Pasmanda) power; hence, they continuously raise the issue of the separateness of the Ansari caste within the Pasmanda. Sectarianism is a severe problem that the AIPMM is facing. Hindus are divided into castes, and Pasmanda is divided among castes and sects. Even one Pasmanda caste is not united, as its members are divided into various sects. The former president of AIPMM was of the view that they must reach door to door to break the maslakhi batwara (sectarian division). He lamented that only a few Pasmanda leaders are ready to work against this division. He asserted that to succeed, there was a need to bring unity across sects on this issue.

What Does It Mean?

Pasmanda remains the most volatile political group within Muslim society. It once questioned the homogeneous political and social identity of Muslims, and made efforts to chart a separate political roadmap. A more-than-two-decade-long journey of Pasmanda politics has created its elite, and the diversity within the Pasmanda block is coming to the forefront. The new political heirs of Pasmanda politics who are yearning for a place within the BJP are primarily drawn from businesses and professionals with stable sources of income. The advocacy favouring the BJP manifests their economic mobility, and they seek more significant economic advancement by remaining closer to the power centre. Many want to associate with the ruling party for further career growth. While personal interest counts, it cannot be denied that the push towards the non-ideological Pasmanda assertion is the outcome of prolonged neglect of Pasmanda groups within other parties that mobilized the Muslim public.

It is the nationalistic positioning of the Pasmanda group that enables its entry into the BJP’s camp. It simultaneously separates them from the higher caste/class Muslims who are stuck with the foreign origin theory of Muslims. It also helps the BJP to extend its hand towards Pasmanda without severely antagonizing its own Hindutva politics. Accommodating Muslims could have been a risky move for the BJP, which harps on the communal divide to mobilize electoral support. Working with Pasmanda with its agendas is a classic case of hegemonic cooption. Such political posturing helps to legitimize hegemony and strengthens the party’s claim to power. For the party, its efforts have started yielding minor political gains in the state as reflected in the 2022 Vidhan Sabha elections, subsequent elections, and most notably in the ULB and Panchayat elections. However, how far this will continue and how deep are the churnings on the ground are yet to be seen in the forthcoming elections. The pro-Muslim posturing will nevertheless help the BJP in better managing its international image.

On the part of Pasmanda leaders, the negotiation across party lines is a practical move. However, the community will ratify this non-ideological assertion of the Pasmanda elites only if it maintains a deeper connection with the issues that remain central to Pasmanda politics for long. In the nascent negotiation stage with the BJP, the interested Pasmanda elites are more inclined towards the notional presence of Pasmanda cadres in the party and the government. They are seemingly keeping aside the core issues of recognition of Muslim Dalits for affirmative action, developmental benefits and non-discrimination for all categories of backwards within Muslims, and state support to the Muslim artisans and craftsmen across sects, castes and communities. They have made no efforts to reach out to the Azral and Azlaf Muslims who stand at the margins of Muslim society. The question of substantive representation, whereby a significant change in the ‘material’ and ‘social’ sphere of backward Muslims can be brought about, is not visible. There is always a lag in the descriptive and substantive representation, but where to begin is also essential. BJP is negotiating with these Pasmanda elites from a position of power, and that puts a limit on their ability to articulate more significant Muslim concerns. The independent working of the Pasmanda elites for their self-interest without weighing the pros and cons for the larger masses may not bring about the desired changes in Muslim politics.

Pasmanda politics was once considered a movement that brought about democratization within Muslim politics. It was a call for equality and greater participation for the larger benefit of Muslim society. The current position of Pasmanda elites who have debunked ideology in the name of practicality needs to trend cautiously lest they lose the connect with their society. Politics cannot be separated from society. They both need to serve each other. The new ‘social’ that the Pasmanda and BJP are constructing for the Muslim society through issues and agendas they take up for advocacy needs to correspond with their everyday experience.