A Time Will Come, Muslims In India Will Have To Form Their Own National Party: Kancha Ilaiah
Interview By Ajmal Khan & Anish
01 May, 2015
Countercurrents.org
Professor Kancha Ilaiah had well predicted that Narendra Modi would become the next prime minister under BJP, and he has also been instrumental in raising criticism on how Indian left failed to understand the caste question. After the parliament elections, he described how the caste equations has been used in the country by BJP . As soon as BJP came into power, many decisions have already been taken by the ruling Government, which will make far reaching consequences on the lives of Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims and Bahujans. In this context, Ajmal Khan and Anish are engage in conversation with Kancha Ilaiah on contemporary politics in India, particularly on Muslim, Dalit and Bahujan politics. He argues, that Muslims will have to form their own national party or a national coalition of all the Muslim parties by retaining their political and social identity.
We have been talking about Beef and Beef ban, especially after Maharashtra governments decision to ban beef. However, one important decision that didn't get much public attention was the Maharashtra government's decision to scraped the five percent reservation to Muslims in education and employment. What are your thoughts on this?
Yes, The Mumbai high court had stayed the proposal for 5% percent reservation to Muslims and 15 % Maratha's. But the court had allowed quota for Muslims in state- owned or aided educational institutions, saying that, the community suffers from high dropout rate and the youth in the community need to be brought to mainstream education. On Maratha reservation, the court had observed that the community was a socially advanced and prestigious community. They (BJP) seem to think that they will go to supreme court for Marathas but not for Muslims. The argument of BJP is that the caste will disappear once people convert into other religions. According to BJP and RSS there is no caste among the Non-Hindus like Muslims and Christians. The argument for Muslims is that, whether Sachar Committee, Dr. Mahmoodur Rahman Committee in Maharashtra or people like me who always speak for the need of reservation for Muslims, caste is very historical thing, generationaly people carry caste. If somebody convert to Islam their occupational status does not immediately change. of course their name changes, their access to god changes, they get to read Quran etc.. When a Hindu barber convert to Islam his occupational status does not change immediately, every thing else changes, the occupational status doesn't change easily. There for, I argue that Muslims should be given reservation on the basis of their caste and occupational identity considering the backwardness. Reservation in education is also important, here Muslims are a community that is historically now being treated after the partition as second class citizens, and there is double oppression, Muslims first, as the second class Indian citizens and then the oppression according to their caste status. BJP recently seems to have argued in Court that, Muslims and Christian should not be given reservation and reservation is Hindu specific. If that is the case already Buddhist and Sikhs are getting reservation and Buddhist and Sikhs say that they have noting to do with Hinduism and they are not Hindus. Then how do BJP explain this?.
Some of the Hindu nationalists argue that Buddhisms and Sikhism are also part of Hinduism?
Yes, even Narendra Modi says that, they respect Buddha, Buddha is their ancient god etc.. but Buddhist are saying we are not Hindus and we have nothing do with Hinduism. If Buddhism is like Hinduism, then Buddhism abolishes caste within itself, untouchable can become monks and even Vihara heads. In Hinduism its not possible, we all know. So how can they say such a blunder?.Sikhism also, yes some streams of Hinduism are there, but its not the same, they have a Guru Grandha, everybody can read that, all of them have one food culture practice. If that is the case, why RSS, VHP and other organizations are talking about Vegetarianism which is only a Brahmin- Baniya practice? Its not all caste practice, so they seems to actually be practicing Brahmanism and projecting Hinduism as monolithic religion, which is not true .
We have seen the trend of Hindu right wing co opting of everything and everyone after the new government came to power, will they be able to co opt everyone?
Yes, BJP and Hindu right require to co-opt certain things, once they came in power if they behave as they behaved earlier, then their legitimacy to rule the country will go. Muslims are not a small community, they need somebody to negotiate with Muslims. They need negotiation without giving Muslims the substantial share, OK if they want to give equal share to Muslims in all respects then that would have been a different cast, but its not. Here, BJP want Muslims to be with them without giving substantial share from state and society, they are using different tactics. Of course, in appointments of University heads and other strategic positions they have to find someone who is palatable to them, who work for them. There are positions in Universities and other places where there can only persons from the Muslim community has to be appointed. So that they will try to co opt several sections, they have already co opted many sections of Muslims and admitting lot of Muslims into BJP. There is also a section of Muslims who think that, Ok if they go there and live a normal life, if they get some political benefit, or at least if there is no communal riots. But, we will have to see what implications this will have to the larger communities change. Right now Muslim power shares has come down, Muslim parliamentary share has come down. How much Muslim share is there in business and other sectors is an issue, because Muslims does not have much share in agriculture, they survive largely out urban informal economy. But they will attempt to co opt even Muslims. Now Maharashtra government is saying that they will sent Christian for pilgrimage, government will finance them, but Christians are saying they don't want anyone to sent them for pilgrimage, they says instead they want right to propagate their religion, they are asking for security and protection. BJP is in a real contradiction now, lets see what happen, its not like Vajpayees times, during his time it was a coalition government. Some unpleasant things had happen, but now they are in full power and they are straight away coming on minorities.
How do you see the Muslim politics in this context?
See, Muslims politics and leadership are really weak, those who existed as Muslim leaders in congress party were not connected to the poor and marginalized Muslim masses. The mass Muslim leadership did not get politicized, recently MIM is a party which is trying to spread across the country, Asaduddin Owaisi is definitly a modern Muslim in India, either Congress or BJP don't want a leader like that, who organize their own people. So, in my view a time will come Muslims will have to form their own national party or a national coalition of all the Muslim parties by retaining their political and social identity. That will give them much more stronger benefit than working from other parties, they tried that in congress, except Abul Kalam Azad, I don't think anybody else got significant space in the congress system. There may be ministers but they were not having significant powers.
In one of your interview, you said Nehru had used Ambedkar at the same time and throw out when his role was over.
My re reading of early independent days is that, Jawaharlal Nehru who had global vision and western education who was also a model leader in many ways. If D.r Ambedkar would not have been allowed to become the chair man of constitutional drafting committee and would not have been allowed to write the constitution, the constitution might have many loop holes, but even that. Only Ambedkar could institute that kind of a constitution. If Nehru was not allowed to be first prime minister, then who will is the real ruling person at that time?. Gandhi's role in administration was minimal, Gandhi agreed upon Ambedkar's name to be the chairman of drafting committee, Gandhi said he should play key role. But ultimately when the role came, the role of chairman ship, Nehru supported. That has really helped the nation. The combination of Nehru first prime minister and Ambedkar being headed the drafting committee of the constitution made a situation for the experiment of adult franchise, its not that easy to experiment adult franchise in a illiterate country like India. If Shyamaprasad Mukarjee or Sardar Vallabhai Patel or someone else from BJP would have been allowed to become the first prime minister, India would have ended up in a dictator ship. So the so called Patel's legacy should not be take seriously by people like us.
Is that the reason Patel is getting much more importance now a days?
Yes, they will give lot of prominence to Patel, firstly he is a Gujarati and Modi might also be considering him as a Shudra and he has also used the military force. So, there are certain combinations in him which are liked by RSS and VHP. But what would have been the situation of the country if Sardar Vallabhai Patel would have been the first prim minister?. If he would have been the first prime minister perhaps KM Munshi, during that time would have been appointed to draft the constitution, then we need not to say what will be the situation.
You have been arguing, the western theories will not fit for our realities and we have to make our own theories. How will someone expect to make their own theory when the theory building process itself is fully controlled by the Brahmins and the upper castes?.
Yes, my strong belief is that, if all Indian children are given same quality education, preferably in English language, given the vast expansive space that we have, the kind of experience that rural children has, the kind of exposure that they have with nature, production and so on. India is capable of producing indigenous theory, which can be used by the rest of the world. I don't mean any indigenous theory only we can use, but theories emerge out of social practices, social convergences, social changes. Indians are capable of producing new books and theories which even other countries are not able to. Buddha is an example, he constructed a religion, he formed Sanghas there are so much literature around it. The world is now using it, China, Japan Korea all are using it, for example two prophets came from Asia, Jesus came from Israel and Muhammad came from Arabia. Its not that, the world is against Asian thinkers but Brahmanical forced didn't produced such talent and created a god who could be worshiped by the whole world. The only god India produced is Buddha, the world is willing to engaged with it, so my feeling is that, Indian social sciences should examine the strength of the native social thinking. After all we are a big society as compare to Europe, we have lot of new ideas, the only think is that we should be read to ask questions. All my writings are the attempt not to imitate anyone but to produce original thoughts our own lives.
People like Amdekar become central even within the right wing discourses. So how difficult it is for the people like you to defend yourself?, because you all created another kind of knowledge which challenged the dominance of upper castes and the nature of Hindu Religion.
Yes, it is a difficult struggle. When I wrote “Why I Am Not Hindu” there was a lot of opposition, backlash, criticism and even threats. But luckily then the Dalit movements extended their support to me and Bahujan Samaj Party was almost in power in UP. I managed to get the support from within the civil society also in this regard. Also, either for Mahatma Phule or Ambedkar and people like me, we all took a very non-violent form of dissent, we took up that line. After all Historically India has the tradition of non-violence. The Dalits/backward castes never fought with upper castes with violence. And Buddhism which emerged here also created a space with a theory of ‘Middle path’-Madhya Marga. So that Buddhism became a big cushion for people like Phule, Ambedkar and even for me, because when I wrote my book “God as a political Philosopher” I had to struggle a lot, going back to ancient texts and comparing it with Western thinkers, Indian Brahminic thinkers like Kautilya, so we all positioned in terms of reform, but even that was not acceptable to the Brahminical forces . There were many attempts to suppress my voice in Osmania University. Even now some sections of people want my writings and speeches to be banned.
I think, we should create new knowledge, sometimes you may risk, this risk factor cannot completely ruled out. I think it is social reform struggle, luckily first Buddha carried out, then came Jyotibha Phule, then Ambedkar, Periyar, Kanshiram has also done some kind of serious work. So now the Brahminical force are on defensive mode otherwise there would have been more and more violence, which they will go for. They are basically the worshipers of violence, but when it comes to moral and ethical issues the Buddhist morality has a very strong base.
Does the electoral politics played by BJP poses a direct threat to small/regional parties, how do you see this whole dynamics of State making?
Yes there is, you are right. One is that the BJP putting Narendra Modi with a specific OBC identity in our national politics as a primiminterial candidate. Congress never fielded either a OBC or Dalit candidate for the post of PM, BJP as well, and they have put up such a candidate with his own ambitions and organizational base. So, they came to power in the center now they are gradually coming into power in different states, but there they are also compromising and they are also going for others. In Maharashtra case, they were thinking that they would not come into power, Shivsena was weakened after the Loksabha elections, though BJP could not come into power on their own but now they are the ruling party. In Jammu and Kashmir PDP align with BJP, and PDP have a feeling that Modi’s approach is different from RSS. Modi wants to carry some history with him, that Kashmir he cannot leave behind, so let it be and PDP should go for a compromise. They will try with this model, if the PDP model works, well they will say that we solved the problem. In any case they are trying to expand, but where they are failing is on the talks about Christianity, it is giving a bad impression on BJP across the globe, so the global investment is not coming. If investment does not come then Modi’s development agenda itself will be in a crisis. So they have not calculated the implications of attacking Christians or forcing them to reconvert. That is where the president of America had to say that religious freedom is universal in nature, it cannot be violated. So the BJP’s existence also been globalised the caste and untouchability issue. If they want to address it, reconcile and tell the Brahmins and other priestly communities that you have to give equality to all people whom you define as ‘Hindu’ then may be Hinduism may reform. I find problem with their books in this regard, things like God created human beings hierarchically, I think these kinds of writings in the texts itself pose challenges, for this either they have to delete or reject it. In any case these five years will be a testing ground, because this is the first time they got power on their own, if they create social tensions, if they go after people, the beef ban has created a strong negative feeling among the people, that signal is not going to keep quite .If they don’t allow the power to slip out of their hands, they will go for some time like this and then, they may try to transform and change themselves. Or if they use this status for establishing Hindu-Rashtra then there will be a huge ‘civil war’ that I have been talking about some time now. It all depends on their approach in the next four years, at this stage it is very difficult to predict, simple numbers in parliament does not make any sense, Rajiv Gandhi had much more numbers but he could not sustain, that seems very hopeful.
If this is the case, how do you look at parties like AAP and other regional parties?
If small regional parties don’t use powerful tools like English education and integrate their thinking with National level and give up their family control on parties, BJP will swallow them. That is possible. Most of these regional parties are family oriented parties except BSP. But BSP, its leader Mayawati did not show the required courage and confidence in handling the post election crisis. She is not building up SC-OBC unity; she is also not building up the leadership in all stages. I think the parties like APP remain as a regional party, I don’t think that they can really challenge BJP. The real challenge should be from the Congress and other political forces united, particularly the Leftists. The Leftists are in terms of caste are with the upper caste and in terms of class they say that they are with working class, so the left has absolutely failed in understanding the caste structure/religion in this country.
In this context how do you see the caste annihilation programs proposed by Leftist organizations like Communist Party of India Maoist?
No, they would not have a major role in annihilation of caste. Annihilation of caste was the agenda of Ambedkar but in those days Dalits were not very well educated .Now Dalits want to survive, they need identity and power, among Dalit leaders there is power hunger. They are making alliances with parties like BJP and Shiv Sena, leaders like Ramvilas Paswan and Athawale are best examples. So, the power without thinking about social reform, ideological struggles and concrete writing of new theoretical formulations are not useful. I think BJP can finish them off but if they take them in, they don't get any prominence. I have not seen any role for Ramvilas Paswan and Athawale after making the new Government. Paswan has just become as an insignificant Minister, you see only a few number of Ministers nationally visible like Arun Jaitly, Nirmala Seetharaman, Smrithi Irani, Ravisankar Prasad, Piyush Goyal ,they are there. Where is Ram Vilas Paswan who played such a role? .So the Dalit leaders working with them only for power, I think it is self degradation, I don’t want to see Dalit leaders suffer that kind of self degradation.
Recently Dalit leader Jitan Ram Mahji has been sacked from post of CM paving the way for Nitish Kumar to take up the same post. In Telengana ruling party TRS leadership were criticized for betraying Dalits. So how do you see these political upheavals?
This dialogue will go on, Dalits are not definitely a block, and there is an intellectual blossom. All of us put together and made these issues international; it went to US Congress, British parliament, European Union etc, so that internationalization of caste, untouchability and women trafficking and so on, we will have to have impact on this new style. But OBC‘s does not that visible space, whereas OBC’s have state power, Dalits does not have state power, except Mayawati there is no other Dalit leader who could become Chief Minister on her own. So this is a phase where all new experiments are taking place and BJP has given up the classical demand that Hindu-Brahmin-Kshatriya should rule, they have tried it with Vajpeeyi, but they seems shifted from that and brought a so called Shudra as the prime ministerial candidate and now he is the prime minister. Within the next four to five years there will be a new combination of political forces, alliances and re-alliances will takes place, so we could see some kind of new unfolding is likely to. Mulayam Sing is saying that he don't mind joining congress, we have to fight it. In 2002, when I predicted that Narendra Modi would become the PM if the Congress and Left behave in the same way, they didn't take it seriously, and in reality Modi become the PM of India. From here, where does it go?. Already the negative results are coming out. Maharashtra banning beef and Haryana banning beef, it will definitely create crisis in agriculture.
Now DYFI is also trying to organize beef festivals across the country to challenge the ban. But the discourse on food culture initiated by Dalits/OBC’s especially students in academic institutions was ideological in nature, they articulated it in a distinct way, and it was not just about the intervention of state on the food choice of citizens. So what do you think about these leftist interventions?
The left has committed a blunder earlier by not giving the power positions to Dalits and OBC’s, the upper caste hang on to the power in the party. But now a after communal party like BJP re-working on the issue caste, and then there is lots of debates and writings coming from the new intellectuals from Dalit/OBC background, so the Left leadership now rethinking its position. On food culture is totally different, after Osmania beef issue they came up, they also fed participants with beef during the party congress recently in Telengana. I think some positive steps have been taken by them, but yet, the leadership remain the same, my feeling is that we should really take the leftist along with us, though they are castiest, despite their limitations, it is better to take them along because they have at least a theoretical position. In terms of financial corruption, they are not very corrupt. Let us negotiate with them, let us have a healthy relationship with them, Dalits, OBC’s and the women intellectuals should come together, even the feminist discourse the leftists opposed it initially later they accommodated it, now they are ready to debate cultural rights, food culture and so on. So, we need to educate the leftists more and more and communist can re-educate us more through Marxism, Leninism. etc. They are re-thinking now. In CPIM when the road blocks like Prakash Karat and Sitharam Yechuri goes, if they do away may be some changes will come. I feel, we should work in friendly relations with the communist. I think its inevitable and lets us hope something better will emerge.
Despite the strong Dalit movement in Maharashtra atrocities against Dalits continues?
Atrocities also takes place when oppressed fight for equality and equal rights, the upper caste get raged with this. Secondly atrocity happens because upper caste can commits atrocity and get a away. It is like, there are resistance to rape, there are state battles but there is also responce to this resistance. So its a transitory situation, in a culture of rape and religious relation ships which are projected into sexual relations and so on. Caste group and cultural relationships are also changing. There are castes that get mobility through education and employment. There are also castes their status remains constantly or have goes down. When once caste's states increase due to education and employment the other get angry with them and fights emerge between them. They are competing with in themselves. Today dalits are not competing with Bhramnis, Baniyas and other traditional capitalist. If Mahars are growing the Matangs get angry, this is a transitory phase. See during British period the Brahmin's fought more severely among themselves than they fought others, even than with British. They got empowered by that. so my point is that, let each Dalits, Bahujan groups compete with each other among themselves and to others. Identities does not change easily and now a days Dalits issues are being found in most of the political parties discussions and documents, this is a positive change. The writings and creative interventions of Dalit-Bahujan intellectuals have contributed for this. Its important that we need to engaged in thought process and creating more books of our own. Its not that Dalits, Adivasis and backwards to could not fight with upper castes and Bharmanism, but they could not fight with their brains, they could not fight with their writings and books. Thukaram was told to burn his books in those days, who can remove my books why "I am not a Hindu" from Internet today?. More critical writings and thinking should be produced by the youth and students and I am hopeful about these new generation.
(Ajmal Khan and Anish are doctoral students at Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai.)
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