Hindus often respond to Muslim mobility by challenging Nehru-style secularism
Suggestions by some Western scholars that the Muslims, unrestricted by caste considerations, are better placed than most Hindus to
grab new economic opportunities are not confirmed by the experience
in many places. Those areas which Muslims tend to dominate, such
as the lock industry in Aligarh or the bangle industry in Firozabad,
are now accessible to others without any sense of caste restrictions.
Moreover, scheduled castes and tribes have compensatory programmes;
there are none for the Muslims in most states. The backward castes,
too, had no access to compensatory schemes until the Mandal Commission
report was implemented. Yet they had neutralised their weakness
much earlier by the use of political mobilisation, using their
numbers and voting strength to secure attention and capture political
power, as in UP and Bihar, by forming coalitions with other forces.
To be sure, such mobilisation, when it sought politically allocated
resources by way of job quotas, generated opposition and violence,
as in 1990, but this controversy was small compared to the consequences
that awaited Muslims whenever they asserted themselves politically
and, even more, in the economic sphere.
Thus the economic resurgence of Muslims in isolated pockets is
commonly ascribed to 'Islamic fundamentalism' and the confidence
boosted by the flow of petro-dollars from West Asia and the Gulf
region in particular. Thus some activity in moving two madaris
to more spacious grounds in Moradabad, scene of a communal outbreak
in 1980, led to the inference that Muslims planned to turn the
city into a fortress in order to lay the basis for another Pakistan.
A pamphlet was circulated which commented; 'A college built with
foreign money (reference to petro-dollars) will be an abode
of foreign powers; one day this may even place our capital in
jeopardy. In 1990-1 fear and envy of Muslim landed wealth and
status, upward mobility and popular power was fomented in the
riot-torn city of Khurja.
The GSC noted that economic stratification in traditional centres
of arts and crafts usually followed the pattern of Hindus being
businessmen and Muslims being workers. This relationship began
to change in the 1960s, when Muslim artisans and craftsmen started
competing with Hindu traders and businessmen for the expanding
markets in India and the Gulf states.
The competition thus resulted
in conflicts which took the form of violent outbursts over the routing of religious processions, cow-slaughter, music before
mosques and inter-community marriages.
Disputes over such matters
had been quite common in British and princely India, but at that
time there was no discernible pattern to them. The GSC underlined
the economic factor and the keen and bitter rivalries over acquiring
control or sharing the gains of economic ventures and existing
enterprises. According to its findings:
'The prolonged nature of violence and the target-oriented destruction
of property leads credence to the theory that these are not sporadic
expressions of communal anger but pre-planned operations with
specific goals and targets in mind.. In our view, therefore, communal
conflicts are more the results of the economic competition which
has often resulted in the majority community depriving minorities
of their economic gains. Innocent lives were taken in this process
to instill a sense of insecurity among the victims and destruction
of their properties was aimed at uprooting them economically.'
So why were Moradabad, Khurja, Aligarh, Bhagalpur, Ahmedabad, Baroda
and Surat specially targeted? In western UP, where growth has
been shaped by the commercialisation of agriculture and the rapid
expansion of small towns, there appears to be a significant coincidence
of rapid socio-economic growth and an increase in communalism.
Many towns in the region, as also in other states, are riot-prone
because Muslim craftsmen, artisan and weavers reap the rewards
of a favourable economic climate, trading relations with Gulf
countries and the revival of traditional artisanal and entreprenurial
skills.
Noteworthy developments include the changes in Khurja
on the Grand Trunk Road where after years of decline the pottery
units owned by Muslims picked up business. Then there are the
improved fortunes of Muslim in certain areas at Aligarh. Owners
of lock making industries moved into producing building materials
and bought property in the civil lines. Residential colonies like
Sir Syed Nagar bear testimony to the presence of a substantial
middle class and the prosperity that has come to it through trading,
business and professional links with the Arab world.
Most shops
in Amir Nishan and Dodhpur (as opposed to Marris road) have Muslim
owners and a predominantly Muslim clientele. Doctors educated
at the university's medical college had established clinics and
are successful. Some engineers have sought employment in Western
countries, principally the United States, and in West Asia; others
have set up factories and moved into heavy engineering or electronics.
In Kanpur, another city with a long history of communal conflict,
Muslims prospered in the leather industry although most were petty
traders, artisans and industrial workers. In Varanasi Muslim weavers
have gradually established their hold over the silk saree trade
and obtained a financial stake in the industry itself. In Meerut
Muslim weavers who have turned to entrepreneurial activists tend
to do well in iron foundries, furniture manufacturing, scissor-making
and lathe operations. In Moradabad, also in western UP, the traditional
methods of producing brassware were reoriented by the Muslims
to produce decorative brassware for export to rich Arab states.
In Bhagalpur (Bihar) the monopoly of Marwaris in the silk business
was broken by some new Muslim exporters. Tension in the city mounted
between the loom-owners and traders due to the growth of the latter
as an independent force, especially Muslims, who had earlier been
dependent on Hindu traders. In Ahmedabad and Bhiwandi, centres
of textile manufacturing, Muslims gradually bought up small-scale
textile units, which are tempting targets during communal riots.
In the Kolagu region of Karnataka the resentment against Mapilla
labourers is accentuated by the modest economic success of Muslims
as small coffee-planters. Finally, the traditional Hindu mercantile
community in the walled city of Delhi resents Muslim intrusion
into its commercial enclave. Hindus tend to raise their eyebrows,
concluded a report on the Delhi riots by May 1987, at the assertion
of an equal status by a community which they have been used to
look down upon as their inferiors in the post-Independence era.
In other words, prosperity bred resentment among those accustomed
to Muslim invisibility and deference, Hindu professional and businessmen
expected Muslims to serve them as tailors and bakers. Industrial
and office workers seeking jobs, better pay or promotion expect
them to stick to their traditional occupations -- weaving, gem-cutting,
brass tooling. Hindus often respond to Muslim mobility and wealth
by challenging the Nehru-style secularism that offers special
protection to Muslims.
Sure enough, the 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' theory does
not apply to Muslims everywhere. There are regional variations,
especially where Muslims, along with Christians, enjoy benefits
in the shape of liberal admission to institutions and scholarships,
or in Bihar where job opportunities have steadily increased after
Urdu earned its rightful status in some district. Secondly, signs
of progress and prosperity were visible in some parts of Rajasthan,
Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Excerpted from Legacy of a Divided Nation, by Mushirul Hasan, 1997, Rs 495, with the publisher's permission.
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