NEW DELHI: Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal
(United) may have lost the Maharajganj byelections, but the political
experiment of addressing the concerns of backward Muslims, called
Pasmanda, as opposed to the community as a whole has caught on even in
neighbouring Uttar Pradesh. Several groups representing Pasmanda interests in the state will be meeting on June 30, in Lucknow, to demand the separate classification of Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) and Most Backward Classes (MBC) within the OBC quota, as done in Bihar, in Uttar Pradesh.
"It has been obvious for some time that any discourse on minority politics had largely been driven by Ashrafiya (upper caste) Muslims and on the lines of identity politics. From 1998-2005, however, a strong movement, we refer to it as the first cycle of Pasmanda political activity, took place mainly in Bihar, where leaders like Ali Anwar and others came up. If you notice, it was in 2005 that Nitish Kumar came to power in the state," says Khalid Hanif Ansari of the Patna Collective, an activist group working in the area. Ansari says that this was the beginning of the breaking up of the 'secular binary' of typical minority politics.
Hashim Pasmanda of the Pasmanda Front, one of the main organisers of the meeting in Lucknow, says, "We want to carve out a Backward Class politics solidarity rather than a Muslim one. Vote hamara hota hai, par fayda kabhi hamein nahin milta." Or as Rajya Sabha MP Ali Anwar Ansari of the JD(U) credited with raising the issue majorly in Bihar says, "Vote hamara, fatwa tumhara nahin chalega (our vote and your fatwa will not work).
"Actually, the EBC and MBC classification in jobs was there during Karpoori Thakur's (chief minister of Bihar between 1970-79) time but what Nitish Kumar did, and what we want in UP too is the 20% reservation in gram sabha and urban local bodies polls," adds Ali Anwar.
Pasmandas make up at least 85% of all Muslims in the state, with Muslims as a whole comprising 18% of Uttar Pradesh's population. The ministry of minority affairs, however, is still trying to flog an old formula. "We are committed to a 4.5% sub-quota for minorities, already covered as Backward in the Mandal Commission," says Union minister for minority affairs K Rahman Khan. His formulation was widely circulated when his predecessor Salman Khurshid held the chair and the matter now lies in court.
"It can be done, as has been demonstrated in Karnataka. Twenty seven percent reservation is a big, diffused category, and needs to be further classified," he says while steering clear of the Bihar formulation.
For long, minority politics, or even Muslim politics meant the secular versus communal debate. "That era is now over. Entitlements are being given importance, and the hegemony of the Ashrafiya (upper class among Muslims) has to be broken," says Hashim Pasmanda.
Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/in-uttar-pradesh-pasmanda-muslims-organise-themselves-and-demand-quota/articleshow/20468390.cms
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