In recent times, the citizenship of the Muslims has been a hot topic for discussion, while many more important socio-economic issues concerning them are swept under the carpet.The issues of participation in employment, business, education, health and access to basic amenities ,ownership over land and most importantly, participation in governance of the Muslims are ignored inspite of two major landmark commission reports on Indian minority in post independent India.
The first commission was headed by Justice Rajindara Sachar (2006), former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court and the second was headed by Justice Ranganath Mishra, former Chief Justice of India (2007). Both the reports are an eye-opener to public about the status of religious minorities in India.
Among the religious minorities, the situation of Dalit Muslims is worst as they are prosecuted because of their caste based social identities. They continue to suffer inspite of change in their faith while they are almost disconnected from their social groups by legally losing status of Scheduled Caste. The SC status is not legally religion neutral and has been restricted to Hindu, Sikh (1955) and Buddhists (1990) only till date.
The Dalit Muslims are also socially alienated from the major Dalit population of India commonly identified as Scheduled Caste. After OBC reservation, many of Dalit Muslims are included in OBC category in different States.
Islam is the second largest religion of India. Studies by many such as ISI, New Delhi (2010), Abdur Rahman, Denial and Deprivation, (2019),Dalits in the Muslim and Christian communities ,National Commission for Minorities, repot by Satish Deshpande and Geetika Bapna, Department of Sociology ,University of Delhi (2008), and the various commission reports found that the Muslim society in India is not homogeneous as they are divided into four major social and economic classes under the influence of caste system in India.In Indian society the Ashraf, (Sayyads, Sheikhs, Mughals, Pathans) are the land owners, civil and religious leaders. Ajlafs (mostly similar to Hindu Sudras/OBC) are mostly artisans and occupational groups such as barbar, tailor, weaver etc.
The Arzals are the lowest like their Hindu counterparts. The Arzals are the Dalits of the Muslim community. They constitute a separate most deprived group within the Muslim society. Similarly the untouchables/scheduled castes converted to Christianity are called as Dalit Christians.The change in religion has not contributed much to upgrade their social and economic status in the new religion and even within their own religious fraternity; rather they continue to face the same discriminatory treatment in social life and majority of them are engaged in age old unclean occupations such as scavenging, washing, cleaning etc.
These issues are swept under the carpet. Landlessness is very high among these communities. They are deprived of basic amenities such as homestead land , good housing , drinking water , toilet , electricity and sanitary facilities in their hamlets/Muhallas which are segregated in case of Dalit Muslims.
Usually the Government schemes very seldom reach to these hamlets because of their locations and discriminatory attitude of the governing elites. The condition of elders, women and children in family is very miserable. They cannot enter into any petty business but they are only selectively allowed to do few jobs since generations together.
Very less has been done for their schooling and economic development and also for socialization and secularization. Inter caste /jamaats marriage is rare and often leads to social tension because of social hierarchy among Muslims. The suffering of Dalit Muslims is not addressed properly.
The Kaka Kalelkara Commission of 1955 and Mandal Commission of 1980 have very well recognized the issues of social and educational backwardness among major Muslim groups /castes and recommended to include them in OBCs.
The implementation of OBC reservation though is late but placed Muslims as socially and educationally backward classes and also entitled them to avail reservation in education and jobs. The States such as Kerala ,Tamilanadu, AP ,Telengana and Karnataka, Manipur, Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh have made specific percentage of reservation for Muslims as backward class and most backward class. But in Odisha there is no minority commission and backward caste Muslims are not identified either as OBC or SEBC whereas Dalit Christians are included in the SCBC list in the State.
Reservation in education and employment is necessary to revamp the social and economic status of the downtrodden. It has certainly contributed to change hereditary caste based occupations.
Modern Education exposes to rational thinking, global outlook and aims at building a world where every individual lives with dignity and self-respect which Jyoti Rao Phule, Dr Ambedkar and Sir Syed Ahamad Khan, Hamid Dalwai always advocated for. In Odisha minorities constitute 6 per cent of the total population of the State where Muslims with 10 lakh population account for 2.5 pet cent of the population. However, thr Muslim communities have been neglected much with denial of OBC or SEBC status. The State Government has not set up any minority commission to look after the issues of minorities including Muslim minorities.
There is no dedicated minority department with Minister from minority groups hrading it. Also there is absence of any minority financial corporation to encourage self-employment among minority youths.
There is no allocation for upgrading of Madrasas for quality education of Muslim children and promotion of Urdu language. But almost all parties have minority cells to satisfy the minority political leaders as party agents.
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