Scholar Christophe Jaffrelot Explodes Myth of Muslim Appeasement by Congress Regimes

 

Scholar Christophe Jaffrelot Explodes Myth of Muslim Appeasement by Congress Regimes

August 14, 2020

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There should be over-representation if Muslims are pampered by Congress regimes even if they are not able to qualify,” says Jaffrelot, a French Scholar. — Representational image.

During 1951-2016, Muslim IPS officers never crossed 4 per cent of the total IPS officers, despite the rising Muslim population, resulting in the increasing gap between the Muslim population and its representation in these elite cadres

Rehan Ansari | Clarion India

A FRENCH political scientist has exploded the myth that the Congress governments pampered Indian Muslims, and pointed out that the lot of the minority community went on deteriorating since the decade of 1990s up to the decade of 2000s, and even more in the subsequent years, as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) kept scaling greater heights of popularity.

Christophe Jaffrelot, a senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris, was speaking at a recent webinar organised by the BASE, West Bengal on the eve of India’s 74^th Independence Day.

In order to prove his point, he cited figures of recruitment of Muslim officers in the various coveted civil services of the Government of India, like the Indian Police Service (IPS) and the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). According to him, during 1951-2016, Muslim IPS officers never crossed 4% of the total IPS officers, despite increasing Muslim population, resulting in the increasing gap between the Muslim population and its representation in these elite cadres

Similarly, between 1978 and 2014, Muslim representation never crossed 5% of the total IAS officers. “There should be over-representation if Muslims are pampered by Congress regimes even if they are not able to qualify” Jaffrelot argued.

Absence of Urdu

Linking the ‘exclusion’ of Urdu in the just-released New Education Policy of the BJP-led government at the Centre with the past Congress administrations, he said that after Independence, Urdu was being recognized as an official Language in different states of North India, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

However, Hindu Traditionalist- Right Wing leaders of the Congress, who ruled these states, did not support Urdu to an extent that the Central government had to investigate and appoint commissions what with Urdu speakers declining in UP and Bihar when the Muslims population rose.

Jaffrelot, who specialises in South Asian affairs, especially India and Pakistan, also recalled the 2006 Sachar Committee Report, the first study that paid a lot of attention to the jobs Muslims were doing, based on the data available mainly of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s.

According to the report, only 8 per cent of Urban Muslims belonged to the salaried class when the national average was 21%. Also, 61 per cent of Muslims were self-employed as artisans, traders, much more than the Hindus.

Jaffrelot noted, “It’s not only that they are not very well represented in the salaried people but they are particularly excluded from public-sector undertakings, railways, universities.”

He said the data revealed that the private sector did not discriminate as much as the public sector, and added that this was another indication that the Congress governments did not give special treatment to Muslims.

“Only 5 per cent of Muslims are part of the regular salaried non-agricultural sector against almost 20 per cent Hindus. In contrast, in the private sector, 19.70 per cent of Muslims are part of the salaried people whereas Hindus are 22.16 per cent” he said while presenting the data, adding that this explained why Muslims were more represented in the informal sector than Hindus.

“The fact of the matter is that Muslims have not been pampered by the Congress since 1947. If it would, then we would have a different socio-political profile of Indian Muslims.”

Rise of BJP

Jaffrelot, also a professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King’s India Institute, London, also elaborated on the difference the rise of the BJP had made to Muslims in socio-economic terms. He said that since 1980s, Muslim representations in the Lok Sabha are constantly declining.

Quoting from the data, he said, “In 1980, when Muslims were 11 per cent of society, 49 MPs were elected that is 9 per cent of total Lok Sabha seats. It was reduced to its lowest in 2014 when the BJP won majority seats and formed the government at the Centre—only 21 Muslim MPs i.e. below 4% of total Lok Sabha seats, were elected because the BJP did not have a single MP.

What is true of the Lok Sabha is also equally true of the state assemblies. Gujarat, with 9.1 per cent Muslim population has only 1.6% of the Muslim MLAs. It used to be 6% in the early 80s. Again, only 3.1% Muslim MLAs are there in Karnataka with 12.2% Muslim population, but, in the late 70s, they were more than 7%.

Muslim lawmakers

In Uttar Pradesh, before 2017, till the BJP won, 16.9% MLAs were Muslims with 18.5% Muslim population. In 2017, the Muslim MLAs were reduced to only 5.7% of MLAs. “The most obvious impact of the rise of BJP is the declining Muslim representations in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies,” said Jaffrelot, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The other impact he focused upon was what he drew from a 2019 survey report of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, “The police are seen by Muslims as biased. Muslims are more fearful of police than any other group; Dalits came second, after that. It was usually said that the police often implicate Muslims under forced terrorism charges. There are cases when young Muslims who have been jailed and spent years in jail for this reason.”

Jaffrelot quoted the 2015 report of the National Crime Records Bureau that stated that 21 per cent of inmates in jail were Muslims, an over-representation in terms of their share of 14.5% in the total population.

He compared it with the blacks in American jails, saying, “This over-representation is somewhat proportionate to the over-representation of the Blacks in American jails. That is certainly another recent development that goes with the new dispensation in Indian politics.”

According to Jaffrelot, the draconian CAA-NRC laws will be a challenge for Indian Muslims in the short term, and education in the mid and long run. “What is troubling is the educated and elite Muslims are shrinking very quickly in India. Every community needs the young educated elite. They can somewhat change the course of history, the trajectory of the community because they are better placed than anybody to take care of these issues.”

He said that only 14 per cent Muslim youths had done graduation in 2017-18 as against 18 per cent Dalits and 25 per cent Hindu OBCs and 37 per cent Hindu upper casts.

More worrying is, he said, “31% Muslim youths who are between the age group of 15 and 24 years neither have access to education nor in jobs. That is more than any other group and almost one-third of Muslim youths who are jobless and without any access to higher education.”

Jaffrelot, who offers valuable insights on South Asian politics, particularly the methods and motivations of the Hindu right in India, said that there might be a time when nobody would dare to say that “Hindutva is not Hinduism” or “Hindu Nationalism is not Indian Nationalism”, because, he said “the fear of the ‘other’ had become so pervasive. The fear of Pakistan and the fear of Islam is the only game in town for the Hindutva politics and if you don’t indulge in this discourse, then you will be illegitimate.”

Electoral battles

According to Jaffrelot, electoral competitions have led to this ‘otherisation’ of Muslims. “How do you polarize? By making the other a threat to your identity,” he said.

The anti-CAA agitation for Jaffrelot was very revealing–the emergence, crystallization, of the middle class that had been rather apolitical till then. Executives, salaried people had not indulged in politics so far to some extent.

He said, “The CAA agitations showed that they were prepared to demonstrate, to go the street and that is probably the most important development. In the anti CAA movement, we have seen many Muslim women at the forefront, not only young but all kinds of women.”

Jaffrelot said that the rise of the middle class wa a ray of hope and the politicisation of the Muslim middle class may help not only politically but also socially. He said, “Unity among all kinds of lines among Muslims, class, casts, and sects is the key. It may become much more obvious because there is hardly any way out at this juncture.