Ayaz Ahmad
Racial minorities of America fought a valiant battle against educational segregation. They made huge sacrifices in their social, political and legal struggle for the creation of integrated educational spaces. That brave Afro-American struggle for the abolition of ‘the separate but equal doctrine’ is stuff of the legends. The US Supreme Court judgment in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) stands as a judicial tribute to that long and courageous democratic struggle. Recent judgment of the Indian Supreme Court in Aligarh Muslim University vs Naresh Agarwal & Ors. (2024) has triggered similar celebrations but for diametrically opposite reasons: for upholding educational segregation on religious grounds. How can we understand these two polar reactions on the question of educational segregation and integration by two minority groups; one racial and other religious?
This conundrum can not be understood without getting into the issues of identity formation and forms of identification in their historical contingencies. Racial minority identity in the US primarily formed through North Atlantic slavery in the context of white European settler colonialism in North America who formed the powerful racial majority. Afro-American anti-slavery struggle, therefore, was premised around achieving freedom and equal status with respect to their colonial masters by claiming racial minority status. Religious minority/majority identity in the Indian subcontinent on the other hand took shape under the supervision of white European extractive colonialism. Here the nucleus of religious minority/majority identities is formed by Ashraaf Savarna (upper castes) who were jointly ruling different parts of the subcontinent before the dominance of the British. Ashraaf Savarna lost jointly to the British colonizers, they revolted jointly against them in 1857 and jointly reconciled to serve the British masters after the failure of that revolt. The process of Ashraaf Savarna disintegration into religious minority and majority groups began in earnest under British epistemic and administrative practices. Its violent antagonistic phase commenced with the introduction of limited representative democracy whereby Sayed Ashraaf took the status of religious minority and Brahmin Savarna of religious majority.(1) Thus, the tag of religious minority in India does not invoke a history of subjugation and humiliation as the tag of racial minority does in the US. Minority Educational Institutions (MEIs) instead preserve the memory of Islamophilic glory of Ashraaf past. As a result, educational segregation in the form of MEIs is not to be resisted but carried out as a badge of honour.
In contemporary India, the politics of religious minority and majority forms of identification flows from the tiny Savarna Ashraaf ambition to maintain their hegemony over the vast Bahujan majority comprising of Dalit, Pichda, Pasmanda, Adivasi sections of society. Ashraaf Savarna resist every attempt at integration as it could endanger their hegemony under the conditions of democracy. Their numerical inferiority coupled with their historical sense of superiority drives them towards more and more social segregation. Herein lies the discursive cooperation between Ashraaf Savarna to maintain the segregative character of MEIs. First they cooperated to inscribe communally segregative religious minority institutions under Article 30 of the constitution despite enacting a bloody partition on religious grounds just a few years back. Later, they embarked upon sophisticated legal and judicial cooperation to ensure that SC, ST, and OBC communities cutting across religious divide do not set their foot in MEIs or jointly share any educational space which could bring them together.
Islamophile Ashraaf in particular, having committed the historic blunder of pursuing minority politics rather than politics of constructing a majority to secure political power in the age of democracy, cut a very sorry figure. Without any hope of securing political power through democratic politics, they sink deeper and deeper into religious conservatism and hold onto minority character of educational institutions which in reality is nothing but a segregative character. They cling to the politics of minority character of MEIs as a sinking man clutches to the broken straw. Yet, Ashraaf have to depend on the strategic calculations of the Brahminic Savarna even to get the minority character for their most cherished institution like Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). Brahmin Savarna on the other hand having trumped Sayed Ashraaf in democratic politics, milk MEIs to preempt anti-caste democratic dreams and aspirations of the Bahujan society. Through their enormous control of legal, judicial and political power centers, Brahminic Savarna frequently deploy the cover of MEIs to overrun Bahujan efforts to achieve integrated educational institutions and legitimize their minority rule as majoritarion.(2)
In this background, the recent judgment of Savarna Court of India adopting liberal criteria for deciding the minority character of AMU and other institutions is not the least bit surprising. It could be anticipated easily by going through the genealogy of minority politics in general and the politics around MEIs in particular.(3) This cynical political culture supervised by the Brahmin Savarna leads to greater intellectual and material impoverishment of India as a whole.(4) It implies greater and greater isolation of Sayed Ashraaf from rest of the society through modern MEIs and Pasmanda through modern and theological MEIs. The result can only be faster slide towards greater segregation and eventual apartheid bearing Muslim subject and Hindu master lording over Pasmanda Bahujan. So, what is to be done?
Thinking through existing constitutional and legal categories, one could chart out three directional salvation course for MEIs. The first step has to be inclusion of SC, ST, OBC communities in MEIs through affirmative action laws. This direction would oversee the separate recognition of Dalit Muslims and Christians in the Scheduled Caste category in order to achieve the aforesaid representation within the existing legal framework of MEIs which allows for 50% reservation for religious communities which established them. The second step has to be secularization of this 50% representation provision in MEIs by providing representation to SC, ST, OBC communities irrespective of religious affiliation. This direction can not be achieved fully without radically transforming theological MEIs. Because despite making such a provision for representation in MEIs across religions, most Bahujan communities would be reluctant to join MEIs exclusively dedicated to theological education. Finally, a move towards Common Education System through which the category of MEIs can be gradually phased out. It is obvious that much of this turnaround would also operate as a counter to neoliberal regime and neocolonial impulses of the global and native elite. Thus, educational integration of the Bahujan society can lay down a strong foundation for what Babasaheb Ambedkar envisioned as The United States of India(5) through radical investment in democratic education.
Reference
1. Khalid Anis Ansari, “Contesting Communalism(s): Preliminary Reflections on Pasmanda Muslim Narratives from North India” Prabuddha: Journal of Social Equality Vol. 1 pp. 78-104 (2018). Available at: https://prabuddha.us/index.php/pjse/article/view/17/15.
2. Ayaz Ahmad & Nachiketa Mittal, “Constitutive Functions of Minority Rights and Social Justice in India” Journal of the Indian Law Institute, Vol. 64: 3, (2022). Available at: https://www.academia.edu/113388255/CONSTITUTIVE_FUNCTIONS_OF_MINORITY_RIGHTS_AND_SOCIAL_JUSTICE_IN_INDIA.
3. Ayaz Ahmad, “AMU minority status case: An opportunity to repair the illusion of a secular republic”, The Leaflet, February 04, 2024. Available at: https://theleaflet.in/amu-minority-status-case-an-opportunity-to-repair-the-illusion-of-a-secular-republic/.
4. Naren Bedide (Kuffir), “The Brahmin Keeps India in the 18th Century” Prabuddha: Journal of Social Equality Vol. 2:1 pp. 26-33 (2018). Available at: https://prabuddha.us/index.php/pjse/article/view/30/22.
5. B R Ambedkar, “States and Minorities” Vol 01 pp. 387(BAWS 1947). Available at: https://baws.in/books/baws/EN/Volume_01/pdf/402.
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Ayaz Ahmad is a Fulbright Visiting Scholar, Department of Philosophy, Columbia University, New York. Professor of Law, Karnavati University, Gujarat.
