Naaz Khair Muslim population (172 million) is the second largest in the Country, followed by Christian (27 million) and Sikh (20 million) populations (see Table 1). Muslim literacy rates and levels of education from the latest census (Census 2011) have been analyzed to present the status of Muslim education in this article. While Jains …
Communalism and the Pasmanda question
Lenin Maududi It’s time for us to understand that politics is at the centre of every society. It follows then that if politics is of a poor quality, it is futile to expect any improvement in social status. Secular warriors in India claim that they are fighting against fascism, so they want every person …
Maulana Ali Hussain ‘Aasim Bihari’: Father of the first Pasmanda Movement and Freedom Fighter
Faiyaz Ahmad Fyzie Maulana Ali Hussain “Aasim Bihari” was born on April 15, 1890, in Mohalla Khas Ganj, Bihar Sharif, Nalanda district, Bihar, in a devout but poor Pasmanda weaver family. In 1906, at the young age of 16, he started his career in the Usha organization in Kolkata. While working, he pursued interests in studies …
Hindu nationalism and Muslim nationalism co-produce each other: Khalid Anis Ansari
Round Table India In this episode of the Ambedkar Age series, Round Table India talks to Prof. Khalid Anis Ansari, Director, Dr. Ambedkar Centre for Exclusion Studies & Transformative Action (ACESTA), Glocal University, Uttar Pradesh. The interview focuses on the Pasmanda movement, on the issues of secularism/communalism and on the upper caste hegemony in …
Moving beyond Manusplaining Pasmanda Movement
Shafiullah Anis Introduction In the waiting room of a hospital in Jamia Nagar, Delhi, I came across The Companion magazine featuring Malcolm X and Rohith Vemula on the cover. This was March 2017 edition and had covered opinion pieces and articles on a range of issues such as disappearance of Najeeb from JNU, Education, …
Caste should be seen as the overarching category in Indian society: Khalid Anis Ansari
Round Table India In this episode of the Ambedkar Age series, Round Table India talks to Prof. Khalid Anis Ansari, Director, Dr. Ambedkar Centre for Exclusion Studies & Transformative Action (ACESTA), Glocal University, Uttar Pradesh. The interview focuses on the Pasmanda movement, on the issues of secularism/communalism and on the upper caste hegemony in all …
Uniform Civil Code & Ashrafiya obsession with Triple Talaq
Ayaz Ahmad In the wake of upcoming assembly polls, the question of Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is being debated with traditional appeal to religious identity of Muslims & Hindus in their respective constituencies. From the vantage point of Pasmanda, the question of UCC is raised to create the binary of Hindu versus Muslim in …
Caste and the Aporias of Muslim Theo-Politics
This is the second part of the three-part series ‘Dialogue with BAPSA’. Please read the first part here. Khalid Anis Ansari In the context of the dialogue with BAPSA on its problematic association with the Muslim Right, as exemplified by Jamaat’s student wing SIO, I feel the argument on Muslim theo-politics and caste advanced …
Anurag Kashyap’s Varnas of Wasseypur
Arvind Shesh Disclaimer: You perhaps watch a movie as just a film. You probably even look at society as if it were a film… But I watch a film as a society…and society as politics. Wasseypur is a ‘true’ story Has the RSS instituted a new front comprising people from the film industry to …