Book edited by Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot
By Danish Khan for TwoCircles.net,
Muslim in Indian cities – Trajectories of Marginalisation is an impressive work of scholarship. The book adds to the debate and discussions on the condition of Muslims following the publications of Sachar Committee and the Ranganath Mishra Committee reports. This book is a worthy addition in understanding the abysmal situation of Muslims in cities. The book covers Muslims in 11 cities – Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Aligarh, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Delhi, Cuttack, Calicut and Bangalore through 11 chapters apart from the Introduction and an erudite Conclusion. Each chapter also has a concise conclusion.
As these cities have distinct dynamics the book has used several variables and different approaches to best contextualise the lives of Muslims living there. For Mumbai, it has chosen the decrepit Shivaji Nagar area and not the cliched Muslim localities of Bhendi Bazaar and Mohammed Ali Road. In Lucknow the author has focussed on the Shias of the Kashmiri Mohalla. Thus for each of the cities it has chosen an area/locality/theme that could provide the best opportunity to present the differences in historicity, aspirations, thinking and mentality of the Muslims.
Though the book primarily brings out the routes towards ghettoisation (due to violence or combination of circumstances – as it says) it also goes a long way in puncturing the illusion of Muslim homogeneity that some people have. The dependence on land, willingness to take up new employment, hereditary occupation, asserting the distinctness of religion all have a bearing in defining the condition of Muslims across India – just like any other community. The book does well to draw upon these factors to bring out their role in the current situation of Muslims.
A good part of the chapters deal with how the people chose to vote and the choice of candidates. It lays threadbare the degree of receptivity of the political class and how the Muslims have been able or unable to extract the benefits from the state. It also discusses the contribution of Gulf remittances especially in the cities of Aligarh, Lucknow, Jaipur, Kozhikode and what that has meant for the Muslims – socially and politically.
The book also captures the intrinsic flavours of the cities which come out through the acute observations of the authors. Thus, Arif Sheikh a municipal school teacher at Mumbai’s Shivaji Nagar ‘takes a lot of pride…in his fluency in English and Marathi’. This is true for any slum or ghetto in Mumbai. Knowledge of Marathi means the ability to deal with local municipal ward officers enhancing ones prestige and standing.
The chapter on Aligarh talks about Sir Syed Nagar, an elite colony housing the Aligarh Muslim University professors. ‘While they hardly visit other parts of the city’ writes Juliette Galonnier, ‘Sir Syed Nagar residents travel a lot to foreign countries’. Someone told Galonnier that Sir Syed Nagar is among the most educated colony of Asia but representing another point of view one AMU professor told the author that it is the ‘largest Muslim intelligentsia ghetto’. The book is replete with many such interesting comments and observations – all well referenced and attributable to sources.
The book reveals that Muslims in Kozhikode are ‘choosing to extend into the city’s mixed localities’. In Gujarat’s Ram-Rahim Nagar, which is a mixed neighbourhood, there has not been any riot for decades. In Cuttack the bhaichara (brotherhood) culture has ensured that Muslims have not suffered much physical harm.
It would have been interesting to find how well the areas covered in the 11 cities are served by financial institutes – private as well as the public sector. A table of ATMs and bank branches in these areas would have been a good addition. Where do the Muslims turn to for finance? How are the funds allocated for minorities deployed by the states? Is there a co-relation between these and Muslims lacking in running businesses? The book could have explored these themes too.
Data regarding the involvement of Muslims in criminal activities (petty as well as serious), especially in Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad would have been very revealing. What is the community wise percentage of prisoners and how does it relate with respect to their overall population? A significant feature of urban India is the criminalisation of youths and the book could have offered some answers.
The chapter on Hyderabad could have written more about Osmania University than the two paragraphs it has. However, it has very well covered the politics of Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen (MIM) and life in the old city.
The book excels in presenting a detailed topography of the area under consideration. This, coupled with a rich historical background provides the perfect setting to dissect the current situation. It helps put in proper perspective several elements which would have otherwise been lost.
The intense groundwork and research comes out in the several tables that accompany the chapters. The book painfully tabulates for example the number of Muslims among the judiciary in Ahmedabad (page 60), Delhi’s Muslim population 1941-2001 (page 218), Hindu-Muslim riots in Aligarh (page 136), Community wise pass percentage of SSC (Secondary School Certificate) in Hyderabad (page 204), Growth rate of population in Cuttack (page 245) and several others. The rich data is one of the highlights of the book.
A passionate piece on Ahmedabad informs that Gujarat has only one Muslim member of the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the only Muslim industrialist for Gujarat in the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Aligarh, closely identified with the lock industry (now under decline) has only one prominent Muslim lock manufacturer. “Among the Muslims I am the only one. But if you take the whole of Aligarh, I am nowhere,” the book quotes Zafar Alam, owner of the Links Lock factory. Following the political somersaults of few Muslim politicians in Bhopal, the chapter puts in proper perspective the real focus of some politicians.
The Khojas, Memons, Bohras, the book points out have been coming together in Maharashtra and Gujarat ‘to share a common space with members of the same community for cultural reasons’. Without seeking to actually elaborate the different sects and schools of thought followed by Indian Muslims, a complete reading of the book will give the reader a fair idea of their ideological moorings and cultural settings.
Muslims in India have traditionally lived in towns and cities in comparatively large numbers. This book, with its extensive fieldwork, tables and figures is a must read for anybody interested in knowing the condition of Muslims in India. The final conclusion on its own can be part of the university syllabus for those pursuing studies relating to the condition of Muslims in present India.
The book is published in the UK by C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd and will be published in India by Harper and Collins in June.
Editors Bio:
Dr. Laurent Gayer is a Research Fellow at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), currently posted at the Centre de sciences humaines (CSH), Delhi. He is also Research Associate at the Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud, Paris.
Dr Christophe Jaffrelot is Research Director at CNRS and teaches South Asian politics and history at Sciences Po (Paris) and King’s India Institute (London). From 2000-8, he was Director of CERI at Sciences Po. Arguably one of the world’s most respected writers on Indian society and politics, his publications include The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, 1925 to the 1990s, India’s Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India, and Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste.