Caste & the Muslims

Kancha Ilaiah
Caste & the Muslims

The other major area is to investigate the positive influence of Muslim institutions like restaurants, hotels, tea stalls, Masjids, Dargahs on caste and untouchability. The Muslim intellectuals also need to come out of the fear complex, generated during the Partition and communal riots that the Hindutva forces periodically organise from to time to time. ……

After demolition of the Babri-Masjid, a whole range of Hindu-cum-secular intellectuals came in support of the Muslim right to exist in this country with dignity. But those intellectuals did not pose the question whether Muslims—who constitute more or less equal number to that of the Hindu upper castes, who have been ruling this country ever since India achieved its freedom—have the equal right to rule India…..

Following the Mandal movement, no Muslim scholar wrote even one serious book formulating an Islamic understanding of caste and untouchability. How do bridges get built among communities? They get built only when one oppressed community gets the support of another and each relates to the other on a day-to-day basis.