Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 21:35 19 May 2016 Frontiers of Embedded Muslim Communities in India Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 21:35 19 May 2016 Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 21:35 19 May 2016 Frontiers of Embedded Muslim Communities in India Editor Vinod K. Jairath Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 21:35 19 May 2016 LONDON NEW YORK NEW DELHI First published 2011 in India by Routledge 912 Tolstoy House, 15–17 Tolstoy Marg, Connaught Place, New Delhi 110 001 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2011 Vinod K. Jairath Typeset by Star Compugraphics Private Limited D–156, Second Floor Sector 7, Noida 201 301 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 21:35 19 May 2016 ISBN 978-0-415-66888-0 This book is printed on ECF environment-friendly paper manufactured from unconventional and other raw materials sourced from sustainable and identifi ed sources. To the spirit of tolerance among people everywhere Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 21:35 19 May 2016 Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 21:35 19 May 2016 Contents Preface ix Introduction: Towards a Framework 1 Vinod K. Jairath Part I: Self Identity and Others 1. Border Transgressions and the Frontiers of Faith in Kachchh, Gujarat 29 Farhana Ibrahim 2. We are Different from Shias Here; We are Different from Iranis There: Irani Shias in Hyderabad 49 Vinod K. Jairath and Huma R. Kidwai 3. Sidis of Gujarat — A Building Community: Their Role in Indian History into Contemporary Times 65 Beheroze Shroff Part II: Caste — Reproduction, Stratifi cation and Mobility 4. Consanguineous Marriage and Kinship System: Impact of Socio-Cultural Dynamics among the Muslims of Delhi, India 93 Rosina Nasir and A. K. Kalla 5. Social Stratifi cation among the Muslims of Kerala 113 P. R. G. Mathur 6. Ethnic Identity and Islamisation among the Borewale Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 21:35 19 May 2016 Muslims of Andhra Pradesh 136 S. A. A. Saheb 7. Taleem, Tanzeem aur Tijaarat: The Changing Role of the AIJQ 158 Zarin Ahmad 8. Multiple Identities and Educational Choices: Refl ections on Ansari Students in a School of Banaras 174 Nirmali Goswami viii VinodFrontiers K. Jairath of Embedded Muslim Communities in India Part III: Muslim Citizens 9. Tamil Muslims and the Dravidian Movement: Alliance and Contradictions 199 S. Anwar 10. Muslim Perceptions and Responses in Post–Police Action Contexts in Hyderabad 220 M. A. Moid 11. Naata, Nyaya: Friendship and/or Justice on the Border 242 Rowena Robinson About the Editor 263 Notes on Contributors 264 Index 267 Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 21:35 19 May 2016 Preface Here, I want to recount a journey. I cannot say when and where it began. It may seem unbelievable but I grew up in Delhi in an urban middle-class environment where I had no consciousness of caste, religious or regional identities. As a student at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, I was surprised at the language- and region-based networks among students. As an M.A. student at Delhi School of Economics, I learnt about caste, though only as an abstraction, but nothing about ‘invisible’ Muslims. Only in the mid-1970s, during fi eldwork in a village in Hardoi district of Uttar Pradesh did I see caste in practice. There was also a small cluster of Muslim families of Manihar (bangle-makers) ‘caste’ in the village. They were all poor but there were many more families from other castes which were equally poor or even poorer. There was no mosque in the village or in nearby villages and I did not see (in one year’s time) the Muslims of the village praying. Just before Muharram, many non-Muslims seemed excited about participating in the making of tazias along with their Sunni Muslim neighbours. There seemed nothing extraordinary about it. Several Muslim families of the village had small shops mostly run by women. I did not see any Muslim woman in veil. They were comfortable conversing with me, which was not true for women of several other caste groups. In short, there was nothing remarkably different about Muslims. Stereotypes did not apply. Communalism and ‘communal riots’ were also an abstraction. I had not seen or experienced anything of it till November 1984 when a ‘Hindu’ mob surrounded the house of a Sikh professor inside the IIT campus. For several days, the campus residents kept Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 21:35 19 May 2016 a vigil to protect Sikh families. Many of the Sikhs felt humiliated and angry. Suddenly, they had acquired a distinct ‘Sikh’ identity. In 1990, I quit academics and shifted to Hyderabad. The months of December 1990–January 1991 saw Hyderabad in the grip of its most violent and fortunately (so far), its last ‘communal’ riots. I distinctly remember the sight from the aircraft; there was curfew in the entire city and no movement on the roads. In Hyderabad, we heard of indiscriminate stabbings and the terrorising of people at night by playing pre-recorded sounds of large crowds and x FrontiersVinod K. Jairath of Embedded Muslim Communities in India screaming people. The ‘communal’ riots stopped when the chief minister of the state was replaced. Who organises such ‘communal’ riots? When are riots organised? Who ‘benefi ts’ from riots and which sections of people get killed or arrested? These are important questions on which much research has been carried out and much has been published which I will not discuss here. Suffi ce to say, I became concerned about the issues relating to the minorities. The decade of 1990s saw a great deal of violence along with the rise of Hindu nationalism. Global events and forces contributed to this violence. I found many middle and upper middle-class ‘Hindu’ friends and relatives spewing venom at Muslims. On the other hand, it was upsetting to see friends, who were now ‘Muslim’ friends, in a state of despondence and anger. In this ‘modern’ ‘secular’ ‘shining’ India, a garbage collector refused to collect garbage from the Muslim houses in an upper middle-class residential area of Hyderabad. Discrimination against the Muslims has so far been swept under the academic carpet. In 1998, I came back to academics at the University of Hyderabad. A few years later, I was not comfortable as I proceeded with the teaching of a course on the sociology of India because the course was mostly about ‘Hindu’ India — as though no other communities existed nor was there any impact of their existence on ‘Indian society’. No student protested but I felt the sense of alienation among students of minority communities. Muslims’ social life is generally invisible in the academic curriculum in Indian universities. Much that is written is in the context of confl ict, tension, riots or purdah among women or ‘easy divorce’ which all contribute to construction of negative stereotypes. Various experiences were now coming together and I decided to initiate some research on Muslim communities. Huma Kidwai, a ‘Muslim’ friend, introduced me to some Hyderabadi Muslims from different walks of life — a cross-section Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 21:35 19 May 2016 of Muslim society. I was pleasantly surprised when several of them pulled their copies of Bhagawad Geeta from their library shelves. Some of them tried to show how Bhagawad Geeta and Quran had similar universal messages. Some mentioned that their fathers or grandfathers were scholars of Sanskrit. On the other hand, there were some who recited their personal ex- periences of loss, violence and alienation after the so-called Police Action through which Hyderabad was ‘annexed’ by the Indian state Preface xi after Independence. These encounters were very enlightening but we seemed to be going nowhere. Then we decided to suspend religion, riots, politics, ideologies, binary oppositions and any grand structured formulations and, instead, concentrate on everyday lives of ordinary Muslims. What is the diversity within the Muslims? How do they look at themselves and others around them? What are their concerns in their everyday lives? And then there was the question of selecting a sample for fi eldwork. A ‘manageable’ community, with a small population in Hyderabad, seemed to be the ‘Iranis’ who came to ‘India’ during late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, shifted to Hyderabad later on, and are owners or managers of what are popularly known as ‘Irani hotels’. We were convinced that ethnographic fi eldwork was essential for understanding ‘what it means to be a Muslim’ rather than engaging with abstract debates around all kinds of stereotyping. It was then that we thought of bringing together those scholars who had done intensive ethnographic studies around specifi c Muslim communities and demonstrate and discuss the nature of diversity as it exists on the ground. A seminar titled ‘Frontiers of Embedded Muslim Communities in South Asia’ was organised at the Department of Sociology at the University of Hyderabad during February 7–9, 2008. The intention was not to take up any theme such as religion, marriage and kinship, politics, or education; instead, the focus was on diversity.