Missing in the debate on quotas for Muslims
The squabbling match between the BJP and Congress over the Muslim quota is intimately connected with the elite consensus and dissensus in the run-up to the Independence and the traumas of Partition under a colonial gaze. The myth of Muslims as a backward community, among other things, strategically bolstered the formation of the All-India Muslim League, the acceptance of a separate electorate for Muslims, and a separate 25% quota in government services for Muslims, in turn producing a unified and enclavist “Muslim community” led and profiteered by the Ashraf aristocracy. In 1939, the Momin Conference demanded a universal adult franchise and a separate electorate for lower caste Muslims as opposed to being accommodated within the separate Muslim electorate. The Muslim Ashraf classes broadly endorsed Jinnah’s call for Partition, while the lower-caste Muslims challenged it and worked closely with Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress. However, in a strange reversal in Independent India, the erstwhile “communal” Muslim Leaguers were accommodated within the Congress party through the discourse of “mainstreaming Muslims” with the efforts of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.
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