Suchergebnisse

In numerous parts of the country, Dalit Muslim community continues to lag behind other socio-religious categories in socio-economic and educational development. The condition of this community is dreadful with regard to educational attainment, income, employment in public sector, access to healthcare and other infrastructures, and there is a disproportionately high share of community members in prisons. Identity stereotyping, communal violence, ghettoisation etc. are other major issues which these community faces. Among others, the deprivation of community has been a result of their exclusion from important spheres of socio-economic decision making, lack of political empowerment, discrimination, frequent occurrence of communal violence etc. The Sachar Committee Report (2006) highlights most of these issues and deprivations which the community faces across almost all the states of India.

The social worlds that dalit Muslims in North India daily negotiate are pervaded by contradictions between caste practices and Islamic ethics. Dalit Muslims engaged in manual scavenging and related forms of sanitation labour experience these contradictions acutely in the distinctive spatial and affective conditions of this labour, which I characterise as 'intimate untouchability'. Grounded in historical and ethnographic research in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, this article demonstrates how dalit Muslims use narratives mobilising the genealogical and ethical concept of the Halalkhor—a caste label that also denotes 'one who earns an honest living'—to critique their higher status co-religionists and to engender a more egalitarian Islamic community. The category of the Halalkhor is tracked in the historical record and in its deployment in dalit Muslim oral traditions about the origin of the community and its association with sanitation work.

This paper attempts to understand the state's role in providing Scheduled Castes (SC) status for Arzal or Dalit Muslims, and the struggle of Pasmanda Muslims through the Pasmanda movement for inclusion in the SC list. While doing so, it traces the trajectory of marginalization of Dalit Muslims by the state. It argues that since the inception of SC status in independent India, it was reserved only for the Hindu religion. Later on, it was amended twice: first, in 1956 for the inclusion of Sikh, and second, for neo-Buddhist in 1990. It did not include Dalit from the Muslim community. It also attempts to map the effort of Pasmanda Muslims for SC status. In this context, the paper tries to comprehend the role of the Pasmanda movement along with the struggle of social organizations. Consequently, the paper argues that these organizations fight for SC status; however, unable to make any significant intervention at the policy level. This paper also argues that there is a dissensus and intra-community contestation among Muslims regarding the Pasmanda movement and the demand of SC status for Dalit Muslims.

Dalit texts generally foreground the question of marginality in the context of caste-based discrimination, exclusion and violence. Interestingly, Mohan Das Naimishraya's Apne Apne Pinjare ( Cages of Our Own) and Omprakash Valmiki's 'Salaam' go beyond the scope of exploring the dialectics of dominance and resistance by probing the complexity of otherness. The appropriation of the Dalit subject by the neo-Brahmanical forces us to rethink the notion of marginality. The aversion and hatred of Dalits against Muslims and the identification of Dalits as Hindus by Muslims obfuscate the power dynamics in a communal and casteist socius. The complex Dalit–Muslim relationship re-configures the power relations underpinning untouchability and propels us to re-interpret the troubled category of the 'Other'. This article explores the epistemological and ontological uncertainty about the marginal categories which entail the historical experience of violence, disenfranchisement and oppression. The two Dalit texts problematize the identity of the Dalit as an 'Other' vis-a-vis the Muslim subject and thus highlight the liminality of the subaltern subject. This article seeks to decode the aporia of Dalit–Muslim question in the casteist and communally fractured social order.

This article questions the deliberate omissions of disadvantaged Dalit Muslim women, also known as Pasmandaa women, from feminist, Dalit, and subaltern discourses. To understand the multiplicative nature of oppression and discrimination that these women are continually subjected to, this article foregrounds the intersectionality framework to get a nuanced picture of intersecting vertices of discrimination. It argues that by excluding these severely disadvantaged women from their respective agenda, feminist and Dalit activists have contributed towards their perpetual marginality. Underlying such unaccounted absence of these women is an insouciant attitude of the Pasmandaa leaders towards them. Their approach towards the non-representation of their women and their specific concerns raises questions about the very efficacy of the Pasmandaa movement. This article has tried to seek answers to such questions by directly interrogating women of these communities through an exploratory study. Data for this article was gathered by intensive interviews of women from the community. The article draws on data from a larger ongoing study of these women in the states of UP and Bihar.

This article attempts to understand and analyse the nature of the state's affirmative action policy to include Muslims in higher education in India. In analysing so, it tries to shed light on the Scheduled Castes' status for Arzal or Dalit Muslims to ensure their representation in higher education. It also strives to map the reservation policy for the backward Muslims and argues that various castes among Muslims are not included in the OBC list. This article also seeks to highlight the debate regarding the minority status of Muslim higher educational institutions. This article argues that although the Indian constitution does not provide reservation based on religion, Muslims, in general, and Pasmanda Muslims, in particular, are at the periphery as far as their representation in higher education. In other words, the state uses differential treatment as far as providing Scheduled Castes Status for Arzal Muslims; the state and its apparatus use the thin and narrower meaning of Article 30 of the Indian constitution while addressing the minority status of Muslim higher educational institutions and the article also aims to elucidate the allocation of seats for Pasmanda Muslims in Muslim minority higher educational institutions.

Contemporary India is a primitive, patriarchal society of various feudal tribes. When we refer to caste in the political and economic structures of many cultures, we understand the apparent dichotomy between faith and the role of "one woman". Any theoretical understanding of gender equality and gender inequality must be deeply anchored in the field of social control. Dalit women, especially Muslims in India, are seen to be present at a crucial moment when they must overcome three barriers at once: class, race, and masculinity. These are the three hierarchical poles of the social constitution that are necessary to recognise the gender relations and inequality of Dalit women. In Indian society, Muslim dalit women face unintentional discrimination based on caste, class, and gender. The "untouchables" must live only in shackles, have no domestic property, cook only in porcelain houses, wear only cast-iron clothing, and own no land. This has a long-lasting effect on the experience of the completely weak living conditions of the Dalits, especially women who cannot drink water from popular sources in the villages, become starving workers, engage in trafficking, or commit suicide. Dalit women significantly. Muslim Dalit women have been victims of sexual assault in rural India. The disadvantages of Muslim Dalit women are among the most notable exceptions; their disadvantages are never part of the battle for women in India. However, bourgeois feminism did not advance all the real issues of Dalit women by setting the feminist agenda. The additional bias against Muslim Dalit women due to their gender and caste is evident in the numerous successes achieved by the human development metrics of this group. In all aspects of human growth, literacy, and survival, Muslim dalit women are far worse off than Dalit men and non-Dalit women. This study aims to comprehend the larger connotations that connect Muslim Dalit women's social spaces to COVID-19. Another significant change in the lives of Dalits and their commercial feasibility is the consequence of the transition from a socialist to a democratic state that does not resolve the problems of social security. As a result, the capitalist class of modern liberation engages in sexual relations with Dalit families. The lives of Muslim Dalit female labourers are wrapped up in the obstacles posed by the Brahmanic economy, which is governed by the community. Muslim dalit women's domestic and foreign labour is deeply ingrained in many segments of the community. In conjunction with these social and political trends, the mistreatment of Muslim Dalit women is on the rise, as is subtle or extreme discrimination within Dalit households. As a result, this paper aims to elicit queries from Muslim Dalit women during the COVID-19 period.