Why Muslims feel besieged

Muslims will measure from tomorrowrsquos election results the depth to which the hatred against them has plummeted An outright victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party would mean a frighteningly substantial segment of Indians have bought into the partyrsquos merciless demonisation of Muslims It will have them shudder over their future in the Republic Even a hung Lok Sabha will not reduce their fears about their diminishing status as citizensThe demonisation of Muslims in the 2024 elections was altogether of another order They were othered not for their cultural practices or dietary choices or for being progenies of Muslim rulers who demolished templesmdashfor the first time Muslims were othered for ostensibly benefiting from reservation at the expense of Hindu subaltern groupsWorryingly it was none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi who stoked the fears of the Scheduled Castes Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes that without him helming the country Muslims will gobble up their share of government jobs and seats in educational institutes reserved for them In this context he projected the grant of minority status to educational institutes as a Congress ploy to deprive the SCs STs and OBCs of their quotas in order to benefit Muslims Minority institutes are exempted from providing reservation to Hindu social groupsWeeks before the general election was announced the Modi government supported the challenge to the minority status of Aligarh Muslim University in the Supreme Court which has reserved its judgment in the case Jamia Millia Islamia will perhaps be the BJPrsquos next target for Modi cited it as an example of institutions where reservation for Hindu subaltern groups was ldquoeliminatedrdquoIt would seem India is being nudged into thinking that every seat a Muslim occupies in an educational institute is one seat less for Hindus This is a scary prospect for Muslims who are now ranked last among all communities on employment and education indicatorsNo less worrying was Modirsquos bewildering charge that INDIA would carve out a subquota for Muslims from the larger OBC reservation pool This system in fact already exists in some states In Tamil Nadu there is a 35 per cent subquota for backward caste Muslims In Kerala and Karnataka all Muslims are categorised as OBC on the ground that they are largely converts from lower castes In both these states they have a subquota of their ownIt would seem Modi raked up the Muslim subquota issue to trigger the anxieties of voters in north India where OBC Muslims and OBC Hindus compete for the OBC reservation In no north Indian state do OBC Muslims have a subquota of their own The subcategorisation of OBC and Dalit communitiesmdashwhich involves splitting them into subgroups and granting each a quotamdashensures a handful of relatively better off castes do not appropriate all gains of reservation For instance a separate subquota for Muslims in south India guarantees them a minimal representationModi himself is not opposed to subcategorisation During his first tenure he appointed the Rohini Commission to subcategorise the central list of OBCs Can then Muslims be faulted for believing that Modi opposes a subquota for OBC Muslims let alone for the entire community only because of their faith This thought deeply upsets themAcademics Christophe Jaffrelot and Kalaiyarasan A have argued for granting reservation to the entire Muslim community based on their finding that the difference in the per capita income between OBC and upper caste Muslims is just four per cent against the 64 per cent difference on the same ground between OBC Hindus and upper caste Hindus The Supreme Court in Indra Sawhney said there is no constitutional bar on providing reservation for the entire Muslim community in any state as long as it is determined that they are socially and educationally backwardMuslims know an exercise to determine this is impossible to carry out during the high tide of Hindutva Worse a BJP majority might be a harbinger of the SCs STs and OBCs coming around to believing that every reserved job for a Muslim is a job less for them A sense of foreboding haunts themA hung Lok Sabha or an improbable Opposition victory will not annul the anxieties of Muslims They have seen the constituents of the Opposition field fewer Muslim candidates in this election than before in the hope of obviating Hindu consolidation Muslims do understand the Oppositionrsquos compulsion yet they also worry that the Oppositionrsquos palpable fear of annoying Hindus might deter it from promoting the communityrsquoslegitimate interestsIndeed in the contrasting fates of Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid the fears and anxieties of Muslims are best grasped Both were booked for sedition in 2016 Not only has Kumar left his past behind he has emerged as an important youth Congress leader handpicked by Rahul Gandhi to contest in the election Khalidrsquos fate has worsened since 2016 booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act in a case widely considered dubious he has been languishing in jail for nearly four years now Seldom has an Opposition leader spoken for him Khalid being in jail is a trope for the Muslim community under siegeThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper