Conceptions of citizenship in India and the Muslim question

Modern Asian Studies

Volumn 44, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 145-173

  Shani, Ornit ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA   (Israel)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CITIZENSHIP; CULTURAL CONFLICT; ISLAMISM; LOCAL PARTICIPATION; NEGOTIATION PROCESS; POPULATION STRUCTURE;

INDIA;

EID: 77949794892     PISSN: 0026749X     EISSN: 14698099     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X09990102     Document Type: Article

References (151)

1. Jawaharlal Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers 1947-1964, Vol.3, 1952-1954, Government of India, Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, Teen Murti House, New Delhi, 1985, 22 August, 1953, p. 367. Also see letter 16 July, 1953, p. 340; 28 September, 1953, p. 386.
2. See for example: Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, Vol.5, 4 June, 1961, p. 433; 3 July, 1961, p. 460; 23 July, 1961, p. 476; 3 June, 1961.
3. Bipan Chandra, Mridula Mukherjee and Aditya Mukherjee, India After Independence: 1947-2000, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2000, p. 84.
4. Also see Sumit Sarkar, 'Indian Democracy: The Historical Inheritance', in Atul Kohli (ed.), The Success of India's Democracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 31
5. Meera Verma, 'Introduction', in R.M. Pal and Meera Verma (eds.), Power to the People: The Political Thought of M.K. Gandhi, M.N. Roy and Jayaprakash Narayan, Vol.I, New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 2007, p. 21.
6. Jawaharlal Nehru,The Discovery of India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000 (first published 1946), p. 62.
7. See Atul Kohli, 'Introduction', in Kohli, The Success of India's Democracy, pp. 1-4.
8. A statement made in 1880 by John Strachey, a British administrator in the India Civil Service. Quoted in Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance and the State in India, c. 1850-1950, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 278.
9. Also in Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1997, p. 154
10. Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy, London: Pan Books, 2008, p. xiii.
11. S. S. Harrison, India: The Most Dangerous Decades, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1960, pp. 4, 338.
12. For a review of other similar predictions also see Guha, India After Gandhi, pp. xiv-xvii.
13. For a review of other similar predictions also see Guha, India After Gandhi, Ibid. for example, pp. xx-xxi, 746-750.
14. For a review of other similar predictions also see Guha, India After Gandhi, Ibid., for example, p. xix.
15. For a review of other similar predictions also see Guha, India After Gandhi, Ibid., for example, pp. 186-189, 753.
16. Srirupa Roy, Beyond Belief: India and the Politics of Postcolonial Nationalism, Durham: Duke University Press, 2007, pp. 3-4.
17. Srirupa Roy, Beyond Belief: India and the Politics of Postcolonial Nationalism, Durham: Duke University Press, 2007, Ibid., p. 158; also see pp. 7, 15, 19, 21.
18. H.H. Gerthand C.Wright Mills (eds.),From Max Weber: EssaysinSociology, London: Routledge, 1997, pp. 172, 176.
19. H.H. Gerthand C.Wright Mills (eds.),From Max Weber: EssaysinSociology, London: Routledge, 1997, Ibid., p. 176.
20. Also see Roger Brubaker, 'Immigration, Citizenship, and the Nation-State in France and Germany', in Gershon Shafir (ed.), The Citizenship Debates: A Reader, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998, p. 132.
21. Here I draw on the work of Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, 'Citizenship and Stratification in an Ethnic Democracy' , Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol.21, No.3, May 1998, p. 409
22. Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 11.
23. Also see Gershon Shafir, 'Introduction', in Shafir, The Citizenship Debates, pp. 23-24.
24. Drawing on the work of Yasemin N. Soysal, Shafir and Peled explain an incorporation regime as 'a pattern of institutional practices and more or less explicit cultural norms that define the membership of individuals and/or groups in the society and differentially allocate entitlements, obligations and domination'. Shafir and Peled, 'Citizenship and Stratification', p. 412. Deborah J. Yashar describes 'citizenship regime'as'apatterned combinationofchoices about thethree fundamental questions' of who has access to citizenship; what is the primary principle for interest mediation; and what are the appropriate institutions to mediate between citizens and state? Deborah J. Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, p. 47.
25. Shafir and Peled define a citizenship discourse as the 'political and linguistic strategies of membership fashioned out of alternative combinations of identities and claims'. Shafir and Peled, 'Citizenship and Stratification', p. 409.
26. In what follows, I emphasize the languages of citizenship beyond it as being part of a plan of action for membership claims and stress the ways a citizenship discourse sets a framework for its substantive content. Here I draw on G. Stedman Jones, Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History 1832-1982, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996 edition, particularly pp. 90-107
27. Chandavarkar, Imperial Power and Popular Politics, pp. 273-280
28. And Iris Marion Young's discussion of rhetoric: Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 65.
29. Shafir and Peled, 'Citizenship and Stratification', p. 411
30. Being Israeli, pp. 3, 7.
31. I extrapolate, regarding this point, from Stedman Jones' discussion of Chartism, particularly, Stedman Jones, Languages of Class, p. 96.
32. Also see Chandavarkar's discussion on the Congress and the working classes before 1947 in, Chandavarkar, Imperial Power and Popular Politics, pp. 273-274.
33. Prime Minister's High Level Committee, Social Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India, (henceforth Sachar Report), Cabinet Secretariat Government of India, November 2006.
34. This is the main subject of Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories, New York: Columbia University Press, 2007
35. Joya Chatterji, The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India: 1947-1967, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 105-107, 127-135, 165-183.
36. See, for example, Yashar's, discussion on Jus Soli civic/liberal concept of citizenship and the ethnic biased Jus Sanguinis. Yashar, Contesting Citizenship, pp. 38- 40.
37. The model worked by Shafir and Peled is the one I departed from in this study. See: Shafir and Peled, 'Citizenship and Stratification'; Being Israeli. On the basis of a liberal, ethnic, and republican/communitarian conceptualisations of citizenship, Shafir and Peled constructed a more systematic theoretical framework of a multiple citizenship discourse to account for Israel's social and political structure and the evolution of its modern history.
38. For discussions on the notions of citizenship above, which I draw on, also see: Shafir, 'Introduction', pp. 1-27.
39. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (henceforth CWMG), Vol.91, p. 325 (Harijan, 28/7/1946).
40. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (henceforth CWMG), Vol.91, Ibid., p. 371, (Harijan, 4/8/1946).
41. Also see CWMG, Vol.82, 4/6/1942, (interview with Louis Fischer), pp. 406-407.
42. See Javeed Alam, 'The Nation and The State in India: A Difficult Bond' in Zoya Hasan, E. Sridharan and R. Sudarshan (eds), India's Living Constitution: Ideas, Practices, Controversies, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2002, p. 96.
43. CWMG, Vol.25, p. 391-392, (Young India, 5/1/1922).
44. The phrase is borrowed from the Italian nationalist Massima d'Azelio's observation after the unification of Italy in 1860
45. quoted in Kenan Malik, The Meaning of Race, London: Macmillan, 1996, p. 138.
46. Gyanendra Pandey, 'Can A Muslim Be an Indian', Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.41 No.4, 1999, pp. 608-629.
47. Gyanendra Pandey, 'Can A Muslim Be an Indian', Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.41 No.4, 1999, Ibid., p. 610.
48. Also see Vasundhara Sirnate, 'The RSS and Citizenship: The Construction of the Muslim Minority Identity in India', in Mushirul Hasan (ed.), Living With Secularism: The Destiny of India's Muslim, Manohar New Delhi, 2007, pp. 232-233
49. Pandey, 'Can A Muslim Be an Indian', p. 615.
50. For A United India: Speeches of Sardar Patel 1947-1950, Publication Division Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, New Delhi, 1967, p. 64, speech at a public meeting in Lucknow, January 6, 1948. Also see pp. 140-141.
51. Lok Sabha Secretariat, Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD), Vol.IX, 30 July, 1949 to 18 September, 1949, New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat, 1999 (third print), 11 August, 1949, p. 352.
52. Lok Sabha Secretariat, Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD), Vol.IX, 30 July, 1949 to 18 September, 1949, New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat, 1999 (third print), 11 August, 1949, Ibid., p. 354.Thisposition was supportedbysome other membersofthe Assembly.
53. See, for example, discussions by Shri Jaspat Roy Kapoor, p. 366
54. Professor Shiban Lal Saksena, p. 376
55. Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava, p. 380.
56. William Gould demonstrates this in his discussion of the Poona Pact. William Gould, Hindu Nationalism and the Language of Politics in Late Colonial India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 117, 119.
57. Also see Gopal Guru, 'CitizenshipinExile: ADalit Case', in Rajeev Bhargava and Helmut Reifeld (eds), Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship: Dialogues and Perceptions, New Delhi: Sage Publications, pp. 262-263.
58. See Durga Das Basu, Shorter Constitution of India, Nagpur: Wadhwa, 13th Edition, 2001, p. 39.
59. Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006 (first published in 1966), pp. 53, 55.
60. Also see: The Committee Appointed by The All Parties' Conference 1928, The Nehru Report: An Anti-Separatist Manifesto, New Delhi: Michiko & Panjathan, 1975, pp. 101-103.
61. See Rajeev Bhargava, 'Democratic Vision of a New Republic: India, 1950', in Francine R. Frankel, Zoya Hasan, Rajeev Bhargava and Balveer Arora (eds), Transforming India: Social and Political Dynamics of Democracy, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2000, p. 54
62. The Nehru Report, p. 101.
63. See Francine Frankel, India's Political Economy 1947-2004, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 79.
64. Also see Khilnani, The Idea of India, p. 36.
65. Marc Galanter, Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991 (first published 1984), p. 122.
66. Marc Galanter, Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991 (first published 1984), Ibid., p. 315, also pp. 313, 319.
67. Also see Basu, Shorter Constitution of India, pp. 1557-1558.
68. Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, Vol.3, 16 June, 1952, p. 18.
69. Already in 1938 the Indian National Congress, in its Haripura session, set up a National Planning Committee, under the Chairmanship of Jawaharlal Nehru to draft a development construction plan. This committee was the precursor of the National Planning Commission in 1950.
70. See A.M. Zaidi, Indian National Congress. The Glorious Tradition, Vol 5: 1951- 1966, Texts of the Resolutions Passed by the INC, the AICC and the CWC, New Delhi: Indian Institute of Applied Political Research, 1989, The Sixtieth Session of Indian National Congress,21-23 January, 1953, p. 139.
71. Also see Government of India Planning Commission, Review of The First Five Year Plan, May 1957, Manager of Publications, Delhi, 1957, p. 12.
72. CWMG, Vol.88, p. 118 (letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, 5 October, 1945).
73. Sarvodaya can be translated as the rise, or progress, of all. See M.K. Gandhi, Sarvodaya: Its Principles and Programme, Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1954, pp. 3-4.
74. Vishwanath Tandon, Selection from Vinoba, Varanasi: Sarva Seva Sangh Prakashan, 1981, pp. 220-221.
75. For the Bhoodan-Gramdan movement see, for example, Vasant Nargolkar, The Creed of Saint Vinoba, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1963 p. 45
76. Mankumar Sen, Gandhian Way and the Bhoodan Movement, Varanasi: Sarva Seva Sangh Prakashan, 1964, pp. 40-41
77. Tandon, Selection from Vinoba, pp. 99, 224
78. T.K. Oommen, Charisma, Stability and Change: An Analysis of Bhoodan-Gramdan Movement in India, New Delhi: Thompson Press, 1972 is a study of the movement in Rajasthan.
79. Government of India Planning Commission, Review of The First Five Year Plan, p. 330.
80. Government of India Planning Commission, Third Five Year Plan, New Delhi, 1961, p. 221. Also see pp. 293, 376.
81. See Tandon, Selection from Vinoba, pp. 167, 171.
82. Also see for these ideas as expressed by Jayaprakash Narayan: Chadwich Alger, 'The Limits of the Nation State', in David Selbourne (ed.), In Theory and in Practice: Essays on the Politics of Jayaprakash Narayan, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 78.
83. Chadwich Alger, The Limits of the Nation State, Theory and in Practice: Essays on the Politics of Jayaprakash Narayan, 1985 Ibid., pp. 170-171.
84. Chadwich Alger, The Limits of the Nation State, Theory and in Practice: Essays on the Politics of Jayaprakash Narayan, 1985 Ibid., p. 166.
85. Quoted in Ralph B. Price, 'Ideology and Planning', American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol.26, No.1, 1967, p. 51.
86. A.D. Shroff, On Planning and Finance in India, New Delhi: Lalvani Publishing House, 1966, p. 17.
87. Vinoba Bhave, Quoted in Harrison, India: The Most Dangerous Decades, p. 315
88. Anthony J. Parel (ed.), Gandhi, Hind Swaraj and Other Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 50.
89. Report of the High Power Panel on Minorities, SC, ST & Weaker Sections (Chairman: Dr Gopal Singh), 14 June, 1983, pp. v, 1 (henceforth Gopal Singh Report). The Gopal Singh Panel relied mainly on sample surveys covering 80 out of 500 districts of the country at the time. The data in this study is limited mainly to the Sachar and Gopal Reports because their findings represent the best available data as it has been collected and analysed on behalf of the state. The data does have its imperfections (see e.g., Steven Wilkinson, 'ACommentonthe Analysisin Sachar Report',Economic and Political Weekly, 10-16 March, 2007, pp. 832-836).
90. Sachar Report, pp. 54-76, 84-86.
91. Sachar Report Ibid., p. 52.Disaggregated data shows variationsbyplaceofresidence and gender.
92. Gopal Singh Report, pp. 20-21.
93. Gopal Singh Report Ibid., p. 31. In January 1981 Muslims constituted 3.22 per cent of the total officers in the service.
94. Gopal Singh Report Ibid., p. 33
95. Sachar Report, pp. 165-166.
96. Gopal Singh Report, p. 31. In January 1981 Muslims constituted 2.64 per cent of the total Indian Police Service.
97. Gopal Singh Report Ibid., p. 33.
98. Sachar Report, pp. 165-166.
99. Sachar Committee papers, File no. 32, Armed Forces, Vol.I, p. 34, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML).
100. Sachar Committee papers Ibid., p. 5.
101. Sachar Committee papers ,Ibid.
102. Sachar Report, pp. 269-270. These findings relate to assembly constituencies before the new delimitation notification came into effect on 19 February, 2008.
103. Sachar Committee papers, File no. 86, Constituencies reserved for SCs/STs, 23 August, 2006, pp. 2-3.
104. Also see Sachar Committee Papers, File 156, Analysed Figures on Assembly Constituencies, NMML.
105. Sachar Committee Papers, File 59, Gujarat Feedback, Vol.II, 'Injustice to the "Muslim Julaya" under OBC Category', NMML.
106. Ashrafs includes convert groups from high castes, as well as Muslims of foreign blood; Ajlafs include converts of low-ranking castes, and Arzals consists of very low castes. Hierarchical ordering, endogamy and hereditary occupations exist among the Muslim social groups within these categories. Sachar Report, pp. 192-194.
107. In a speech on the 'Muslim Problem', Gopal Singh clarified that 'It would be wrong to assume that there are no high or low castes among Muslims'. Gopal Singh Papers, File 19, 18/12/1980, 'The Muslim Problem', p. 6, NMML.
108. Also see Mushirul Hasan, Legacy of A Divided Nation: India's Muslims Since Independence, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 8.
109. This is how the Report is entitled.
110. Also see Rakesh Basant, 'Diversity among Indian Muslims', Seminar, 569, January 2007, Available on http://www.india-seminar.com/semsearch.htm (accessed 11/10/08).
111. See Indian Muslims' Views on Kashmir: Statements and Resolutions by Muslim Leaders and Muslim Organizations of India, 21 July, 1951 to 15 September, 1951, Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. Also see A.G. Noorani (ed.), The Muslims of India: A Documentary Recorded, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 102-106.
112. Questions presented to Jinnah by a Muslim delegate from Coorg in an interview with him after a meeting between a Muslim Delegation from Coorg and Jinnah in Delhi on 25 July, 1947
113. produced in Ibid., p. 37.
114. A letter from H.S. SuhrawardytoKhaliquzzaman,10 September,1947, produced in Ibid., p. 40 (my emphasis).
115. Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, The Long Partition, p. 91. In the Delhi administration lists of Muslim employees were prepared and their loyalty was questioned.
116. Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, The Long Partition, For example, Ibid., p. 112.
117. For A United India: Speeches of Sardar Patel, p. 9, speech at a public meeting, Rajkot, 12 November, 1947.
118. Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, The Long Partition, pp. 70-75; 176-177.
119. Noorani, The Muslims of India, p. 36.
120. Noorani, The Muslims of India, Quoted in Ibid., p. 73. Also see pp. 64, 69, 76. In December 1947, the Indian Union Muslim Conference took a decision to abjure communal politics; in February 1948, the Muslim League Party in the Constituent Assembly decided to dissolve itself from 1 March 1948.
121. For a detailed account see Hasan, Legacy of A Divided Nation, pp. 187-194.
122. Quoted in Noorani, The Muslims of India, p. 76.
123. Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, The Long Partition, pp. 79, 106.
124. See, for example, Ishwar C. Harris, Gandhians in Contemporary India: The Vision and the Visionaries, The Edwin Mellen Press, Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales, UK, 1998, p. 332.
125. Also see Chandavarkar, Imperial Power and Popular Politics, p. 323.
126. Government of India: Planning Commission, Third Five Year Plan, p. 602.
127. Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, Vol.3, pp. 375-376, 23 September, 1953.
128. Humayun Kabir, Minorities in a Democracy, Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1968, p. 46.
129. Noorani, The Muslims of India, pp. 119, 124.
130. Extract from the Majilis-e-Mushawarat constitution, quoted in Ibid., p. 137.
131. Hasan, Legacy of A Divided Nation, p. 295.
132. Hasan, Legacy of A Divided Nation, Ibid., p. 276.
133. M.C. Chagla, 'Muslims Stand Apart', The Times, 26 January, 1962 (Chagla was at the time the Indian High Commissioner in the UK. http://archive. timesonline.co.uk/tol/viewArticle.arc (accessed 12.9.08).
134. Also produced in Noorani, The Muslims of India, p. 25.
135. Noorani, The Muslims of India, Ibid., pp. 147-148.
136. See: http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/welcome.html; 5th Plan, chapter 5.166; 4th Plan, chapter 21 (accessed 19.9.08).
137. See excerpt from the Report of the Backward Classes Commission (covering letter by its chairman, Kaka Kalelkar), Government of India Publication, 30 March, 1955)
138. quoted in Government of Gujarat, Report of the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes [second] Commission, Gujarat State, 1983, Vol.I, pp. 24-26.
139. R.K. Karanjia, Indira - JP Confrontation: The Great Debate, New Delhi: Chetana Publications, November, 1975, p. 57
140. Minoo Masani, Is JP the Answer? Delhi: Macmillan, 1975, p. 50.
141. http://indiacode.nic.in/coiweb/amend/amend42.htm. The (forty-second amendment) Act, 1976, p. 1.
142. Ibid. Also see Basu, Shorter Constitution of India, pp. 1, 4, 333.
143. Private Papers (Dr W.G. Archer) Mss Eur F236/269, Democracy Preserved: Facts about The Emergency in India, Pamphlet, Issued by the Information Service of the High Commission of India, London, Scan Studios LTD, London, October 1975, p. 4, OIOC.
144. See Frankel, India's Political Economy 1947-2004, pp. 548-579.
145. See, for example, Emma Tarlo, Unsettling Memories: Narratives of the Emergency in Delhi, London: Hurst & Company, 2003, pp. 130-146.
146. Gopal Singh Report, p. 14.
147. Gopal Singh Report Ibid., p. 26.
148. Gopal Singh Papers, File 21, 29/5/1981, NMML.
149. Gopal Singh Papers Ibid., File 12, 18/10/1986. Goa Governor at the time was Gopal Singh.
150. See Ornit Shani, Communalism, Caste and Hindu Nationalism: The Violence in Gujarat, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, for example, pp. 12-13, 151-153.
151. Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, Vol.1, 1 September, 1948, p. 199.