‘Like a Sackcloth Patch on Muslin’: The Anti-Caste Pasmanda Narration of the Muslim Social

Ansari, Khalid Anis (2024) ‘Like a Sackcloth Patch on Muslin’: The Anti-Caste Pasmanda Narration of the Muslim Social. In: Studies in Religion and the Everyday. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 133-152. ISBN 9780198902782

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Abstract

Islam is often represented as an egalitarian faith tradition and the Indian Muslim minority as a monolithic and unified community. Emphasis on the external religious Other at the expense of internal others like caste, gender, and sexualities has severe epistemological and political consequences. Since the 1990s, the lowered-caste Pasmanda Muslims, comprising the Dalit, Backward, and Adivasi Muslims and constituting about 85 per cent of Indian Muslims, have contested the main elements of the hegemonic Muslim-minority discourse. The Pasmanda counter-discourse has challenged the monolithic representation of Muslims, the hegemony of the high-caste Ashraf elite, and the role of Hindu–Muslim, majority–minority, and secular–communal dyads in invisibilizing the experience of lowered-caste Muslims. The chapter argues that the construction of the unhyphenated ‘Muslim’ is yoked to the repression of the internal caste other. The recovery of the Pasmanda ‘voice’ is essential to enable a more textured understanding of the community. Building on the Pasmanda narratives on coordinates like dignity, theology, and identity, the chapter reflects on the reproduction and interruption of Muslim identity through the everyday hierarchical experiences of the Muslim sociality.

Item Type:	Book Section
Authors:	Ansari, Khalid Anis
Editors:	Editors Email ORCID Farhana, Ibrahim UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
Document Language:	Language English
Subjects:	Religion Religion > Philosophy & theory of religion > Concepts of God
Divisions:	Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > School of Arts and Sciences
Full Text Status:	None
Related URLs:	Library OPAC
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/6783
Publisher URL:	https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198902782.003.0006

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