Despite Hate, Indian Muslims Undertook a 'Jihad' To Educate & Uplift Themselves

In 'Being Muslim in Hindu India', Ziya Us Salam looks at how Muslims have been relying on education to move ahead.

Ziya Us Salam's new book is titled 'Being Muslim In Hindu India'. 

(Vibhushita Singh/ The Quint)

(Extracted with permission from 'Being Muslim in Hindu India: A Critical View' by Ziya Us Salam, published by HarperCollins. Paragraph breaks have been added for readers’ convenience).

Jihad is not xenophobia.

It is not about lustful killing, but about looking within. It is a constant, peaceful cleansing, overcoming your own foibles, your own elasticity of morals. Once, the companions of the Prophet came back from a battle in which they had conquered the enemy. They heaved a sigh of relief. Just then the Prophet reminded them they had merely come from a smaller jihad to a bigger one—an incessant peaceful strife. It was time for internal jihad, fighting oneself.

The besieged Indian Muslim community had sought to do likewise. Instead of being drawn into a game of one-upmanship with purveyors of hate and exclusion, it decided instead to focus on internal cleansing, concentrate on education, participate in open competition in the market to nudge ahead, bit by bit, step by step.

It is early days, but the results are beginning to show as the community strives to make a mark for itself and increase its contributions to the nation. The Indian civil services provide a forum, an opportunity to make a mark, for self, for the community, and the nation.

Overcoming years of lethargy and a feeling of being discriminated against by the system, the community, in recent years, has taken to appearing for secular competitive examinations in a big way.

We have had the case of the Rahmani-30 classes, through which more than 300 students have been sent to IITs across the country over the past 12 years. A brainchild of Wali Rahmani, former speaker of the Bihar Assembly, the Rahmani-30 classes have been gaining traction with each passing year. On the same lines have been the efforts of the Zakat Foundation of India (ZFI), Jamia Millia Residential Academy and other similar though admittedly smaller ventures of Jamia Hamdard, the Haj Committee in Mumbai and sundry mosques in Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

They have all striven to increase the representation of Muslims in civil services. Except in cases like that of Jamia, they have used community resources, financial and manpower, to prepare students to take on the toughest examination in a level playing field without the benefit of any reservation. Just helping prepare better-informed, better-guided candidates. Young men and women born in the 1990s were often told about the success of Amir Subhani, just as those who entered college after 2010 were informed of the success story of Shah Faesal. They were just two men who topped the civil services, but for the youngsters in the community they became icons and role models.

For middle-class Muslims, just like for those from other religions, the government job offered a security of tenure, a regular income and the promise of social dignity. The civil services added to it by its undoubted lustre and was an aspiration point for anyone looking for upward mobility.

Thanks to the efforts of ZFI and Jamia, the representation of the community in the civil services began to increase, though very slowly. In any case, it was never likely to be a T-20 cricket kind of instant gratification; it was most like a five-day test match, calling into question both powers of patience and skill.

Every summer when the final results of the civil service exams were declared, not only the candidates who had taken the examination but also the community elders waited with bated breath to find out how many Muslim candidates had cracked the civil services. Felicitation ceremonies followed. Attended by many youngsters preparing for the exam, these events helped instill hope and dreams by inviting the successful candidates and presenting their success stories to the next batch of aspirants.

Slowly but surely, the community was breaking free of the hold of the semi-literate clerics and trying to shed the tag of being the community of no-good biryani-eaters and puncture repair-wallahs. Except that some read in this relentless effort to do better, join the mainstream of progress and contribute to nation building, a threat to the nation!

How TV's Suresh Chavhanke Contributed To Bigotry Over Muslims In Civil Services

The ‘threat’ was aired by TV channel Sudarshan News whose editor Suresh Chavhanke posted a 45-second-long promo on Twitter in 2020 about an upcoming episode of Bindas Bol scheduled for daily relay from 28 August 2020 at 8 pm. The promotional clip showed Chavhanke claiming that the number of Muslims appearing for and clearing the Union Public Service Exams had suddenly recently increased. ‘How has the number of Muslim IPS [Indian Police Service] and IAS [Indian Administrative Service] officers increased recently?’ he asked, and wondered aloud, ‘What will happen if “Jamia ke jihadi” rise to positions of authority in the country?’

The insinuations, the bigotry, the overweening hatred were all there. Backed by visuals of ISIS members and other men with beards and skullcaps, it sought to show the community in a certain light—not only negate its efforts to progress in a pluralist democracy through hard work but also put a question mark on its motives, on the candidates’ funding, etc.

That even Jamia, a central university, was not spared, said it all. Terms like ‘Jamia ke jihadi’ and ‘UPSC jihad’ were loosely bandied around, much like a huge section of the media carelessly and irresponsibly used terms like ‘corona jihad’ and ‘Islamic insurrection’ following the Tablighi Jamaat episode.

The provocation for Chavhanke to make his show was the recruitment of 42 Muslim candidates—up from 28 the previous year—by the Union Public Service Commission through the Civil Services Exam (CSE) for the 2019 batch. There was, however, only one candidate, Safna Nazarudeen, ranked 45, who secured a place among the top 100.

How Courts Responded

NC Asthana, former Indian Police Services officer, wrote about this in The Wire:

"I have not had time to get details of the religions of the candidates from the UPSC through RTI or any other means. However, the religion of the candidates can be made out approximately from their names in the official results, even as it does not guarantee accuracy. A little inaccuracy does not affect our conclusions significantly. In the 2019 examination, 35 out of 829 selected candidates were Muslims. That comes to 4.22%, whereas their percentage in the population of India, according to the 2011 Census, is described as 14.2%. Since they are way below their percentage in population, this busts the charge of disproportionate selection. If anything, there is under-representation. In the 2018 examination, out of 759 successful candidates, just 2.64%, or 20, were Muslims. In the 2017 examination, out of 810 successful candidates, 41, that is 5.06%, were Muslims. There are four Muslim candidates amongst the first 100 candidates. For all these three years, there are zero, 2 and 4 Muslims in the 1–100 rank…This busts the ‘maximum marks to Muslim candidates’ allegation."

Not renowned for his attention to detail or background research, in his hate-filled show Chavhanke did not bother to talk of the Sachar Committee report (2006) that had pointed out the abysmal representation of Muslims in civil services and found that against many social and economic parameters Muslims ranked below SCs and STs.

According to the report, ‘Their share in IAS, IPS and IFS is extremely low as compared to other religious minorities. Muslim representation in the bureaucracy was about 3-4% in 2006 which has reportedly been stagnant in the last 14 years.’3 A marginal increase in the number of Muslims in civil services in 2019, taking their representation to about 5 per cent of the successful candidates, was still way below the percentage of their population in the country (Muslims, according to 2011 Census, account for approximately 14 per cent of India’s population).

A couple of years later, out of the 933 candidates who were declared successful in UPSC CSE 2022, only 29 belonged to the Muslim community. In 2021 exams, the figure was 25 while in 2020, the number of successful candidates from the community was 31. In 2023, 32 candidates were successful. That this small increase was possible without the crutches of reservation should have been a cause for muted celebration rather than relentless hatred.

The fact that religion and region have no bearing on selections to civil services did not strike the Bindas Bol anchor, keen as he was to portray an entire community as trying to destabilize the nation. The Wire wrote,

"A civil servant’s religion is her personal matter. According to the Government of India’s decisions under Rule 3 of the All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968, civil servants should so conduct themselves in public as to leave no room for an impression that they are likely, in their official dealings, to favour persons belonging to any particular religion. In addition, they must uphold the supremacy of the constitution and democratic values. The Supreme Court had held in the famous Kesavananda Bharati case and reiterated in S.R. Bommai vs Union of India, that secularism is inherent to the basic structure of the constitution."

Jamia and ZFI both took recourse to the judiciary for redressal of their grievances against Chavhanke. Meanwhile, when a section of citizenry sought a ban on the telecast of the episodes, the Supreme Court commented, ‘A message needs to go out to the media that it cannot make a religious minority the target of its attacks. The dignity of a community is as important as journalistic freedom.

As reported by The Hindu, "Justice Chandrachud said the channel had no business to make sweeping comments about the entire Muslim community. It crossed the Rubicon when it implied that civil services aspirants from the community had terror links. Not every child can afford to enrol for elite UPSC coaching classes. They may be helped by organisations to enter civil services. These students may also be from other religious communities… ‘Is it right to imply they have infiltrated UPSC and have terror links’, Justice Chandrachud asked. Justice Indu Malhotra said such content was ‘plainly hurtful’. The Sudarshan TV show has smeared an entire community."

Justice Chandrachud said, ‘Flames come up on the screen, bearded people in skull caps and the colour green are featured when a reference to a Muslim is made in the show. Every time you refer to the UPSC, you show ISIS and jihad. You suggest a deep-rooted conspiracy'.

On the same bench, Justice KM Joseph made some important observations about various communities running coaching institutes to aid their candidates. ‘Communities run institutions for their children to attempt civil services. These attacks will marginalise people who want to come into mainstream… You may end up driving them into the wrong hands. Every community strives to have a voice in the bureaucracy. Every community wants to have a slice of power. What is wrong in that?’

Show Led To More Muslims Learning About Coaching Opportunities

The community got the message. Barely hours after the Supreme Court judgment, this author got phone calls from young men and women in places like Moradabad, Asansol and Begusarai asking for the details of the ZFI entrance examination. The show, rather than sowing seeds of doubts in the community, told the youngsters that professional coaching for possible entrance to civil services was a sure shot way to upward mobility.

As observed by the Deccan Herald, ‘A noticeable shift has been in evidence among Muslim youth for several years now. They are no longer attracted by the emotive “Islam in danger” rhetoric frequently raised from religio-political platforms. They realize that there is much good in educating themselves, enhancing livelihood prospects and participating in nation building rather than engaging with religious zealots.

However, there is one small though significant change. In the past, the Muslim religious zealots in the form of sundry maulanas told the community members that secular education would take them away from Islam. Now, the Hindu zealots, symbolized by Chavhanke, were determined to keep the Muslim youngsters away from mainstream education and jobs. Two years after floating the UPSC jihad theory, Chavhanke continued in the same vein despite the Supreme Court’s verdict.

At a Hanuman Chaleesa and Jansabha in Haryana near Delhi in September 2022, he claimed, ‘I am proud to be the Suresh Chavhanke whose show was stayed by the Supreme Court… The truth cannot be repressed by the powers that be or the court. I have a list of 100 such people who are IAS, IPS… but they work for Islam and not for the country.

He continued with his bigotry. The Muslim community remained focused on the task ahead. After all, wartime jihad is easier. The internal jihad of peacetime calls for daily struggle, a control over one’s impulses, mood swings and the rest to focus on the goal ahead. Just as one is required to do during the arduous preparations for the ruthlessly competitive civil services examination.

For the media, it will be ‘love jihad’ one day, ‘UPSC jihad’ the next, and ‘corona jihad’ on another day. For the Muslim community, life is all about a silent, peaceful jihad within, striving to make tomorrow better than today, everyone doing his bit to make sure the community focuses on the larger challenges of peace, and capitalizes on the opportunities that it throws up.