Hindus often respond to Muslim mobility by challenging Nehru-style secularism

Suggestions by some Western scholars that the Muslims, unrestricted by caste considerations, are better placed than most Hindus to grab new economic opportunities are not confirmed by the experience in many places. Those areas which Muslims tend to dominate, such as the lock industry in Aligarh or the bangle industry in Firozabad, are now accessible to others without any sense of caste restrictions.

Moreover, scheduled castes and tribes have compensatory programmes; there are none for the Muslims in most states. The backward castes, too, had no access to compensatory schemes until the Mandal Commission report was implemented. Yet they had neutralised their weakness much earlier by the use of political mobilisation, using their numbers and voting strength to secure attention and capture political power, as in UP and Bihar, by forming coalitions with other forces.

To be sure, such mobilisation, when it sought politically allocated resources by way of job quotas, generated opposition and violence, as in 1990, but this controversy was small compared to the consequences that awaited Muslims whenever they asserted themselves politically and, even more, in the economic sphere.

Thus the economic resurgence of Muslims in isolated pockets is commonly ascribed to 'Islamic fundamentalism' and the confidence boosted by the flow of petro-dollars from West Asia and the Gulf region in particular. Thus some activity in moving two madaris to more spacious grounds in Moradabad, scene of a communal outbreak in 1980, led to the inference that Muslims planned to turn the city into a fortress in order to lay the basis for another Pakistan. A pamphlet was circulated which commented; 'A college built with foreign money (reference to petro-dollars) will be an abode of foreign powers; one day this may even place our capital in jeopardy. In 1990-1 fear and envy of Muslim landed wealth and status, upward mobility and popular power was fomented in the riot-torn city of Khurja.

The GSC noted that economic stratification in traditional centres of arts and crafts usually followed the pattern of Hindus being businessmen and Muslims being workers. This relationship began to change in the 1960s, when Muslim artisans and craftsmen started competing with Hindu traders and businessmen for the expanding markets in India and the Gulf states.

The competition thus resulted in conflicts which took the form of violent outbursts over the routing of religious processions, cow-slaughter, music before mosques and inter-community marriages.

Disputes over such matters had been quite common in British and princely India, but at that time there was no discernible pattern to them. The GSC underlined the economic factor and the keen and bitter rivalries over acquiring control or sharing the gains of economic ventures and existing enterprises. According to its findings:

'The prolonged nature of violence and the target-oriented destruction of property leads credence to the theory that these are not sporadic expressions of communal anger but pre-planned operations with specific goals and targets in mind.. In our view, therefore, communal conflicts are more the results of the economic competition which has often resulted in the majority community depriving minorities of their economic gains. Innocent lives were taken in this process to instill a sense of insecurity among the victims and destruction of their properties was aimed at uprooting them economically.'

So why were Moradabad, Khurja, Aligarh, Bhagalpur, Ahmedabad, Baroda and Surat specially targeted? In western UP, where growth has been shaped by the commercialisation of agriculture and the rapid expansion of small towns, there appears to be a significant coincidence of rapid socio-economic growth and an increase in communalism. Many towns in the region, as also in other states, are riot-prone because Muslim craftsmen, artisan and weavers reap the rewards of a favourable economic climate, trading relations with Gulf countries and the revival of traditional artisanal and entreprenurial skills.

Noteworthy developments include the changes in Khurja on the Grand Trunk Road where after years of decline the pottery units owned by Muslims picked up business. Then there are the improved fortunes of Muslim in certain areas at Aligarh. Owners of lock making industries moved into producing building materials and bought property in the civil lines. Residential colonies like Sir Syed Nagar bear testimony to the presence of a substantial middle class and the prosperity that has come to it through trading, business and professional links with the Arab world.

Most shops in Amir Nishan and Dodhpur (as opposed to Marris road) have Muslim owners and a predominantly Muslim clientele. Doctors educated at the university's medical college had established clinics and are successful. Some engineers have sought employment in Western countries, principally the United States, and in West Asia; others have set up factories and moved into heavy engineering or electronics.

In Kanpur, another city with a long history of communal conflict, Muslims prospered in the leather industry although most were petty traders, artisans and industrial workers. In Varanasi Muslim weavers have gradually established their hold over the silk saree trade and obtained a financial stake in the industry itself. In Meerut Muslim weavers who have turned to entrepreneurial activists tend to do well in iron foundries, furniture manufacturing, scissor-making and lathe operations. In Moradabad, also in western UP, the traditional methods of producing brassware were reoriented by the Muslims to produce decorative brassware for export to rich Arab states.

In Bhagalpur (Bihar) the monopoly of Marwaris in the silk business was broken by some new Muslim exporters. Tension in the city mounted between the loom-owners and traders due to the growth of the latter as an independent force, especially Muslims, who had earlier been dependent on Hindu traders. In Ahmedabad and Bhiwandi, centres of textile manufacturing, Muslims gradually bought up small-scale textile units, which are tempting targets during communal riots.

In the Kolagu region of Karnataka the resentment against Mapilla labourers is accentuated by the modest economic success of Muslims as small coffee-planters. Finally, the traditional Hindu mercantile community in the walled city of Delhi resents Muslim intrusion into its commercial enclave. Hindus tend to raise their eyebrows, concluded a report on the Delhi riots by May 1987, at the assertion of an equal status by a community which they have been used to look down upon as their inferiors in the post-Independence era.

In other words, prosperity bred resentment among those accustomed to Muslim invisibility and deference, Hindu professional and businessmen expected Muslims to serve them as tailors and bakers. Industrial and office workers seeking jobs, better pay or promotion expect them to stick to their traditional occupations -- weaving, gem-cutting, brass tooling. Hindus often respond to Muslim mobility and wealth by challenging the Nehru-style secularism that offers special protection to Muslims.

Sure enough, the 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' theory does not apply to Muslims everywhere. There are regional variations, especially where Muslims, along with Christians, enjoy benefits in the shape of liberal admission to institutions and scholarships, or in Bihar where job opportunities have steadily increased after Urdu earned its rightful status in some district. Secondly, signs of progress and prosperity were visible in some parts of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Excerpted from Legacy of a Divided Nation, by Mushirul Hasan, 1997, Rs 495, with the publisher's permission.