One of the key aspirations of the Pasmanda movement has been to contest the emotive politics of symbols that have been fostered by the Muslim caste elite – the issues surrounding Urdu, the Uniform Civil Code, Aligarh Muslim University and the Babri Masjid itself – and instead to concentrate on more organic, development-based issues facing the community. Along these lines, a few years back another leader of Dalit Muslims, Ejaz Ali, offered a provocative though arguably simplistic slogan: “Babri masjid le lo, article 341 de do” (Take Babri Mosque, give us Article 341). Notably, the movement around Article 341 presses for the scrapping of the Presidential Order of 1951 that ejected the non-Hindu Scheduled Caste segments from the Scheduled Caste list, thus depriving them of the benefits of affirmative action. Ali Anwar has echoed unequivocal similar sentiments. “Our main concern is to raise the issue of economic deprivation and unemployment among the Muslims,” he has said, “and we want to take the community away from the fold of mosques and mullahs.”
Khalid Anis Ansari, ‘A tale of two mosques’, Himal
