Do Muslims need to be represented only by Muslims? This provocative question is usually overlooked to make a few sweeping generalisations about ever-declining numbers of Muslim MPs and MLAs in legislative bodies. Popular journalistic writing on this subject tends to focus entirely on the exact number of Muslim legislators to highlight the political marginalisation of Muslims in India.

Scholarly works, on the other hand, rely heavily on statistical data to prove Muslim underrepresentation, simply to substantiate an outdated understanding of “descriptive representation,” which is the idea that legislative bodies ought to represent the socio-religious diversity of the nation so as acquire a “mirror image”.

These arguments, more broadly, stem from a conventional thesis, which claims that the collective interests of a homogeneous Muslim community can only be protected by Muslim legislatures. To move beyond this simplistic idea, we need to raise three fundamental issues: the constitution of Muslims as a political community; imagination of a set of collective Muslim interests; and the expected role of Muslim leaders (or legislatures in a formal sense) in safe-guarding these interests.

Community identity

In my recent book, A Brief History of the Present: Muslims in New India (Penguin-Random House, 2024), I make an analytical distinction between “substantive Muslimness” and the “discourse of Muslimness”. “Substantive Muslimness” tries to capture the everyday experiences of Muslims at the local and regional level. Factors such as caste, language, economic status, sect, and region become the determining factors that constitute Muslim identity and collective self-perceptions in a particular socio-political context.

The “discourse of Muslimness” is another equally powerful expression of Muslim identity, related to the ways in which collective Muslim presence in India is perceived, explained, and debated. Treating Muslims as a “faith community” in purely religious terms, evoking their religious distinctiveness as a “minority” in legal-constitutional discourse, measuring their demography in census-driven terms, depicting mediaeval “Islamic rule” as Muslim history, and the media debates on “global jihad” and radicalisation produce a powerful discourse of identity. Muslim individuals are eventually linked to these pan-Islamic imaginations to produce a few grand explanations. These ready-to-use templates of Muslim identity also influence Muslim self-perceptions at the grassroots level.

The crucial interface between substantive Muslimness and the discourse of Muslimness determines the actual representations of Indian Muslim identity. In this sense, Muslim identity formation functions like a pendulum. The discourse of Muslimness and the conception of a single Muslim community in India is one extreme end of this swing, and the immediate cultural-local considerations, which constitute substantive Muslimness, are at the other end.

Community interests

The CSDS-Lokniti Pre-poll Survey 2024 (which was conducted across 19 Indian states a few months before the general election, with a sample size of 10,019 respondents) offers useful insights to unpack the idea of “Muslim issues” to examine the nature of collective Muslim aspirations.

We find that Muslim communities tend to describe growing unemployment, lack of development, price rise, and increasing economic disparity as their major concerns. Around 67% of Muslims assert that getting a job has become very difficult in the present economic environment. Seventy-six percent of Muslims are also more concerned about inflation.

Opinions on the inclusion of Dalit Muslims in the Scheduled Caste lists, which define who is eligible for affirmative action, represent another important finding. Currently, India’s Scheduled Caste lists exclude Muslims and Christians on the idea that untouchability does not exist in those religions – despite evidence of discrimination.

An overwhelming majority of Muslims (76%) assert that Muslim Dalits must be accommodated in the Scheduled Caste list. These findings are very different from the conventional conception of identity-centric “Muslim issues.” In a way, substantive Muslimness remains a major source of inspiration for Muslim communities to reclaim their citizenship status in secular terms.

It does not, however, mean that the Hindutva-dominated environment does not affect collective Muslim imaginations. There is a growing apprehension that Muslim religious identity and its collective existence as a constitutionally recognised minority community is seen as a problem category in the present environment.

Our Sciences-Po-CSDS-Lokniti survey on Muslim Leadership 2024 (which was conducted along with the NES Pre-Poll Survey 2024 for collecting Muslim perceptions and views about political processes in contemporary India) finds that a sizeable section of Muslim respondents (43%) feel that Muslims are treated unfairly by the state authorities. In fact, “Muslim safety” has also emerged as one of the main concerns. Fifty-four percent of Muslim respondents claim they are not as safe as others (including 11% of Muslims who argue they are not at all safe).

It appears that the unfair treatment of Muslims by state authorities has been so normalised that many Muslims do not think it can even be reported to authorities. Muslim communities, in this sense, have accepted the Hindutva-driven administrative norms of governance as a new reality at the grassroots level; and for this reason, they are keen to establish effective engagement with government institutions. This self-representation, one may argue, is a survival strategy to engage with the state at various levels by avoiding possible conflicts and contestations.

These two sets of findings show that Muslim self-perceptions are certainly determined by the socio-economic considerations or what we call substantive Muslimness; at the same time, the dominance of Hindutva as a determining discourse of Muslimness is also observed and taken seriously as an existential question by Muslim communities. It is, thus, clear that the “collective interests” of Muslims in India can only be understood meaningfully if they are seen in relation to the complex, multilayered, and discursive constitution of Indian Muslim identity.

Leaders

Politics, especially electoral politics, is recognised as a preferred domain for social action by Muslim communities. Our data shows that more than 51% Muslims believe their vote does make a difference. Muslim turnout in 2024 (62%) also confirms that a significant majority of Muslims envisage democratic processes as a possible way to protect their identity both as individual citizens and a threatened minority. This Muslim faith in the political system raises three questions.

First, is there any correlation between enthusiasm for voting and social-religious identity of the contesting candidates? Second, if yes, is this correlation relevant for all forms of electoral competition – Lok Sabha, assembly, civic bodies? Third, do Muslims trust Muslim leaders? If yes, what are their expectations?

The term “Muslim leaders” may be used for three types of political actors who perform very specific functions in different contexts: professional Muslim politicians, Muslim elites, and Muslim activists/influencers. Professional Muslim politicians operate as a crucial link between political parties and the particular Muslim community they claim to represent. Muslim elites represent a broad category, which includes those individuals who assert their superior position as leaders by evoking their religious/educational/caste/class status. These Muslim elites play a significant role in maintaining the internal power structure of a concerned Muslim community. Muslim influencers/activists engage with public debates and often try to carve out a space for themselves in the media-driven discourse as Muslim stakeholders.

Our study shows that 50% of Muslim voters assert that the religious background of a leader is not a major consideration for them to vote. However, 30% of Muslims do not subscribe to this view, claiming only a leader from their own community can effectively represent their interests and concerns. This diversity of Muslim opinions clearly underlines the highly heterogenous nature of Muslim voting patterns over the years. It simply means that the religious identity of a professional Muslim leader is a context-specific phenomenon, especially in the case of Lok Sabha or state assembly elections, where the accessibility of an elected representative is not a prime consideration.

Muslim communities, nevertheless, do not always follow an interest-oriented utilitarian approach about Muslim leadership. Our survey shows that Muslims have a rather positive view about existing Muslim leaders. Sixty-four per cent of Muslim respondents claim that Muslims do have honest and committed leaders. On the other hand, an equal number of Muslim respondents (64%) think there is a need to have more articulate Muslim leaders in India.

These two sets of claims appear paradoxical, but they underline a complex Muslim response. The honesty of an individual leader is a subjective issue. The Hindutva-dominated environment has affected the status and bargaining power of these Muslim leaders with the state authorities. The non-BJP parties, on the other hand, are not very excited to mobilise professional Muslim politicians. They are confident they have a monopoly over the Muslim vote; hence the political services of Muslim politicians are not necessarily required.

Against this backdrop, it is natural for Muslim leaders to strengthen their organic linkages with the Muslim community they intend to represent. This process has certainly played a role in determining a slightly positive Muslim opinion about Muslim politicians and influencers. However, one can also notice a growing unease with existing forms of Muslim leadership. Muslim respondents strongly claim that Muslims do need better, more articulate, and honest leaders. More than 50% of Muslims argue that a lack of committed Muslim leaders affects their representation. These findings reveal that Muslim communities adhere to a realistic picture of politics. They define themselves as secular voters without giving up their collective identity as followers of Islam.

Representation

This multifaceted formation of Muslim political identity underlines three clear meanings of representation. First, representation in the formal legislative sense is defined entirely in secular terms. Muslim respondents seem to assert that the religion of a leader is not their main consideration. In other words, there is no inclination to give priority to professional Muslim politicians for the sake of representation.

Muslim views on their socio-economic backwardness and marginalisation underlines a very different expectation. In this case, representation is observed as a form of “institutional inclusion.” The demand to include “Pasmanda” Muslims, a term referring to historically oppressed Muslim caste-communities in the Schedule Caste list for affirmative action, is a clear manifestation of this trajectory.

The search for a secured environment in India and an overwhelming self-claim for patriotism show that Muslims realise their public presence has been demonised by powerful media-driven anti-Muslim propaganda. In this case, representation is sought in the form of “collective presence” to reclaim a space in Indian cultural and political life. Muslim leaders, in this schema, are not envisaged as “representatives.” Instead, they are expected to function as facilitators to engage with the political system at various levels.

Hilal Ahmed is an Associate Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, India. He was a CASI Fall 2024 Visiting Scholar.

This article is an outcome of the “Muslims in India (MI)” project funded by the Henri Luce Foundation. I am also grateful to Christophe Jaffrelot for his intellectual support in this research endeavor.

The article was first published in India in Transition, a publication of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania.