The last couple of days saw a new ‘controversy’ where local administration in Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh ordered roadside vendors, especially fruit sellers, to display their names on their carts and shops so that Kanwariyas can get transparent information about the identity of the sellers. The usual suspects started crying everything from discrimination to genocide, as they claimed that this was an attempt to make sure that Kanwariyas avoid Muslim sellers and buy only from Hindus.
The demand to ask vendors to display their names was made by some Hindu activists after multiple videos and news reports showed Muslim vendors spitting in food or sprinkling fruits with water that had urine traces. The issue was of purity and hygiene, as well as that of religious sentiments – because Kanwariyas must avoid occurrences that could defile their pilgrimage, which is subjected to strict adherence to various sets of rules – but it was turned into an issue of religious profiling and stereotyping, forcing the administration to semi-retracted their order by disclosing identity voluntarily. To be fair, the demand by activists obviously had an element of stereotyping, but as some nice bigots will say, ‘not all of them are bad. 98% of them give bad names to others.’
Leaving alone the issue of stereotyping, it was also pointed out by many, including here at OpIndia, that there was nothing wrong if Kanwariyas wanted to buy fruits only from the Hindu sellers. Why should Kanwariyas not have that choice when Muslims – everyone, not just those on some pilgrimage – insist on Halal-certified products, where the active and exclusive role of Muslims at some stage from manufacturing to sale is mandatory for certification? For example, only a male Muslim butcher must slaughter an animal while chanting the Islamic prayer for a market-ready piece of meat to be certified Halal. With Halal slowly becoming ubiquitous and universal, it means that non-Muslim butchers are never going to be employed by commercial slaughterhouses. Why is a “Muslim only” butcher okay, but not a “Hindu only” fruit seller? The question was raised.
There was also the issue of transparency and ‘branding’. Someone walks into a Dhaba named Shiva Dhaba because his ishtadeva is Shiva, but finally finds out while making the payment via the UPI QR code, that his money is going to someone called Zubair who definitely is not a Shiva bhakt. Does he have a right to feel cheated? Or is that bigotry? Is it not similar to buying a mineral water bottle in a hurry thinking you are buying Bisleri but after quenching your thirst you notice that it was actually Bilseri? If someone tells you not to bother till the water is pure, will you agree with that argument? Why should the original case be similarly not seen as that of misleading branding?
However, beyond these issues, lies another one that has largely been not touched – it is the representation of various communities in low-skilled jobs or the ‘unorganized sector’. Even the Sachar Committee report of 2006, which painted Muslims as the most marginalized and vulnerable socio-religious group of India, had recorded that the share of Muslims in the unorganized sector was above the national average, especially when compared with Hindu SC/STs and OBCs.
“The most striking feature is the relatively high share of Muslim workers engaged in self-employment activity,” the Sachar Committee mentions in its report, with more observations like “As compared to other SRCs, the participation of Muslim workers in the informal sector enterprises is much higher.”
The report notes that Muslims preferred to work in non-agricultural unorganized sectors i.e. working as technicians, mechanics, small industry workers, etc. The preference of Muslims for self-employed sectors too, such as street vending or owning other small businesses, was also far higher than other groups. For example, look at the chart below that has been taken from the official Sachar Committee report:
And mind you, this is data from like two decades ago, so things would have changed a lot since the time these numbers were recorded. There have been claims and reports that this preference and thus resulting domination has only increased over time.
Now Sachar Committee obviously puts this data in the context of Muslims being “forced” to take up such jobs as they don’t find jobs in the government or organised private sector. The attempt is to hint at systemic discrimination, rather than putting it as an outcome of how different communities prioritize education, family planning, skill development, etc. due to various economic and sociopolitical factors.
Whatever the reasons, the outcome is that the Muslim community dominates the informal sector and blue-collar jobs. The same has been recounted in anecdotes many times by ‘bigots’ on social media when they lament how they can’t find Hindu AC mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, tailors, etc.
There would be immediate demands to introduce quotas if say Hindu SC/STs and OBCs were so much under-represented in any other sector. Wait a minute, what if the Muzaffarnagar administration reintroduces their order as a form of some form of quota in street vending, making sure Hindu SCs and OBCs are adequately represented? I might want that to happen for the sake of popcorn, but let us not go there.
The issue is that unlike the Sachar Committee, which uses this trend in the unorganized and self-employed sectors as a tool to further demand concessions for Muslims, there is a need for honest analysis about why the Hindu socio-economic groups are seemingly not as “enterprising” as Muslims. Is the Muslim domination a result of a lack of other opportunities for them or it’s an outcome of shutting out opportunities for others e.g. the way halal shuts out opportunities for Hindu SC butchers? Or could it be the outcome of something else that we are missing?
Obviously, ‘bigots’ would imagine this as an outcome of Muslims ‘capturing’ one space after another once they get the opportunity, but there could be many other ‘secular’ reasons too.
One of my friends posited that this is an outcome of market dynamics as Muslim technicians, mechanics, etc. are able to offer highly competitive rates for their services and thus they are more successful. However, he had an interesting theory of what makes them offer this competitive price. He said that this is due to the fact that such service providers – e.g. garage owners, furniture shop owners, etc. – in turn employ fellow Muslims as workers at far cheaper labor costs. Now those workers don’t feel their low wages as ‘exploitation’ as the employer is often their relative, or some elder from the village who helped them migrate to urban areas, or someone else who otherwise uses religiosity to bond together. Since such service providers pay out wages that are way lower than what the government considers standard, their prices offered to end consumers are attractive, and that’s why they succeed and dominate.
There could be other reasons too like blue-collar or low-skilled jobs being maligned and mocked so much among Hindus – remember how pakoda selling as employment was mocked no end just because they wanted to spite Narendra Modi – that many don’t even try their hands and would rather spend all their lives trying to get a government job or some other ‘honorable’ job rather than try self-employment or small jobs.
This is a very tragic situation as we are dealing with groups that are largely poor and have limited resources for which they are competing against each other. However, this – the evident domination of one particular group in unorganized sectors and low-skilled jobs – is something that doesn’t need political correctness and virtue signaling as a solution, which is unfortunately what is always provided in abundance.
This uneven representation can give rise to other social problems in the future. We can either feel good about ourselves by blaming it all on ‘bigots’ or acknowledge it as a challenge that must be addressed.
