ALI ANWAR of Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz, Bihar questioned the concept of a single Hindu identity that was at the background of much of Sandeep Panday's presentation. He challenged the notion that we could have as much as a singular unilateral identity in a country of multitudinous affiliations based on caste, sub-caste, religious and other heterogeneities.

Speaking in Hindi, he said it was common experience from the place he came from and not merely limited to it, that people were highly curious to know what caste and gotra one belonged to, even though a person may have introduced himself as a Hindu. In Bihar he said, unless you tell you caste, the questioner would not be satisfied. Is this the Hindu identity we take for granted? This sort of egregiousness also percolates to Muslims. It is not commonly known, he said that Muslims also have casteism amongst themselves and are not an omnibus category as they are made out to be. There are also categories or hierarchies amongst them. For Example, 'Ashraf' (refers to the progressive or advanced); 'Ajlaf' (refers to middle segments) and 'Arjal' (connotes the neech or downtrodden, the subalterns). They are found in Muslim society. Even Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, a known crusader and an enlightened leader wrote while recounting the 1857 revolt against the Britishers, that 'we had the lower castes of Muslims who revolted against the British.

He therefore questioned the credibility of Imam Bukhari, who is known as the voice of the Muslims in India. How can he represent 20 crores Muslims who live in India. Whatever the Imam says cannot be said to be being said on behalf of Muslims. He further challenged the authority of the Imam as he practiced the law of primogeniture-after he dies or abdicated, his son becomes the new Imam. He said that Muslim religion is a truly humanist faith thought he admitted that there are differences inside Muslim religion which need to be ironed out. Citing an instance of the humanism he said that in the Quran and Rasool it is mentioned that if in your neighbour's home the hearth is not ignited due to some reason, then it is unfair to cook in your home.

There is no mention of caste or religion of the neighbour in this holy book. But casteist identities are flourishing in all religions and all communities existing in India. Even among the lowest castes their is rampant casteism. For eg., 'gadhedia' (in Muslim) and 'gadhera' (in Hunduism) are similar in status. They believe they are better than the 'noorwasa biradri' though they may all be living in educational backwardness. Although the poor belonging to any religion may be of the same status, yet they suffer from casteist identification. Anwar also made another point that it is important that we do not castigate any particular community as communal or secular. Not all Muslims are secular nor all Hindus are communal. It should be remembered that in 1940-41 some 40,000 'julahaas' (lower caste cobblers) were the only ones to protest against Jinnah's 'two-nation' theory. The lower caste ignoramuses thus had the breadth of vision and the secularist spirit – such secularism is not the backstay only of the intelligentsia.

He believes that e contemporaneous situation is very dangerous and more prtentially disruptive than the situation of the forties'. Even then, during the freedom struggle, secularists and tolerant leaders such as Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan felt very helpless. Now with dual polarization the dangers are much more.

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