Such a classificatory system has the potential of transforming the state’s approach towards Muslims in a fundamental way. From communities with specific cultural histories and self-identities with clearly demarcated boundaries, the Muslims of India are transformed into a population, identified and described through a language that primarily belongs to the state. This language of classification then also makes them available to the development agencies for an engagement that is different from the old terms of identity and recognition. Not only that, the Sachar Committee Report will also generate a new mode of mobilisation among the different Muslim communities of India and provide them with a new language with which they can engage with the state. The question of citizenship thus begins to take priority over questions of identity.

Understandably, not everyone even within the Muslim community will be happy with such a shift. But for the Left and the CPM, the Muslim question has become a question of social justice. They can now engage with them on terms that they feel comfortable with.

The writer is professor of sociology, JNU, New Delhi