**The Perilous Seductions of Dalit-Muslim Solidarity**

A few savarnas/ashrafs across religions will have no issues in embracing Bahujan/Pasmanda discourse. 1/n

The motivations could range from altruistic ones and genuine commitment to social justice on the one hand to movement capture and profiteering from a new academic/funding/political opportunity on the other. 2/n

What is the critical test that could discriminate between these two motivations? 3/n

In my view any savarna with a genuine commitment to social justice will step behind, eschew all leadership positions in social justice politics and research, play a supportive role, be reflexive and forthright about her unearned privileges due to accident of birth, and so on. 4/n

Has Asaduddin Owaisi, an Ashraf-Muslim, ever done that? Has he ever accepted and discussed the caste question within Muslims? 5/n

In fact, did he not oppose caste-based reservations for Muslims in Andhra Pradesh and suggested that it “it was against 'Islam and Shariat'” < https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-fatwa-issued-against-caste-based-reservation-in-ap-1104617>. 6/n

What forces are trying to project him as an all-India Muslim leader? Should the Pasmanda-Bahujan sections accept Asaduddin Owaisi as a leader just because he utters the term 'manuwad' at the drop of the hat? 7/n

The idea of Dalit-Muslim unity is strategically and morally flawed and will go to the advantage of the Hindu Right. The 'Muslim' in the Dalit-Muslim equation is by default the hegemonic Ashraf-Muslim, the prime mover and beneficiary of Muslim Right politics. 8/n

That is why Pasmanda activists have always underscored the fact that the Hindu and Muslim Right share a symbiotic and mutually beneficial relationship and both must be contested simultaneously. 9/n

That is why Pasmanda activists have always contested the notion of Dalit-Muslim alliance and instead incessantly emphasized on the 85:15 [Pan-religion Bahujans versus Savarna-Ashraf] formula. 10/n

But the '85:15' formula is a nightmare for the ruling castes/classes and their representative intellectuals/activists/politicians across left-right divide have constantly attempted to displace it with the 'Dalit-Muslim' formula. 11/n

Let us be absolutely clear that the Dalit-Muslim solidarity is a ruling class articulation despite the attempts to sell it as a subaltern notion. 12/n

Sadly, a few well-meaning Dalit-Bahujan intellectuals and leaders too fall into this trap because of its formal political seductions. 13/n

As we all know the Dalit-Muslim formula was attempted by BSP in UP during 2017 elections when it gave 100 tickets to Muslims, mostly Ashrafs. It failed miserably. 14/n

Dr. Ambedkar too toyed with Muslim League politics for some time only to realize its grave dangers and limitations around the Partition. Now post-Bihar verdict Dalit-Muslim solidarity and AIMIM brand of politics is being talked about again. 15/n

One can only urge that Marx's comment be taken seriously: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce". 16/16