Before this cabinet decision was taken, Bihar had 12 nagar nigams with population of over two lakh, 42 nagar parishads with population of 40,000 to two lakh, and 88 nagar panchayats. While three sitting RJD Muslim MLAs were defeated in their own constituencies, the party incurred the loss of an important figure, Abdul Bari Siddiqui, and could not successfully fill the void left by the death of its four-time MLA Abdul Ghafoor. The Bihar is a state of India which is situated in the Eastern part. The AMP argues for self-representation in proportion to their population share, as indicated by the slogans “apni qayadat, apni siyasat” (our leadership, our politics), “jiski jitni abadi, utni hissedari” (participation proportional to our population). There is no system of clans, and cross and parallel cousin marriages are common. The Momin are Sunni, and are a fairly orthodox community. Join Facebook to connect with Qyam Ansari Bihar and others you may know. This is especially the case in the towns of Jamnagar and Dhoraji, which each have traditional quarters inhabited by the Ansaris. Km. Historically, each of the four sub-divisions would have had their own informal clan association, headed by a chaudhary. Voting for the first phase of the assembly election in Bihar took place on October 28 with a voting population of nearly 11.5 million in 71 constituencies across 16 districts. In terms of males, the literacy rate is 73% and 54% for females, recording a growth of 20% in female education over the time of 10 years. Yet Seemanchal is not new to Muslim politics. The JDU’s five Muslim MLAs in the previous assembly who contested this election also lost. In the final outcome of the Bihar assembly elections, what drew attention to some of the successful Muslim candidates was the fact that the All India Muslim Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) won five seats in the north-eastern Seemanchal region, where Muslims form about half of the population (from 77.5% in Jokihat to 38% in Araria). In Baisi, Syed Ruknuddin Ahmad had previously won as an independent in 2005 and had later joined the JDU. Their socio-economic condition has constantly improved. This points to the fact that Muslim voters identified the JDU not so much as a Bihar-based party that is able to deliver on governance, but as an alliance breaker and an ally of the BJP. Yet accusations of the AIMIM being responsible for the MGB’s failure to win enough seats to form the government were repeatedly expressed. The party is contesting on 70 seats. Owaisi explicitly states the need for ‘Muslim politics’, as for instance in this interview: “The realization among Bihar Muslims and everywhere is that we require an independent political voice.” This worked well this time in Seemanchal, where in 13 constituencies Muslims account for at least 40% of the population. This article offers a typology of the forms of political dynamics among Muslims in Bihar — the basic idea being that Muslim political dynamics are different in minority and majority areas. But many Shaikh Ansari have also diversified, and now own hotels and bakeries. The surname originated from Ansar tribe, The Medinan People who helped the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, in his migration from Mecca to Medina. Write to editor@theindiaforum.in. Copyright © 2021 The India Forum. The allegation, however, does not hold upon closer analysis. In addition to membership in the Momin Conference, the Gujarat Ansaris also have their own clan association, Garana TitaFari Jamaat. Lal, P.B.S.V. Many Ahmadabad Ansari are now power loom owners. The Muslim population in these seats is 40 to 70%. Mahmood Ansari Page | 1 Migration from the Rural Region moments of slowly developing streams as well as periods of time characterized by the almost sudden, fast and large volume of streams of migration of the working population from Bihar to the neighboring eastern … In spite of the AIMIM’s past and the occasional radical actions of some of its members (Akbaruddin Owaisi’s Karimnagar speech of 2013 or the agitation against Taslima Nasreen in 2007), the party’s popularity and electoral successes in recent years do not rest on a radical discourse but operate within the framework of electoral democracy. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback … Bihar stands out as a bastion of caste-based mobilization by marginalized Muslim groups. The former are found in Ahmadnagar, while the latter are found near Pune. Initially claiming to be entirely non-partisan and working exclusively as a lobby for the presence of Ansaris and Pasmanda Muslims, the AMP took a political stand when it opposed the CAA-NRC and joined the Bihar Bandh on 15 December 2019. Among all parties, the RJD retains the largest number of Muslim MLAs (eight, down from 12 in 2015), suggesting that its Muslim-Yadav equation still works efficiently. Yet in the 2000s, both Ali Anwar and Ejaz Ali accepted Rajya Sabha nominations by the JDU, which sought to pull Pasmanda support away from upper caste Muslim candidates fielded by the RJD and the Congress. If the 2020 Bihar election did about bring some changes to minority politics, other long-standing trends are still at work in the shaping of state-level politics. Muslim identity politics: How does Pasmanda mobilization translate in electoral terms? Our typology of political dynamics among Muslims is incomplete without mention of caste-based or identity politics. Invoking the heritage of Abdul Qayyum Ansari, the Ansari Mahapanchayat (AMP) was founded by a young Jamia Millia Islamia graduate from Gaya, Waseem Nayyar Ansari. The AMP fielded five Ansari candidates in the elections, who received between 1,000 and 3,500 votes. This shows that there is more to Muslim political participation in Bihar than the AIMIM’s breakthrough. They are found mainly in the districts of Pune, Nasik, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Jalna, Osmanabad, Dhule, Nagpur, Thane, Kolhapur, Raigarh, parbhani and Nanded. In Wazirabad Toor is also a sub cast of Ansari. Nonetheless, Pasmanda politics has not so far proved itself to be an electoral force. Their relationship with the Sadh community is of some importance, as they supply the Momins with the cotton cloth used for printing.[2]:985. Many Momin are employed by other Momin in these powerlooms; this is especially the case in the towns of Bhiwandi, Malegaon and Nagpur. Their main occupation is weaving, and they use both hand-held and power looms. The updated information about total districts of BIHAR, population, literacy rate, current MP and other details are given below. Last Updated: 18th November, 2020 15:26 IST Congress Stalwarts Lash Out; Furqan Ansari Says People Couldn't Comprehend Rahul Gandhi In another major setback for the Congress, senior leader Furqan Ansari blamed Rahul Gandhi for the party’s downfall in the recently concluded Bihar elections CENTRAL LIST OF OBCs FOR THE STATE OF BIHAR Entry No Caste/ Community Resolution No. They are part of the South Asia Muslim - Ansari people cluster within the South Asian Peoples affinity bloc. Padmanabham, G. Krishnan & M. Azeez Mohideen (eds). The BIHAR state is spread in about nearly 94,163 km area. The anti-NDA stance of Muslim voters also shows in the fact that the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), which tried to project itself as an ally of the BJP and an opponent of the JDU, could not get any of its seven Muslim candidates elected. The Shaikh Ansari are divided into four endogamous groups, the Bijnor Ansari, originating from the city of Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh; the Ganga Parvala, originating from the village of Gomtipur and its surroundings in Uttar Pradesh; the Delhiwala, originally from Delhi; and the Pratapgarh Ansari originating from the city of Pratapgarh and surrounding areas in eastern Uttar Pradesh. They were the first tribe in Arabia to accept Islam. The Ansaris are Muslims of the Sunni sect. However, as much as it wants to claim representation for all Muslims, in Bihar the AIMIM is responsible for the victory of only five out of a total of 19 Muslims who were elected to the assembly (down from 24 in 2015). This shows that in most of Bihar, where on average Muslims make up about 17% of the population, candidates are unlikely to be elected with a rhetoric of ‘Muslim politics’, because they need to appeal to non-Muslim voters as well. Yet, even if a consolidation of the Hindu vote could be ascertained, the causality with the AIMIM’s politics remains unclear, as the BJP has gained new seats in area with little Muslim population as well. The community speak Urdu, but the Momin are bilingual, speaking Marathi as well. Agariya -do- Yet this accusation confusingly blends two processes: radicalization and polarization. The Momin Ansari (Urdu: مومن أنصاري‎) or saudagar are a Muslim community found mainly in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. In spite of recent mobilizations, Pasmanda politics has not been able to make a dent in electoral dynamics but can be a good way for someone with political ambitions to enter the political arena. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. The AMP hoped to be able to negotiate for as many as 30 or 40 tickets, but its discussion with Congress and RJD fell short of its expectations. For instance, in the former RJD constituency of Jale, the Congress fielded Mashkoor Ahmad Usmani, a former president of the AMU student’ union. They are active in politics. The India Forum welcomes your comments on this article for the Forum/Letters section. The Ansari have no traditional clan association, but are members of the All India Momin Conference. In Bihar, they are found in all the districts. In minority areas, even if the AIMIM’s popularity may help its losing candidates stand a few percentage points ahead of the rest — as in Sikta, where the AIMIM candidate won 5% of the votes — its rhetoric cannot place the party in the winning position. This leads to two distinct political dynamics. Zainul Ansari, a robust man in his eighties, ... For the large Muslim population in Bihar today, an environment of fear, hate and stigma has been manufactured by the current coalition government. The AMP’s message is clear and simple: Ansaris represent 11% of Bihar’s population but there is neither an MLA nor an MP from the community. The money you spend at Ansari … The Ansari are an Urdu-speaking community, although the Ansari clan of Gujarat have Gujarati as their mother tongue. Julien Levesque is a political sociologist who is currently Head Researcher at the Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi, and is associated with the Centre for South Asian Studies, EHESS, Paris. Bihar Election Result 2020: RJD's Javed Ansari ahead from Banka seat Counting of votes for 243 Bihar Assembly seats to begin at 8 am today Marvel unleashed! The vast majority of Bihari Muslims are followers of the Sunni tradition and even in pre-Mughal Bihar, all the Ulemas, Imams and Sufis were Sunnis. In spite of this poor performance, one might argue that being able to enter an alliance with a well-known personality, field several candidates from the community, and gain the following of several thousand people, was quite a step for a new initiative. The Ansari are strictly endogamous and practice both parallel and cross cousin marriages. The only Congress Muslim candidate from a marginalized Muslim community was Abidur Rahman in Araria, a seat with a strong Kulhaiya presence, and he was re-elected. [4]:972–976, The Shaikh Ansari are an Urdu-speaking community, and are said to have immigrated from Delhi, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh some three hundred years ago. These have all but disappeared. However, the AIMIM’s MLAs represent less than a third of the 19 Muslims who were elected to the assembly this year. Total population of rural areas of Bihar state was 92,341,436. The Seeemanchal region of Bihar, which comprises Purnia, Katihar, Kishanganj and Araria districts, accounting for 24 assembly seats, holds the key to power, say Bihar watchers. Females: 49821295. In the mid-1990s, Ali Anwar launched the Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz, and Ejaz Ali established the Backward Muslim Morcha. Yet, interestingly, only two of the RJD’s eight Muslim MLAs elected in 2020 are incumbents, which means that the party also lost many constituencies with an incumbent Muslim MLA: eight such seats went to the NDA. The community are found throughout India, but Varanasi District, in Uttar Pradesh, is always regarded by most Momin as the centre of their community. In areas where they are not in a majority, Muslims seem subject to a kind of minority syndrome and thus more concerned with security than with collective assertion. In none of the constituencies where the NDA won and the MGB came in second place did the AIMIM obtain a vote share greater than the winning party’s margin. Love Taboos: Controlling Hindu-Muslim Romances. Bihar Population 2020 –110.50576 Million. Historically, the community produced the sage, scholars and philosopher. The various statistics regarding Bihar's population are as follows: Population of the city is 82.88 million Has the US Dodged the Rise of Far-Right Politics. With an annual growth rate of 2.5% in its population, Bihar is the third largest state of India after Uttar Pradesh (1st) and Maharashtra (2nd). Besides, couldn’t this polarization be the result of the long-term political work of other parties and candidates, whether in the NDA or the MGB? Those Momin who have set up powerlooms tend to be more successful. Abdal 12011/68/93-BCC(C) dt 10.09.93 2. In the Muslim majority areas, on the other hand, a space opens up for ‘Muslim politics’, that is, a political discourse that stresses the need for Muslims to be politically represented on their own terms and to voice community-specific concerns. The Surjapuris — considered to be Shaikh and therefore part of the dominant Ashraf cluster — are in large numbers in Kishanganj district, while the marginalized Kulhaiya — who were included in the category of Extremely Backward Classes created by Nitish Kumar’s government in 2005 — constitute a significant group in Araria district. Please note that Ansari House is a home where my wife and I are raising 18 orphans alongside our four biological children. The Congress seemed to pursue its long-term association with Muslim elites, by picking candidates who tend to be Ashraf, well-educated, with links with educational centres such as Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) or Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. They speak the Sadri dialect, which is distinctive to the community, although most have knowledge of Urdu. The more elaborate construction of the ‘vote katwa’ (vote cutting) or ‘BJP ki B team’ (BJP’s B team) allegation targets Owaisi’s rhetoric of Muslim politics and questions his commitment to secularism and democracy. Out of three Ansari candidates picked by the large parties (Anjum Ara of the JDU in Dumraon, Qayamuddin Ansarin of the CPI (ML) in Arrah, and Javed Iqbal Ansari of the RJD in Banka), none managed to emerge victorious. He was known for his commitment to national integration, secularism and communal harmony. In none of the constituencies where the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won and the MGB came in second place did the AIMIM obtain a vote share greater than the winning party’s margin. The lack of political representation of the marginalized among the Muslims persists in spite of the creation in 2019 of a new organization that aimed to solve this issue. Important Ansari neighbourhoods in the city include Madanpura, Adampura and Jaitpura. New organizations now explicitly challenge the leadership of the Ashraf, accusing them of maintaining their dominant position by invoking the necessity for Muslims to unite as a minority community. Muslim minority politics: What worked for other winning Muslim candidates? They speak Gujarati with substantial Urdu loanwords. When looking at Muslim political participation in Bihar, one of the interesting characteristics of the state is that it includes both Muslim minority and majority (or near-majority) areas. The role of ‘kingmaker’ that some analysts expected the party to play did not materialize — the AIMIM’s five seats were not enough to help the Mahagathbandhan (MGB) form a majority, were it indeed to join the alliance. Bihar Rural Population 2011:-Of the total population of Bihar state, around 88.71 percent live in the villages of rural areas. Not only is there a continued over-representation of Ashraf among Muslim candidates and elected MLAs (16 Ashraf against 3 Pasmanda this year), there are also very few biradaris represented of the total number of caste groups. The primary religion practiced by the Ansari-Momin is Sunni Islam, the largest branch of Islam. The community is endogamous, and marry within a close kin group. To help the AIMIM candidates win over the Kulhaiya vote, Shahnawaz Alam campaigned with them in their constituencies. Seats where Muslim JDU candidates had won in 2015 thanks to the RJD-JDU alliance now went to the MGB candidates (Sheohar, Sikta, Thakurganj) or the AIMIM (Jokihat, Kochadhaman). In spite of the AIMIM’s past and the occasional radical actions of some of its members … the party’s popularity and electoral successes in recent years do not rest on a radical discourse but operate within the framework of electoral democracy. They are one of the larger Muslim communities in Rajasthan, and re found in the districts of Tonk, Jaipur and Sawai Madhopur. On the night of the election results, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera held that Owaisi’s politics spark radicalization among Muslim youth by seeking to counter the BJP’s radical discourse. Quyamuddin Ansari is a CPIMLL candidate from Arrah constituency in the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections. By population, it is the third-largest state in India. What appears clear from the fate of Muslim candidates is the unambiguous vote against the NDA. The traditional occupation of the Ansari is still textile work. (estimated). and is twelfth largest by territory. Abdul Qaiyum Ansari (1 July 1905 – 18 January 1973) was a participant in the freedom struggle of India. The main organizer of the AIMIM in Bihar, Akhtarul Iman — who won in Amour with a margin of 52,000 votes — had been a Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MLA between 2005 and 2014. Many Momin are now successful entrepreneurs and professionals such as teachers, engineers and doctors. They are strictly endogamous, and tend to marry close kin. The Ansari community, Wasim Ansari of the Mahapanchayat says, comprises 11% of the total 17% Muslim population in Bihar, but lacks political representation. After the results, they were quick to point out the lack of caste diversity among Muslim candidates and elected MLAs. Bihar Population by Sex. They are mainly distributed in the cities of Ahmedabad, Surat, Bharuch, Baroda, and Rajpipla.[4]:69–73. The current literacy rate of BIHAR is about 63.82 % as per 2011 calculation. In Jharkhand, they are mainly found in Koderma, Hazaribagh, Gumla, Ranchi, Lohardaga and Singhbhum districts. In fact, he even nominated a woman of Ansari community as the candidate. Thus, the local standing of candidates was crucial for the AIMIM’s victories in Bihar — combined with the popularity of Asaduddin Owaisi and Akhtarul Iman, and, in some places, a subtle balance between local dominant communities. They are an endogamous community, only rarely marrying out of their group. According to the reports, Ansari, a former MP and a prominent Muslim leader in Jharkhand, had questioned about the manner in which Rahul Gandhi did campaigning in Bihar during the assembly elections. Asfi also happened to unseat his own son-in-law, four-time Congress MLA Tausif Alam. Many of them are engaged in zari work, which involves sari embroidery. The Momin Ansari lost their distinct group identity as they assimilated and are now an integral part of the Urdu-speaking Muhajir community of Pakistan. In North India, the community are known as Ansari or sheikh, while in Maharashtra the community are known as Momin or saudagar. The percentage of male population is 52.14% The percentage of female population is 47.86% Males: 54278157. The AMP argues for self-representation in proportion to their population share, as indicated by the slogans “ apni qayadat, apni siyasat” (our leadership, our politics), “ jiski jitni abadi, utni hissedari ” (participation proportional to our population). Bihar has the worst doctor-population ratio in the country, with only one doctor serving 28,391 people, and anxieties around the virus played a big part in the debate. B. K. Lavania, D. K. Samanta, S. K. Mandal & N. N. Vyas (eds.). While the AIMIM has made its entrance in Bihar in the latest elections, its candidates are also not new to politics, but are professional politicians. The AIMIM’s push on the basis of a rhetoric of Muslim politics is significant but does not tell the whole story. In other words, the fact that the AIMIM contested these seats did not siphon off enough votes from the MGB to be responsible for its defeat. 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