For India's Muslims, Internal Reform Is Integral to the Justice Struggle, Not a Distraction
In contemporary India, a profound and paralysing silence has enveloped discussions within the Muslim community regarding internal social issues. Muslim political leaders, religious authorities, and even many secular critics of the current regime consistently argue that this is not the time for internal debate. They fear that any examination of Muslim social problems will be exploited by hostile forces to further stigmatise and marginalise the community. This apprehension is not without foundation, given the polarised political climate.
We write this not as detached observers but as individuals who have spent lifetimes within the Indian state and as Indian Muslims—deeply attuned to the anxieties, silences, and resilience of the community. Never before has the question of Muslim belonging in India been subjected to such relentless suspicion. To be Muslim today transcends the ordinary burdens of citizenship; it involves living under a constant demand to explain oneself, demonstrate loyalty, and prove nationalism, as if these were conditional privileges rather than inherent constitutional rights.
The Daily Reality of Provisional Citizenship
This burden is far from imagined. It manifests daily in the lives of ordinary Muslims, particularly in BJP-ruled states where governance has taken on a distinctly ideological character. Arbitrary police questioning, vigilante violence, selective demolition drives, and media-fuelled insinuations that often precede legal processes have collectively fostered a chilling atmosphere. In such an environment, citizenship itself begins to feel provisional and precarious.
However, as uncomfortable as it may sound, persecution—however unjust—cannot become the sole organising principle of Muslim public life. A community cannot endure merely by responding to external hostility, nor can it secure dignity solely by documenting its wounds. Moral survival demands something more challenging: the courage to look inward, speak honestly about internal failures, and initiate reform without awaiting permission from either the state or its adversaries.
Reform as an Assertion of Agency, Not Capitulation
This call for reform is not an invitation to forget injustice or to soften critique in hopes of acceptance. Instead, it is an assertion of agency. Reform should not be misconstrued as capitulation; it is, in essence, an act of self-respect. The concept of Muslim reform in India has been deeply corrupted by political appropriation. Hindutva discourse selectively highlights issues such as triple talaq, women's representation in waqf institutions, or caste stratification among Muslims—not to advance equality, but to portray Muslims as uniquely regressive and thus deserving of surveillance and control.
Consequently, reform is often framed as a civilising project imposed from above, cloaked in nationalist rhetoric. The unspoken objective is clear: to discipline Islam and domesticate Muslims. The criminalisation of triple talaq in 2019 exemplified this contradiction. While there was little dispute that instant triple talaq was unjust to women, by transforming a civil matter into a criminal offence within a polarised climate, the state ensured the reform was perceived less as justice and more as punishment.
The Perils of Paralysing Silence
Progressive Muslim voices found themselves cornered—forced to choose between endorsing a law weaponised against their community or appearing to defend an indefensible practice. This dynamic led to a lost opportunity for deeper internal reform. Since then, a paralysing silence has taken hold. The fear that discussions on Muslim social problems will be exploited is valid, as half-truths are often magnified into stereotypes and isolated practices turned into civilisational indictments.
Nonetheless, silence carries its own dangers. When reform is indefinitely postponed, it does not vanish; it is merely outsourced—to hostile courts, coercive laws, and majoritarian judgement. Therefore, two critical realities must be confronted. First, contemporary Muslim reform cannot be a nostalgic replay of 19th-century theological debates. The challenges Muslims face today demand practical responses rooted in lived experience. Second, Indian Muslims are not a monolith. Any serious reform agenda must acknowledge their plurality while identifying shared concerns.
Three Urgent Areas for Collective Attention
1. Education: Decades after the Sachar Committee report, the educational marginalisation of Muslims remains stark. High enrolment rates at the primary level mask catastrophic dropout rates in secondary schooling, largely driven by poverty, insecure livelihoods, and a lack of institutional support. Children are often withdrawn from school not because parents reject education, but because survival leaves them little choice.
The state's responsibility in this regard is non-negotiable. A constitutional democracy that promises equality of opportunity cannot abandon an entire community to structural disadvantage. Yet, communities must also act. One practical and powerful intervention involves reimagining local mosques as community education centres—spaces for evening schools, remedial teaching, and skill training, open to all children regardless of faith. Such initiatives would support working-class Muslim families and signal that Muslim institutions are integral to the nation's civic life, not peripheral to it.
This also includes modernising education in madrasas. While providing religious education is valuable, denying access to English, mathematics, or sciences is detrimental and limits opportunities.
2. Muslim Visibility: Over the past three decades, Muslim presence in public discourse has been reduced to a handful of rigid symbols—minarets, beards, hijabs. These images are endlessly recycled to suggest separateness, irrationality, and resistance to modernity. When mosques function as centres of learning, welfare, and neighbourhood service—opening their doors to the wider community—they quietly dismantle such caricatures. They reaffirm an Islamic ethic as ancient as the faith itself: that service to humanity is inseparable from devotion to God.
3. Gender Justice Within Muslim Society: The fixation on triple talaq has overshadowed a range of less-discussed injustices. Dowry has become deeply entrenched among Muslims, and women's inheritance rights—affirmed in Islamic law—are frequently ignored. In this domain, religious leadership has been notably hesitant. Acknowledging these failures does not negate the ongoing efforts. Across India, Muslim women's organisations, young lawyers, scholars, and grassroots activists are reclaiming egalitarian strands within Islamic tradition.
Nationalism and Constitutional Confidence
Hovering over all these issues is the question of nationalism. Many Muslims today feel compelled to perform loyalty—to speak louder, apologise quicker, distance themselves from global Muslim suffering. This posture is neither dignified nor sustainable. The Constitution of India does not demand performative nationalism; it promises equal citizenship. It guarantees freedom of conscience, equality before the law, and protection from discrimination. To invoke the Constitution is not to seek charity; it is to assert a fundamental right.
Internal reform, therefore, must be framed not as submission to majoritarian pressure but as an expression of constitutional confidence. Reform and resistance are not opposites; in this moment, they are inseparable. Indian Muslims stand at a stark crossroads. One path leads to permanent defensiveness, where every criticism is viewed as betrayal and every reform deferred indefinitely. The other path demands courage: the courage to reform without surrender, to speak without fear, and to insist—quietly but firmly—on full and equal citizenship.
In an age when Muslim identity is relentlessly politicised, internal reform is not a distraction from the struggle for justice. It is an essential and integral part of it.
