Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (Urdu: پسماندہ مسلم محاذ ) ("Marginalised Muslim Front") is an Indian Muslim social reform organization dedicated to the emancipation of the Dalit Muslims belonging to the "Arzal" class in the class system among Muslims. It was founded by Ali Anwar in Patna, Bihar. Anwar himself is an OBC Muslim.
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History
Anwar founded the organization after observing Caste oppression by upper class "Ashraf" Muslims on low-class Muslim, causing him to become a leftist and associate with the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He assembled a loose coalition of social reform organizations bringing awareness towards the plight of the Dalit Muslims and their complete neglect and persecution by the upper-class "Ashraf" (supposedly "Arab-descended") Muslims in India. The Mahaz is a broad front of a number of Dalit and Backward Class Muslim organisations from different states of India, particularly Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Delhi.
The position of the Mahaz reflects that of Anwar, who posits that lower class Muslims have been trying to marginalize the Dalit Muslims by slyly asking for quotas for "Backward-class Muslims" while excluding the Muslim Dalits from this label. They oppose religion-based reservations on the basis of their assertions regarding Ashrafs hijacking them for their own purposes and thus want socio-economic conditions and not religion to be the basis of reservation. Ali Anwar has said he has been networking with Muslim members across the political spectrum to raise the issue in the Parliament of India.
Objectives
The Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz advocates for Dalit Muslims in relation to issues of personal law, reservation and electoral politics, as well as demands of legal action against officials who physically attack Dalit Muslims. They have also advocated for the rights of Dalit Muslims to bury their dead in conventional graveyards instead of segregated ones, as mandated in the Muslim Class System.
However, they do not advocate for the rights of women in Muslim societies, even though the women of the organization resent having to be in purdah while the ashraf women went about with "bob cuts aur lipstick".
Accusations
Upper-class Muslims in India have tried to label the people of the Mahaz as "un-Islamic heretics", which the Mahaz protests as a form of propaganda against them.