Being Muslim the Chhipa way: Caste identity as Islamic identity in a low-caste Indian Muslim community

Abstract

This article adds to the emergent picture of caste practices among Indian Muslim communities through a focus on caste-based discourses and practices in the contemporary OBC Muslim Chhipa community (OBC, short for ‘Other Backward Class’, is an Indian-government designation). The article examines Muslim Chhipa origin stories, marriage practices and language strategies and shows the ways in which these phenomena—and attitudes about them—allow Muslim Chhipas to articulate and enact strategies of upward mobility and respectability. Central to these strategies is the idea of ‘Islam’, though not in its expected guise as a religion of equality. The article also shows that Islam plays a different but ultimately complementary role in intra-Chhipa relations, allowing for continued caste pride. However, the upward mobility achieved by some suggests that caste practices and beliefs in Muslim communities remain linked to pan-South Asian notions of purity and pollution and, as such, perpetuate discrimination against dalit Muslims.