On 22 March 2026, we lost Shabbir Ansari, a true Lohiate and a leader who introduced the Muslim community to the ideological legacy of Phule, Shahu and Ambekar. He was 79. Shabbir Bhai was not just a leader of Muslim OBCs. He was one of the pioneers of the OBC movement in Maharashtra.
He began working in association with Advocate Janardan Patil, founder of Maharashtra’s OBC movement, in the 1970s. Shabbir Bhai worked with Gopinath Munde and Chhagan Bhujbal in Maharashtra and with Sharad Yadav, Ramvilas Paswan and Chaudhary Brahmaprakash at the national level. It was due to his efforts that film legend Dilip Kumar became associated with the Pasmanda Muslim movement. He took the Muslim OBC movement to the national stage with the help of poet Hasan Kamal, Dr Zaheer Qazi of Anjuman-e-Islam and Ali Anwar Ansari from Bihar.
Shabbir Bhai headed the Muslim wing of Janardan Patil’s organization. I suggested to both of them that there should be separate organizations for Hindu and Muslim OBCs. Both concurred. Shabbir Bhai, Janardan Patil and I together decided to forge an organization of Muslim OBCs in Maharashtra. The new organization was launched at a convention in Jalna in 1983. In attendance, among others, were Chaudhary Brahmaprakash, Asghar Ali Engineer, R.S. Gavai and Ramvilas Paswan. In 1995, this was renamed the All-India Muslim OBC Organization.
Vilasrao Deshmukh and Madhavrao Shinde were also supportive of Shabbir Bhai’s endeavours. With their help, two Muslim OBCs – Hafiz Dhature and Rashid Tahir Momin – entered the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly after getting elected as Congress candidates from Miraj and Bhiwandi respectively.
Shabbir Bhai was always on the move. He toured the entire Maharashtra. There can’t be any village in Maharashtra with a Pasmanda population that he didn’t visit. He identified around 60-70 Muslim castes and brought them into the social mainstream. He was also instrumental in bringing Muslim OBCs into the ambit of the Mandal Commission recommendations in December 1994 with the help of the then chief minister Sharad Pawar. I had taken Shabbir Bhai to meet Pawar Saheb.
Pawar Saheb knew the names of backward Muslim castes, their traditional occupations and social status. But even he was surprised to know how Shabbir Bhai had mobilized them. He decided that the deprived Muslim castes ought to get reservations and other facilities and they did.
Now, children from deprived communities like Julaha, Bunkar, Momin, Mehtar, Bakar Kasab, Qureshi, Mulani, Aswalwale, Makadwale, Chhapparband, Dafliwale, Rangrez, Rangari, Gujar, Muzavar, Madari, Pinjari, Nadaf, Patharvat, Tamboli, Fakir and Ansari are getting an education. Earlier, a handful from these communities could become doctors or engineers. But now, thousands of them are educated and have employment opportunities. All this could become possible only due to Shabbir Ansari.
No other leader in independent India could make so much difference to the life of Muslim backward castes as Shabbir Bhai. But despite that he spent his entire life in a humble house with a tin roof. He lived like a mendicant.
In our society, people often get the honour they deserve after they depart from this world. Abdul Qayum Ansari led the Pasmanda Muslims during the Independence Movement. In independent India, Shabbir Ansari united them through a movement demanding reservations. It was due to the groundwork done by him that Nitish Kumar sent his associate Ali Anwar Ansari to the Rajya Sabha. Many owe their status in politics to him. But Shabbir Bhai never received any recognition from the government, including a Padma award.
I had been working with Shabbir Bhai for the past 45 years. His passing is a personal loss to me.
My heartfelt tribute to him. Goodbye, Shabbir Bhai.
(Translated from the original Hindi by Amrish Herdenia)
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