In 2005, Prime Minister of
India set up a High Level Committee headed by Justice Rajinder Sachar to study
the situation of Muslims and come out with a comprehensive report. Where the
report presents the social & economic conditions of Indian Muslims, it is
ultimately an answer to the Anti-Pakistan Muslims who raise question, “What we
got from independence?” The detailed report consists of 404 pages and may be
downloaded from https://minorityaffairs.gov.in/newsite/sachar/sachar_comm.pdf.
However, following are some of the abstracts from the report:
Muslims, the largest minority community in the country, constituting 13.4 per
cent of the population, are seriously lagging behind in terms of most of the
human development indicators. While the perception of deprivation is widespread
among Muslims, there has been no systematic effort since Independence to analyze
the condition of religious minorities in the country. (Page 2)
Muslims carry a double burden of being labeled as “anti-national” and as being
“appeased” at the same time. (Page 11)
Markers of Muslim Identity — the burqa, the purdah, the beard and the topi —
while adding to the distinctiveness of Indian Muslims have been a cause of
concern for them in the public realm… Muslim men donning a beard and a topi are
often picked up for interrogation from public spaces like parks, railway
stations and markets….. Muslim women in burqa complain of impolite treatment in
the market, in hospitals, in schools, in accessing public facilities such as
public transport and so on. (Pag12)
Concern was expressed over police highhandedness in dealing with Muslims
“whenever any incident occurs Muslim boys are picked up by the police” (Page 13)
Muslims live with an inferiority complex as “every bearded man is considered an
ISI agent… Social boycott of Muslims in certain parts of the country has forced
them to migrate from places where they lived for centuries (Page 14)
The main reason for educational backwardness of Muslims is abject poverty due to
which children are forced to drop out after the first few classes….. It was felt
that the incidence of child labour was much higher among Muslims as compared to
other minorities. Poor and illiterate parents cannot afford tuition for their
children; nor can they provide the necessary support system at home... (Page 15)
Schools beyond the primary level are few in Muslim localities. Exclusive girls’
schools are fewer, and are usually at a distance from Muslim localities. This
has its repercussions because after any incident of communal violence parents
pull out their girls from school fearing their security. (Page 16)
While Urdu was never exclusively a Muslim language, it is said to have suffered
because of its identification with the Muslim community…. Lack of Urdu medium
schools, the poor quality of teaching in them, vacancies for teachers unfilled
for several years and the recruitment of Hindi teachers in place of Urdu
teachers are some of the problems afflicting the teaching of Urdu. (Page 18)
The resistance to recognise minority educational institutions by state
governments has been a matter of serious concern with the Community… Students
have to opt for Sanskrit as there is no provision for teaching other languages
in many schools, despite the fact that Urdu has been declared a second language
in some states. This, in effect, makes Sanskrit a compulsory subject, especially
in the Hindi belt. (Page 19)
Current research indicates that poverty and financial constraints are the major
causes that prevent Muslim girls from accessing ‘modern’/’secular’ education.
Muslim women often face overt discrimination from school authorities while
trying to get admission or in availing of scholarships for their children….
Perceptions of public security — partly associated with increasing incidents of
communal violence — prevent parents from sending daughters to schools…. The lack
of Muslims in public employment — in the bureaucracy, police and the judiciary,
and so on — has been a matter of great concern. Discriminatory practices,
especially at the time of the interview, were cited as reasons for poor Muslim
representation even at the Class IV level or in Grade D employment where high
educational qualifications are not required (Page 20)
In some states the qualifying test required a sound knowledge of local language
and at times that of the Hindu religion. This put Urdu speaking Muslims at a
disadvantage… Because the political participation of Muslims also was limited
there are very few to raise a voice in their favour…. Displacement from
traditional occupations has contributed to Muslims being deprived of their means
of livelihood (Page 21)
There is active discrimination in giving Muslim women credit facilities it was
pointed out… many banks have designated a number of Muslim concentration areas
as ‘negative or red zones’, where they do not give loans. (Page 22)
Even nationalized banks it was said, hesitate to sanction loans under government
sponsored schemes to Muslims… The health of Muslims, especially women, is
directly linked to poverty and the absence of basic services like clean drinking
water and sanitation - leading to malnutrition, anemia, a variety of diseases
and poor life expectancy (Page 23)
Many Muslim women experience ill-treatment at the hands of authorities when they
apply for new ration cards… They are unable to avail of free uniforms in
schools, or college scholarships for want of appropriate caste and income
certificates… Muslim women have almost no presence in decision-making positions
— from gram panchayats to the parliament. They even fail to find a place in
minority welfare institutions set up by the Government. (Page 24)
It was pointed out that many names of Muslims were missing in the voter lists of
a number of states. Not only does this dis-empower them, it also makes them
ineligible as beneficiaries of government schemes… A number of Muslim
concentration assembly constituencies have been declared as ‘reserved’ by the
Delimitation Commission. By this move, it was argued that Muslims are being
systematically denied political participation….
Data relating to the reserved constituencies for the SC candidates in three
states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal was analysed by the Committee,
which have been declared reserved for SCs, Muslims live in greater numbers often
more than 50 per cent as well as their proportion in the population is higher
than that of SCs. On the other hand, there are quite a large number of other
constituencies within the respective states, where the share of SCs is large,
often closer to or even more than one half but these are declared as
'un-reserved'. Arguably, this can be seen as discriminatory and certainly
reduces the opportunities that Muslims have to get elected to democratic
institutions. (Page 25)
The non-availability of the SC quota for Muslims while it was available for
Mazhabi Sikhs and Neo-Buddhists was a matter of concern (Page 26)
The literacy rate among Muslims in 2001 was far below the national average (Page
52)
As many as 25 per cent of Muslim children in the 6-14 year age group have either
never attended school or have dropped out (Page 58)
While 26% of those 17 years and above have completed matriculation, this
percentage is only 17% amongst Muslims. (Page 60)
Drop-out Rates among Muslims are highest at the level of Primary,Middle and
Higher Secondary compared to all the SRCs (Page 62)
Only 1 out of the 25 Under-Graduate student and 1 out of the 50 Post-Graduate
student is a Muslim in premier colleges. The share of Muslims in all courses is
low, particularly at the PG level, and marginal in the science stream (Page 69)
The gap between Muslims and other SRCs increases as the level of education
increases… Unemployment rates among Muslim graduates is the highest among SRCs
both among the poor and the non-poor (Page 72 & 73)
As is the case of SC/ST workers, the participation of Muslim workers in salaried
jobs (both in the public and the private sectors) is quite low (Page 92)
Suffice it to mention here that in most of the departments and PSUs, the share
of Muslim workers does not exceed 5 per cent… the data analyzed in Chapter 9
also shows that in none of the all-Indian civil service cadres, the share of
Muslims exceeds 5 per cent. (Page 94 & 95)
Participation of Muslims in security related activities (e.g. Police) is
considerably lower than their share in population… The share of Muslims in the
defence workers was found to be only 4 per cent while that of Hindu-SCs/STs (12
per cent), Hindu-OBCs (23 per cent) and Hindu-UC (52 per cent) was much higher
(Page 102)
The participation of Muslims in the professional and managerial cadre is low…
Available data clearly shows that on average, Muslim regular workers are the
most vulnerable with no written contract and social security and benefits (Page
104)
Muslim regular workers get lower daily earnings (salary) in both public and
private jobs compared to other SRCs (Page 105)
More than 1000 Muslim-concentration villages in West Bengal and Bihar do not
have any educational institutions; in Uttar Pradesh, this figure is 1943. The
situation is worse in small villages (Page 143)
Almost 2000 Muslim concentration villages in Assam and Jammu and Kashmir, more
than 3000 villages in West Bengal and Bihar, and above 5000 villages in Uttar
Pradesh are without any medical facilities… The proportion of Muslim
concentration villages that have a pucca approach road is again lower than the
corresponding estimate for all villages (Page 144)
The concentration of Muslims in states lacking infrastructure facilities implies
that a large proportion of the Community is without access to basic services
(Page 145)
A substantially larger proprtion of the Muslim households in urban areas are in
the less than Rs.500 expenditure bracket (Page 154)
Incidence of poverty among Muslims in urban areas is the highest with a Head
Count Ratio of 38.4 % (Page 156)
Poor Muslims consume only 75 % of the poverty line expenditure on an average,
which is lowest of the SRCs (Page 158)
The economic conditions of Muslims in urban areas have not improved as much as
of other SRCs (Page 162)
Share of Muslims in employment in various departments is abysmally low at all
levels (Page 166)
Muslim community has a representation of only 4.5% in Indian Railways. Almost
all (98.7%) of them are positioned at lower levels, with only 1.3% employed as
Group ‘A’ or Group ‘B’ officers (Page 167)
Taking all agencies together, practically all Muslim (96%) employees are
positioned at the lower levels, especially in Group C, with only about 2% as
Group ‘A’ or Group ‘B’ officers… One also finds that about 11% of Group- A jobs
are held by those belonging to minorities other than Muslims (Page 168)
In no state does the representation of Muslims in the government departments
match their population share (Page 171)
Share of Muslims in recent recruitments by State Public Service Commissions is
about 2.1% (Page 176)
the share of Muslims as beneficiaries in government programmes in U.P. ranges
between 3-14% which is far less than their population share of 24% among the
poor (Page 177)
The share of Muslims in the total funds disbursed by the NBCFDC is low; only 23
crores out of 247 crores have been disbursed to Muslim OBCs (Page 186)
In view of all above, despite all the negative things we face in Pakistan, we
are Alhumdullillah far better than those muslims living in India. Concluding
with message to the Anti-Pakistanis....
Love Pakistan OR Leave Pakistan