By Aparna Pande
This article appeared in Chowk on November 7, 2006

‘The Prime Minister is playing into the hands of the Muslims.’ ‘Congress is playing Muslim vote-bank politics.’ These are statements made not by the Hindu right-wing organizations but headlines in prominent newspapers and dailies in India for the last few weeks.

 

The reason, the ‘unofficial’ release of the key recommendations of the Rajindra Sachhar Committee report; a committee set up to study the social, economic and educational status of Indian Muslims.

 

The Sachhar Committee report, to be released in end-November, states that the condition of the majority of Indian Muslims is worse than that of even the Dalits. It recommends, among other measures, an allocation of 15% of all government funds for schemes aimed at benefiting Muslims.

 

Some of the key figures given by the report are revealing. Muslim’s form 13% of India’s population but have only 6.4% of jobs. The percentage of Muslim employees in the judiciary stands only at 8% but they make up a large percentage of those in prisons. Even in the political spectrum Muslims have been under-represented, both in the Lok Sabha and in the State Assemblies.

 

Muslim enrolment and retention rates in primary and secondary level institutions are lower than the national average. The Sachhar Committee report has recommended the need to have more English and Urdu medium government schools in Muslim-dominated areas. Madrassa education, often the only alternative, need not be the only form of schooling available to young Muslims.

 

In most jobs the percentage of Muslims varies between three to five percent. This negates the views of those who claim that for the last sixty years Muslims have been ‘appeased’ at the expense of the Hindu majority.

 

Why is it that every time a Committee or a report talks about the condition of the Indian Muslims there is a tendency to see it only as vote bank politics? Is it because there is truth in what they are saying and truth always hurts.

 

Muslims form 15.4% of the population in the twelve most populous states, but they are still considered a ‘vote bank’ by the politicians and a minority by the academia. How can around 150 million people be considered a minority and why are they considered a minority?

 

Muslims have contributed as much to the Indian culture, civilization, language, economy, politics and society as Hindus have: then why is their contribution not seen for what it is.

 

Out of the 95 million Muslims living in India at the time of Partition in 1947, 35 million Muslims stayed behind in India. They stayed behind because they considered India to be their homeland; they gave up their lives because they believed in the secular ideals of Gandhi and Nehru.

 

The horrors of Partition and the communal riots, both then and later, notwithstanding Muslims have been an integral part of the Indian fabric.

 

India has had 3 Muslim presidents, a host of Muslim ambassadors and academics and the richest man in India is also a Muslim, Azim Premji. Still the plight of the community that contributed so much to Indian civilization and continues to do so today is so pitiful.

 

Is it not time that they were made to feel a part of the country which they have lived in for centuries, a homeland for which they gave up their lives and a nation which they helped build.