The number of Muslim students in India’s better universities, engineering colleges, medical colleges, IITs, IIMs, IIScs etc despite much growth of such institutions in recent years still hovers around a miserly two percent. Lack of education among the Muslim youth and their lack of competitiveness were recently pointed out by the Sachar Committee, who conducted a nationwide grassroots survey of the Muslim community, as a significant impediment to the community’s progress.
Muslims’ extraordinary backwardness in education and socioeconomic arenas causes perceptible obscurantism and social backwardness in the community as a whole. We sometimes see that in the form of obscurantist Muslim public protests, eg the recent violent protest in Kolkata.
This extraordinary backwardness of the Muslim community is now India’s national problem and not just a problem of the Muslim community. In order that the nation may continue its current growth in economic and industrial arenas, it is important that all segments of society come together and develop a consensus to solve this national problem.
This problem has grown steadily in the last sixty years as successive governments at the Center and in the states choose not to do anything to improve the basic infrastructure in Muslim majority localities in countless cities in India. In all these years only very few new schools, colleges, hospitals, parks, roads were built in Muslim majority constituencies. At the same time a large number of sectarian riots targeted the economy and infrastructure in Muslim localities in various cities.
The fact that fifteen years after the demolition of Babri mosque and the sectarian violence that accompanied it, the government’s Liberhan Commission has not even completed its enquiry into that mayhem speaks volumes about how government has ignored the problems of the Indian Muslim community.
Whenever the government has implemented programs to uplift the severely depressed segments of Indian society, it has left the Muslims out of that. In 1950 when the government initiated an affirmative action plan to uplift Dalits it excluded Muslim Dalits. In 1989 when the government initiated the Mandal Commission affirmative action plan for OBCs (Other Backward Castes) , it again left out Muslim OBCs.
With fully half of the Muslims in India belonging to either SC or OBC category, such exclusion from affirmative action plans has caused further deterioration in the educational and socioeconomic status of the Muslim community.
Similarly in all these years the government built many educational institutions for women to improve female literacy. But hardly any of them were built in Muslim majority areas. Thus while female literacy improved in other communities, Muslim women remained largely illiterate.
With the introduction of free market economy and the arrival of multinationals in India, as the economy of the nation has grown rapidly, middle-class Indians have made good socioeconomic gains. But India’s Muslim community has been largely left out of this perceptible growth. Since their educational situation continues to be very dismal they are unable to get any benefit from this national growth.
As the recent reports of the Sachar Committee and Rangnath Misra Commission have pointed out the government needs to initiate serious affirmative action and other programs meant especially towards the Muslim community to remove their inordinate backwardness.
To induce the government, the power structure and the Hindu community to give a helping hand to them, Muslims should conduct effective advocacy. Instead of angry street protests this campaign needs to persuade all segments of the Hindu community and political parties, that the Muslims’ extraordinary backwardness is a major national problem, and solving it is in the best interests of the entire nation.
Muslims need to explain and elaborate the facts and details of their community’s across the board inordinate backwardness with a calm and cool demeanor to those individuals, organizations and political groups that are indifferent to their plight and gain their support.
In order to have uplift schemes for their community like the Sachar Committee report or the Rangnath Misra Commission report implemented into concrete action, Muslims should work with all segments of society and not just the government. In discussing this issue in media and public forums, rather than get into reactive rebuttals, Muslims should adopt techniques of persuasive lobbying, elaborating the undeniable gnawing facts and figures of their community’s deprivation that are common knowledge.
Also even though the resources of the Muslim community to affect such uplift by themselves are very meager, the elite of the community should help start the community’s own institutions of higher education as well as feeder high schools. In the Muslim community’s universities and colleges, an affirmative action program and reservation should be implemented for Muslim Dalits and Muslim OBCs.
Photo: Hyderabad Protests
I find this whole shifting of the onus for establishing educational institutions onto Muslims to be odd and unfair. Nobody is asking why Hindus are not establishing more schools and colleges. Or other communities for that matter. The onus of providing a the opportunities for decent education to all lies on the Government. I also find it surprising that people quote how their fathers walked miles to get an education. Yes, so did my father. My grandfather died when my father was less than 10 years old and the family slipped into poverty. He did not get his first pair of slippers until he went to college. But how is that relevant? We are talking about the here and now. I (and I presume the participant who mentioned his father) got access to decent educational institutions. The fact remains that many of our citizens don’t have access to that. And we must make our Governments spread that access across the population.
Yes, given the opportunities, parents have to take the initiative. And the value of education must be instilled in the Muslim community. But I don’t see the urge to educate their children to be any less among Muslims. My mother taught for some years in a school that served mainly Muslim kids, most of them from poor families. The families struggled to send their kids to the school – while the fees were low, they had to spend on books, uniforms etc. But they did, in the hope that a good English-medium education would allow their children to escape the poverty they themselves were in. It was a co-educational school and there were as many girls coming from poor families as there were boys.
Education, education, education should be the mantra. Not just for Muslims in India, but for everybody. And we must force our Governments to ensure that all citizens have access to quality education. Else, we can forget about our dreams of becoming a developed country in 2050 or even afterwards.
95 percent of Pakistani , Indian and Bangladeshi Muslims are descended from original LOWER-CASTE converts from Hinduism to Islam , who converted to escape the cruel treatment in Hindu society.
Perhaps that explains WHY Muslims in the Indian Subcontinent ( i.e India , Pakistan and Bangla ) are so poor , backward and illiterate.
@Salim Halalkhor,
Let me assume just for the sake for argument that your claim above is true.
How can that be any sort of an explanation? How does that explain their continued pathetic condition (unless you think that people of “lower” castes are destined to be poor and illiterate)? The OBC category contains both Muslim and Hindu castes, why is the performance of Muslims in this reserved category so bad?
There is a tendency among many Muslims to find an external scapegoats and work themselves up to a frenzy.
Even if Muslim get good education , will there be any chances for Muslims in anti Muslim discriminatory govt job policy ? And what kind of education they are looking for ? every one can not become like Ex President Abul Kalaam . Its just crap to talk about Muslim education , 50% of all goverment jobs are taken by SCST and OBC casts, And Muslims are not able to compete for remaining 50% because of job discrimination.
according to following article there is only minor difference between SCST and Muslims in respect of jobs and salaries. So why Muslims are not given reservation ?
http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=15988&username=guest@tni.org&password=9999&publish=Y
For fair treatments of Muslims, either they should cancel all reservation policies, or they should give same benifits to Muslims too.
At a time when the whole world is talking about the excellent economic growth of the country , a major section of country’s population remains deprived from it.
I tried to delve in details of this causes and have come up with some points.I will be really happy if somebody comes with some suggestions or critics on it.
1. Fundamentalism in regligion is a major hindrance for any country’s or any community’s growth.We can analyze the situation by taking an example of Turkey and other arab muslim nations. The Turkey was able to get the extraordinaory economic growth because they put religion on the backburner. Had Arab nation not got oil as a natural resource it would have been really difficult to imagine how much poverty these nation would have faced.If we dream to become a developed country we should ban any type of religious organization which is flourishing in different parts of the country.The political parties which supports religion should be barred from participating in the elections.Ofcourse the same rule applies in case of BJP,SHIV-SENA,BAJRANG DAL.
2. I have no intention of hurting anybody’s sentiments but its true that most of the leaders from minority community has got habit of blaming the system of the country for every holocaust that is happenning at regular intervals and which is responsible for rift in the society.The leaders should come forward honestly and denounce any mischiefs done by the anti social elements.The elements in the society who cling up to the issues like Ayodhya,Godhra etc.(Ofcourse these were not justifiable but we can’t hold them all the time and allow them to made a catalyst) should be openly demotivated.
3.There should be stringent rule to check the birth control. There is no point in adding iliterate number of people in the country’s population and advocating government facilites for them which comes from tax payer’s hard earned money.
4.The government funding of religious education institutions(RSS Schools,Madrasas etc) should be pulled out. There is no point in providing government backing to these institutions as it violates our basic principle of secularism.Inplace of these institutions government should establish some secular schools.
^^ First look at all my comments above , then make assumptions. Muslims are better-off uneducted BUT safe , in West Bengal and Bihar , than educated and UNSAFE , in Mumbai or Ahmedabad. This was illustrated by the fact that 95 % of the Muslims targetted during the Gujarat Riots were wealthy upper-middle class , like Ehsan Jaffri.
I know the founders of Islam emphasized education. But since those days something has changed.
Nobody is pointing out the obvious. We all see it. These days Muslims don’t value education like other communities.. Former prime minister DR. Mahathir Muhammad of Malasyia as emphasized this point. He says : too many Muslims are fatalistic and wait for the rewards in heaven rather than work hard in this life to improve their lot. There is an “Allah will provide mentality”.
Look at the world’s largest Muslim country, Indonesia. Even though the ethnic Chinese (non-Muslim) are only 3% of the population, they control 70% of the G.D.P. How can it be discrimination when Muslims are 90% of the population of Indonesia. Muslims are quick to blame Chinese, Hindu, Jewish or western oppression. Maybe they should look in the mirror. I read that Israel has more universities than the entire Arab world. Look at Pakistan. The cream of Indian Muslims migrated to Pakistan according to some Indian Muslims blogs I have read. In spite of this Pakistan has a poor educational infrastructure and Pakistan’s higher education stinks. Hindus, Jews and Chinese cultures emphasize education. This has a lot to do with their success relative to Muslims.
100 of the global ‘Fortune 500′ companies have set up R&D centres in India. Not one has done so in Pakistan. Is it because these companies love Hindus. No, It is because they love brain power. Muslims must admit that there is a lack of emphasis on education in the ETHOS of Muslims today even though THE FOUNDERS OF ISLAM EMPHASIZED EDUCATION.
While Pandit Nehru was busy building universities and educational technical cooperation agreements with educated nations like U.S, U.K, Soviet Union etc., what were the Muslim countries doing? Many among the first batch of university professors in India in the 1940′s and 50′s were trained abroad in such programs.
You may say that I am talking about extraneous issues. But I believe that Indian Muslims cannot be viewed in a vacuum. They are part of an ummah that does not emphasize education to the necessary extent. Saudi Arabia should be better than Germany or Japan by now. But they have not invested their vast wealth in education.
Just look at Indian Muslims in India today. Is it really discrimination? Or is it the 60% illiteracy rate. Half the Indian Muslim population are female. They are often not encouraged to seek higher education. Look at how many Hindu women go into medicine, IT etc.. Look at Azim Premji and Sri Abdul Kalam. Why didn’t the discrimination stop them. I am not saying there is no discrimination. But I think it is not an important factor. Other communities also face discrimination. South Indians, Sikhs, Northeastern tribals etc..
I am born and brought up in Chennai. There are educated Muslims in my neighbhorhood and even the Hindu youth look up to them. As a Hindu Indian I want Indian Muslims to be as educated as Hindus. If that 13% of the Indian population becomes educated then Bharat will become unstoppable and the world will tremble. Jai Hind!
Naseer
Stop being jingoitic and talk facts.
Find out if there is real job discrimination in private or public sector. Start with finding out how many qualified Muslims apply, then find how many make the grade and then find how many finally get admitted. Start off with the MNCs that claim to be an equal opportunity employer. Then if you find discrimination, sue the hell out these firms by through litigation. It is very easy to claim discrimination when you cannot perform.
SC/ST reservations are given to those that are historically disadvantaged, not those who “attained” backwardness. Its a tragedy of our country that instead of trying to progress, people compete to establish backwardness. Having said that SC/STs among Muslims should be identified and deserve help. But I can say for sure that the institutions I have attended were not discriminatory and still did not have the fair share of muslims though there was more than proportionate representation of Sikhs, Christians. This after having some senior founding faculty that were muslims.
Anyways on this very site I have heard that liberal progressive Muslims are called “Not Muslim” enough. Osama/Saddam are a bigger role model even among the masses of the Indian Muslims – after all his photos are used by politicians during elections. How come images of President Abdul Kalam do not attract votes?
@Sudie,
Whether the Muslims lived in backwardness, or attained backwardness is a debatable issue. However, their backwardness is not – it is quite palpable.
I don’t know whether reservation is the solution. However, SOME solution has to be worked out, otherwise there will be so many people with potential who are not able to realize their potential.
Discrimination will always exist as it is in human mentality. I am a refugee or sometimes delhi wala in Mumbai. A Northy in South. A Pandit in UP,Bihar. Bada sahab in jharkhand. Delhi again in north east. I am a kashmiri pandit who is told that I am a communalist because my relatives and families were butchered in Kashmir. I am a casteist because I want caste system to be dissolved. I am a fundamentalist because I want Hinduism and its tolerant principles to grow. I am from chambal because i answer foolish answers to some foolish conspiracies. Ahhh and finally I spill venom if I tell my Muslim brothers that their 99% ills are because of their semi baked stories, foolish conspiracies and models like Osama. But hold on Gujarat is coming as if I caused it and as if its the only thing happened on mother earth.
My personal opinion is that Muslims should come out and beware of the votebank politics which has been involved in this nation.
Mahesh,
I always praise people like you who admit things on face. Brave man you are.
Yes, I am sure, you did not cause gujrat but some one did and they are very evil.