Re: Should India welcome all Pakistani minorities who want to leave Pakistan?
Persistent exclusion of Muslims in India | Analysis | Human rights
The Planning Commission’s India* Human Development Report 2011*, which came out recently, focuses on SC/STs and Muslims. But the report has not looked at social development holistically; rather it has focused on a few indicators like income poverty, education, employment, health and infrastructure, giving us only a partial picture of the status of these excluded communities. The findings can, however, be used to assess the quantitative impact of various flagship programmes meant for excluded groups.
As regards Muslims, though the report shows improvement on a few indicators, the increase has been marginal and rate of growth still much lower than for SC/STs. The situation is more or less the same as that articulated by the Sachar Committee report. There is a high concentration of Muslims in urban areas, making the incidence of poverty more visible there. According to the report, in 2007-08, 23.7% of Muslims in urban areas and 13.3% in rural areas, were poor. Compared to SC/STs and other social and religious groups, urban poverty is highest amongst Muslims, and rural poverty amongst Muslims is also higher than that of other religious groups and other backward classes (OBCs).
The rate of decline in poverty has also been the slowest among the Muslim community (from 1993-4 to 2007-8): urban poverty has only declined 1.7 points, whereas for the SC/ST community urban poverty has declined by 28.2 points and 19.5 points respectively.
We see a similar trend with literacy figures when we compare 2004-5 with the 2007-8 reference period of the report. Urban literacy in general (from 1999-2000 to 2007-8) has increased from 69.8% to 75.1% and rural literacy from 52.1% to 63.5%. However, if we compare the rate of increase of literacy amongst Muslims with other social and religious groups, it is the lowest. Urban literacy in the SC group has increased by 8.7 points and among the ST group by 8 points. Among Muslims, it has increased only by 5.3 points.
Likewise health indicators: the decrease in the under-5 mortality rate for Muslims between 1998-9 and 2005-6 is 12.7 points whereas it is 31.2 for SCs and 30.9 for STs.
Such a gap in the rate of decrease in poverty, illiteracy, infant mortality rate (IMR), etc, when compared to other social and religious groups, reiterates the Sachar Committee’s findings that the socio-economic status of the Muslim community is not improving at the same rate as other social and religious groups.
The Sachar Committee report of 2006 was the first of its kind with reference to the Muslim community. It revealed the extreme deprivation of Muslims in India and the low status the community has been relegated to, coupled with other exclusionary **situations of violence, insecurity, identity crisis, discrimination in the public sphere, suspicion from other communities, and being branded ‘unpatriotic’. **
Let us revisit the major findings of the Sachar Committee report – Muslims record the second highest incidence of poverty, with 31% of people below the poverty line, following SC/STs who are the most poor with a Head Count Ratio (HCR) of 35%. Not only was the literacy rate for Muslims far below the national average in 2001 but the rate of decline in illiteracy has also been much lower than among SC/STs. According to the Sachar Committee’s findings, 25% of Muslim children in the 6-14 age-group either never went to school or else dropped out at some stage.
**In no state of the country is the level of Muslim employment proportionate to their percentage in the population **-- in West Bengal where Muslims constitute 25% of the population, the representation in government jobs is as low as 4%. Not only do Muslims have a considerably lower representation in government jobs, including in public sector undertakings, compared to other excluded groups, Muslim participation in professional and management cadres in the private sector is also low. Their participation in security-related activities (for example in the police) is considerably lower than their population share at 4% overall. Other figures on Muslim representation in civil services, state public service commissions, railways, department of education, etc, are equally appalling.
A report by the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission, which came out in 2007, further emphasised the deplorable condition of Muslims on socio-economic indicators and strengthened the findings, arguments and recommendations of the Sachar Committee report.
** These statistics show that Muslims have been denied equal participation in the development process (evident from poverty and discrimination indicators), have been denied fair and equal access to justice in the case of both targeted violence during communal riots as well as day-to-day identity-based discriminatory practices in accessing rights and entitlements.**
In this scenario, it is important to reflect on the response of the Indian state in addressing the exclusion and whether the human rights of this group are being protected within a strong policy and legal framework. It is also important to reflect on how Muslims use the democratic space being provided to India’s citizens by the Constitution to articulate their demands and defend their human rights.
Government’s response to socio-economic indicators for Muslims
1 Exclusion from development schemes and non-implementation of policy suggestions
Following the Sachar Committee report, the government launched its flagship programme – the Multi-Sectoral Development Programme (MSDP) – in 2008, aimed at upgrading infrastructure in 90 minority concentration districts (MCDs) spread over 20 states of India (1) where minorities comprise 25% or more of the population. These 90 MCDs have been identified throughout the country and are relatively backward, falling behind the national average in terms of indicators for socio-economic and basic amenities. Under the MSDP, district-specific plans focus on provision of better infrastructure for schools and secondary education, sanitation, pucca housing, drinking water and electric supply, besides beneficiary-oriented schemes to create income-generating activities.
**The exclusion of Muslims is evident in the planning, design and implementation of the Multi-Sectoral Development Programme. **The government has failed to make Muslims a target group and brought the scheme in under the larger umbrella of “minorities”, despite the findings and recommendations of the Sachar Committee report that the Muslim community needed targeted interventions to bring it socially and economically on a par with the mainstream…
Very secular indeed.
