the inconvenient truth

i may get a lot of hate mails for this...but have to write it..its a sensitive topic and people shouldnt get me wrong.i am not anti islam nor do i blame muslims for anything.infact one of best friends are muslims.but this is the truth and my intepretation about it...



It is almost one year that the Sachar Committee report has been published and created so much noise in and out of media. The seven member high level committee constituted by UPA government and headed by Mr. Rajinder Sachar gave a comprehensive and widely accepted report on the socio-economic and educational condition of India’s largest minority community i.e., Muslims. As was expected this report generated public debate but was unfortunately masked by that of Indo-US nuclear deal. It is an achievement of UPA government, which must be appreciated. But, what has it done since the report has been published?

Unfortunately, so far the government has failed materialize any of its recommendations as has been the case of many such reports. The report has been hailed by most of the parties except for Right wing BJP and its patron RSS, which labeled it as a yet another appeasement policy by the Congress Party.

The truth is Sachar Committee report is the first systematic study of Muslims in independent India. The committee mainly dealt with core issues related to security, equity and identity of Muslim community. It sought detailed presentations from 13 states across India about the perceptions about Muslims; the size and distribution of the population; indices of the community’s income, health, education, poverty, standards of living etc. The report concludes that the condition of Muslims is no better than that of OBC’s and not worse than SC’s and ST’s. To sum up; their overall socio-economic condition is abysmal when compare to majority population.

How severe is the contrast? In India Muslims constitute 13.4% of the total population, almost equal to total population of Pakistan. But read the following figures as reported by the committee. Only 4.9% are represented in government jobs, 3.2% in elite Civil Services, 3.4% of its population has completed graduation whereas it’s 15.9% for Hindus; its average literacy rate is 59% whereas national average is 64.5%. Other figures also speak of the same situation.

But the fundamental question is; why they are in so a pathetic condition?

Let us be prompt. We are fortunate to have a largely peaceful Muslims in India. Yes, there are unfortunate incidents in our national history, but there is always an unseen hand behind such perpetrations. Yes, they are always caught in many crimes, but the problem is socio-economic rather than religious. But see the other side of the story. Who is your favorite bollwood hero? Who’s your favorite musician? Who is your favorite cricketer? And favorite tennis star? Majority answer would point to a person for this community. How did these people achieve these things? Why then its large proportion suffers from social and economic illness.

Are Hindus responsible for Muslims’ sorry state of affairs? The answer is a big NO. Is there any instance of Hindu rulers ever humiliating or discriminating against Muslims prior to 1946? The fact is we were ruled by Muslim kingdoms from the time of Mahmud of Ghazni to Aurangazeb.

Even this assessment will not satisfy the question, as these rulers were mainly despots and cared little about their subjects.

The answer lies with the community itself; their culture, their practices, their social orientations, their inclination to segregate from the mainstream and to a large extent to their narrow outlook and over affinity to religion . This may seem little harsh but my personal experience may quell some skepticism.

The problem lies mainly with the rural Muslims. Who when not able to make living , migrate to cities and form large proportion of people dwelling in urban slums and pose newer problems there. The popular perception about Muslims is that they prefer madrassas to schools. But the fact is only 3 – 5 % of Muslims prefer that. Why then is their children are uneducated and illiterate?

I studied in a government aided school . I can hardly recall 6 or 7 Muslim students out of 400 plus in my school days. In fact we din’t have a single Muslim friend in my whole class. But how does it explain the core problem?
Yes, the answer lies here itself. My school, popularly called st.pius is one among hundred such schools in India. They are funded by maharastra state Govt and provide free and best education in India to students. I was one lucky among them. But why did my Muslim friends did not make it then? There was absolutely no discrimination against them anywhere. The school from which I passed was a modest school which took Rs-500 per year. I remember that some Muslim families spent double the money on Mutton and chicken per week but didn’t send their children to schools. If family was or is not inclined to educate their children, where it is easily accessible even to the poorest families, how come social and economic empowerment is possible?
Only good education can save them. It also applies to other sections of the society. Today their children are caught picking pockets, quarreling on the streets, committing petty crimes. Who is responsible for this?