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Yes Muslims are forward looking and workd for Indian progress but India is giving them this
Milli Gazette ??? some people cant grow up ...
Slum dwellers have same life wether he is muslim , hindu or christian ..
but noo communal ignorants will have communal perception[/QUOTE]
Aww lets see the Indian source rather own Indian finding
The reality of exclusion and discrimination can
no longer be denied. But the remedy requires
political courage on the part of the Manmohan
Singh Government and wisdom on the part of those
claiming to speak for Muslims.
Siddharth Varadarajan
WHEN THE Justice Rajinder Sachar committee
submits its report on the socio-economic status
of Muslims, the full extent of the community's
exclusion will be obvious to all. Especially
those who have made political careers out of the
canard that Muslims in India enjoy special
privileges and have been "appeased."
Based on the data leaked so far, it is evident
there are entry barriers Muslims * who account
for 17 per cent of India's population * are
unable to cross in virtually all walks of life.
From the administration and the police to the
judiciary and the private sector, the invisible
hands of prejudice, economic and educational
inequality seem to have frozen the `quota' for
Muslims at three to five per cent. Thanks to a
hysterical campaign run by the Bharatiya Janata
Party and some media houses, the Sachar committee
was denied data on the presence of Muslims in the
armed forces. But even there it is apparent that
the three per cent formula applies.
This gross under-presence of Muslims in virtually
every sector is presaged by substantial
inequalities in education. Muslim enrolment and
retention rates at the primary and secondary
levels are lower than the national average and
this further magnifies existing inequalities at
the college level as well as in the labour
market. For virtually every socio-economic marker
of well being, the Muslim is well below the
national norm * not to speak of the level
commensurate with her or his share of the
national population * and the evidence suggests
these inequalities are not decreasing over time.
This bleak statistical picture is rendered
drearier still by new trends visible in many
cities. Muslims, for example, find it extremely
difficult to rent and buy property outside of
"Muslim areas" in some metros. Apart from several
journalists, I even know of one former Muslim
Union Minister in Delhi whose Hindu colleagues
had to intercede to find him a flat. In Mumbai,
the situation is perhaps worse. Many Muslim
businessmen have problems accessing credit,
besides having to run the gamut of uncooperative
officials who look upon them with suspicion at
every turn. Even in politics, as Iqbal A.
Ansari's recent book, Political Representation of
Muslims in India, 1952-2004, has shown, Muslims
have consistently been under-represented in the
Lok Sabha and all State Assemblies since
Independence except Kerala. Only half as many
Muslim MPs and MLAs get elected as one might
expect based on their population share. In the
absence of our political parties throwing up a
large enough number of Muslim elected
representatives, clerics and obscurantists are
only too willing to step into the breach.
The `war on terrorism' has added a new layer to
this already intolerable situation as policemen
across the country give free vent to their
ignorance and religious prejudice. The tendency
of law enforcement agencies to target Muslims
during incidents of communal violence is well
known. The complicity of the police in the
Gujarat pogrom of 2002 was reprehensible but not
so different from what the country witnessed at
other times in other places. As for legal
redress, neither government nor judiciary shows
any sense of urgency. Terrorist crimes such as
the Mumbai blasts are prosecuted energetically
and this is a good thing. But no one is able to
explain what happened to the cases stemming from
the killing of Muslims in Mumbai in 1992 and 1993
nor why the Srikrishna Commission recommendations
against erring policemen remain unimplemented.
The media are a corrective but only to a limited
extent. If one section has sought to highlight
the plight of Indian Muslims, another section is
constantly ready to inflame prejudice by staging
debates on irrelevant issues, giving undue
prominence to ridiculous statements by
unrepresentative `Muslim leaders' or broadcasting
marital disputes within Muslim families (as one
channel did last week) as proof of `Muslim backwardness.'
In the U.S., the old journalistic adage was `Jews
is News'. In India, it seems, anything that shows
Muslims as ignorant or fanatical helps propel TRP
ratings, while rational comment is frowned upon
as unhelpful. A Muslim MP was asked recently to
take part in a TV debate on whether there should
be reservation for Muslims. He agreed, but added
that he would argue against it. The channel's
reporter then tried convincing him that "surely
your community needs reservation." When he didn't
agree, the channel lost interest in putting him
on air. One studio guest recently advised Muslims
to shed their `persecution complex' and to not
forget that theirs were the "hands that built the
Taj Mahal." Though no one would dare accuse
Dalits of "doing nothing" to uplift themselves,
Muslims are blamed for their poverty and poor
education. They are gratuitously advised to study
hard, as if the problem of lack of schools,
delinquent teachers, inadequate books, and
poverty can be remedied by will power alone.
The reservation trap
It is against the backdrop of this highly
vitiated atmosphere that the Manmohan Singh
Government must formulate a response to the
Sachar committee's findings. The reality of
systemic inequality cannot be wished away and the
Government must find the political courage to
confront this situation head on. So serious are
the implications of Muslim marginalisation that
the Congress must open a channel of communication
with other parties, including the BJP, to evolve
a consensus on the necessity for urgent corrective measures.
Among the remedial measures to be considered, the
least helpful in substantive as well as political
terms will be reservation. Whatever they do,
Muslim leaders and those who claim to speak in
favour of Muslims, must avoid the trap that the
demand for reservation is. Sixty years of
affirmative action have led to some improvements
for Dalits and Tribals but it is clear that the
country and its rulers have used the sop of
reservation as an excuse to do nothing about the
persistent, underlying causes of caste-based inequality.
It is now universally recognised that the pursuit
of "equality of outcomes" and "equality of
opportunity" must go hand in hand. Even equality
of opportunity has a formal and a substantive
aspect. `Formal' equality means ending
discrimination on the basis of caste, religion or
gender. `Substantive' equality means overcoming
the barriers (or benefits) children of equal
native talent inherit from their parents so that
none is advantaged or disadvantaged by birth. The
India state pays lip service to the idea of
equality of outcomes (through quotas) but
completely ignores the necessity of crafting
expenditure policies that can provide equality of
opportunity. Nowhere is this more glaring than in
the field of education where the increased
notional access of Dalits and Tribals to
university is undercut by high dropout rates and
underperformance at the school level.
In a 2000 paper, Julian Betts and John Roemer
model the amount of differential expenditure the
United States government would have to make to
provide equality of opportunity to its citizens.
In a typology where they define four categories
of males based on whether they are White or Black
and whether their parents have `High' or `Low'
education levels, Betts and Roemer conclude that
the `equality of opportunity' expenditure on
education must be nine times higher for members
of the `Low Black' group than the `High Whites'.
They also found that the `High Black,' `Low
Black,' and `Low White' groups must all receive
more than their per capita share of educational
resources if equality of opportunity were to be guaranteed.
Both in the U.S. and in India today, the actual
allocation of educational resources is regressive
in that those who are affluent and socially
privileged corner a greater share of social
allocations for education than their relative
size in the population. In reality, then,
existing affirmative action * or reservation * is
for the privileged and the goal of public policy
has to be to reverse that by using the target of
public expenditure. An important finding in Betts
and Roemer's work is that economic targeting
alone won't alter the relative distribution of
income across cohorts. The targeting has to be
aimed at the discriminated or excluded cohort.
In India, the first task of the government must
be to guarantee formal equality of opportunity by
dealing firmly with discrimination in the labour,
housing and credit markets as well as educational
system. Without instituting a system of
reservation * which would generate more political
heat than tangible benefit for Muslims * the
Government must send out a clear and unambiguous
message that the social cohesiveness and future
growth prospects of the country require
government departments and private firms to
encourage the recruitment of Muslims. But in
order to generate substantive equality of
opportunity and uproot inequality and exclusion
from their roots, the government has to guarantee
better access to education at every level for
Muslims, Dalits, Tribals, and OBCs.
All of this is only a first approximation and
much more will need to be done. What is
important, however, is that we recognise both the
reality of Muslim exclusion and the urgent need to do something about it.
Coming to terms with India's missing Muslims(fwd): msg#00009
I guess i dont need to highlight more
