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Where is Islam in Islamic Republic of Pakistan?

That is incorrect. Pakistan's population has grown in these past 10 years. There are 184 million people in Pakistan now (97% of the population is Muslim). There are 1.2 billion people in India now (13.5% of the population is Muslim). You do the math.

India’s Muslim Population

Although home to a Hindu majority, India has a Muslim population of some 150 million, making it the state with the second-largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia. While many Indian Muslims achieve celebrity status and high-profile positions abroad and in India’s government—the current president is Muslim—India’s booming economy has left the nation’s largest minority group lagging behind. Muslims experience low literacy and high poverty rates, and Hindu-Muslim violence has claimed a disproportionate number of Muslim lives. Yet Muslims can impact elections, using their power as a voting bloc to gain concessions from the candidates who court them.

Are Muslims marginalized in India?

Yes. The Muslim literacy rate ranks well below the national average and Muslim poverty rates are only slightly higher than low-caste Hindus, according to a November 2006 government report (PDF). Muslims—mostly Sunnis—make up 13.4 percent of India’s population, yet hold fewer than 5 percent of government posts and make up only 4 percent of the undergraduate student body in India’s elite universities. The report also found that Muslims fall behind other groups in terms of access to credit, despite the fact that Muslims are self-employed at a far higher rate than other groups.

Are Muslims disadvantaged to the same degree across India?

No. Muslims in southern and western India tend to be better off than in the north. Historically, wealthier Muslims lived in western and southern states, while many of their counterparts in the north left for Pakistan during the 1947 partition of India. Also, Muslims in rural areas are less poor than in urban areas, where their poverty rate of 38 percent is higher than any other population’s, including low-caste Hindus. Although no Muslim caste system exists, three groups of Indian Muslims—ashraf, ajlaf, and arzal—essentially function as such. The ashrafs are upper-class Muslims thought to be of Arab ancestry, while the ajlafs tend to be considered Hindus who converted to Islam to escape India’s caste system. A third group, the arzals, correlates to the lowest caste of Hindus.

Has the Indian government tried to address the marginalization of Indian Muslims?


To some degree. Although India’s secular democracy does not allow special privilege based on religion, there are quotas for parliamentary, civil service, and assembly seats for members of lower, underrepresented castes. In some cases, Muslims gain positions by virtue of socioeconomic status through this system, known as “reservations.” Reservations have been a source of controversy, with some saying the system denies jobs to qualified applicants while supporters argue it ensures diversity as well as opportunities to members excluded based on social status.
The government also releases reports acknowledging disadvantages faced by Muslims and making recommendations. The Sachar Report (PDF), conducted by a high-level committee nominated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and concluded in November 2006, serves as a recent example. It provided exhaustive research on Muslim socioeconomic conditions, and made a wide range of proposals, from evaluating textbooks to ensure they promote religious tolerance to recognizing degrees from madrassas to combating Muslim unemployment rates.
But experts wonder if the report, like previous studies, will result in far-reaching changes. “The conclusions aren’t very revolutionary and I wouldn’t expect much in the way of policy change from it,” says Steven Wilkinson, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago whose research focuses on ethnic politics in India. Wilkinson says the report builds on previously available data, fails to offer clear analysis about the nature of Muslim marginalization, and leaves in question whether solutions should focus on Muslims or general public poverty alleviation.
Hindu nationalists—represented by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—also criticized the report, and accused the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition of publishing it to gain political support from the Muslim voting bloc. One BJP leader denied Muslims had ever faced discrimination inIndia and called the study “distorted, politically-motivated, and dangerous” (Hindu).

What role do Indian Muslims play in India’s politics?


Like large minority groups in democracies elsewhere, Muslims can serve as a crucial voting bloc in India. Wilkinson says that greater division among Hindu voters in southern states “made Muslims a pivotal swing group in the south very early on.” For decades, India’s National Congress party, running on a secular platform, won elections with the help of the Muslim vote. But waning Muslim support for the party, along with a plethora of choices (there are some 170 political parties in India) contributed to the party’s loss of power to the BJP in the 1990s.

How has the Hindu nationalist movement affected Indian Muslims?

Anti-Muslim sentiment has also been used to win votes. For Hindu nationalists, who warn of a threat to India’s Hindu heritage, religion serves as a rallying cry to gain support. Their movement is “at the core very anti-Muslim,” says Ashutosh Varshney, an expert on Indian ethnic conflict at the University of Michigan. Hindu nationalists stoke fears, arguing that Muslims’ higher birth rate and an influx of migrants from Bangladesh threaten India’s Hindu majority. Hard-line Hindu nationalists argue Indian Muslims (as well as Christians) converted from Hinduism and should reconvert to the majority religion.
Although Hindu nationalists played a minority role in India’s parliament in the decades after independence, they drew popular support and experienced rising popularity after the 1980 establishment of the BJP. The BJP, a socially conservative party which has moved toward a more secular platform in recent years, held a parliamentary majority from 1998 through 2004. Candidates for the BJP, now the nation’s main opposition party, have sought to win votes by opposing government benefits for Muslims and proposing to build a temple on the site of a former mosque in Ayodhya, a city in India’s most populous and politically important state of Uttar Pradesh.
In recent years, infighting among Hindu nationalist organizations and lost elections have weakened the movement’s political strength. “The more Hindu nationalism wanes, the better Hindu-Muslim relations will be,” says Varshney. “But I don’t think we can rule out the return of Hindu nationalists to power in Delhi.”

Have there been problems with violence between Hindus and Muslims?

Yes. Communal violence has flared up between the two religious groups since before partition. In recent decades, the proposal to build a temple in Ayodhya repeatedly set off interethnic violence. Hindus and Muslims dispute whether the sixteenth-century Babri Mosque was built on the site of a Hindu temple. In 1992, Hindu militants destroyed the mosque during a rally led by right-wing political parties. Three thousand people died in ensuing riots. In February 2002, a fire broke out on a train carrying members of Hindu nationalist party Vishva Hindu Parishad from Ayodhya. Hindus accused Muslims of setting the blaze and riots broke out across the country. In the following months, the communal violence broke out claimed two thousand, mostly Muslim lives, according to a Congressional Research Service report (PDF). The report also notes widespread allegations of “state government complicity in anti-Muslim attacks” in the BJP-led state.
Varshney calls the 2002 violence in Gujarat India’s “first full-blooded pogrom” because clashes went unchecked by India’s central government. “The national government [then under BJP control] did not fire the BJP state government. The state government actually used the power of its patrons in Delhi,” he says. He argues that western Indian cities, where Muslim populations are segregated from Hindus and ghettoized to a greater degree, are more prone to interethnic violence.



I hope that clears up your ambiguity regarding the muslim population in india and their current status. Pakistan was ideally created to be a muslim majority state.

Regards,

SOURCE:http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...t+Muslim+population"&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=as
 
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The post was sourced from cfr.org.

About CFR

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher.



PS: I edited to post source.


Thank you.
 
"Fatima Jinnah was the sister of Mohammad Ali Jinnah."

You are correct and I have already been corrected on this statement and have amended my previous posting to reflect the correction and to thank the polite manner in which I was corrected.

Fatima Jinnah was the younger sister of Mr. Jinnah. When I knew her in 1963-65 she did not look old to me, and I was in my early 20s at that time. Have you ever met her, or are you relying on a black and white photo for your opinion?

Regarding Muslim worldwide populations by nation, the 2011 WORLD ALMANAC published by the New York Times on page 706:

WORLD'S LARGEST MUSLIM POPULATIONS IN 2009:

1. INDONESIA = 202,867,000
2. PAKISTAN = 174,082,000
3. INDIA = 160,945,000
4. BANGLADESH = 145,312,000

At issue since 2009 is the rate of new births. IF I use the same source, 2011 WORLD ALMANAC and it's tables of projected populations, these standings or rankings would remain ranked the same, ie, Indonesia will remain the largest Muslim population nation in the world.
 
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The article is from June 22, 2007. Today is January 3, 2011.

The reason why india had more Muslims than Pakistan 5 years ago is because Pakistan's total population was only 160 million while India's total population was more than 1.2 billion.

Today, Pakistan's total population is 184 million. Pakistan has more Muslims than India in percentage and in number.


http://www.defence.pk/forums/curren...kistans-population-has-grown-184-million.html
 
The article is from June 22, 2007. Today is January 3, 2011.

The reason why india had more Muslims than Pakistan 5 years ago is because Pakistan's total population was only 160 million while India's total population was more than 1.2 billion.

Today, Pakistan's total population is 184 million. Pakistan has more Muslims than India in percentage and in number.


http://www.defence.pk/forums/curren...kistans-population-has-grown-184-million.html


I'm sorry for posting an obsolete article. Please accept my apologies.
 
"Fatima Jinnah was the sister of Mohammad Ali Jinnah."

You are correct and I have already been corrected on this statement and have amended my previous posting to reflect the correction and to thank the polite manner in which I was corrected.

Fatima Jinnah was the younger sister of Mr. Jinnah. When I knew her in 1963-65 she did not look old to me, and I was in my early 20s at that time. Have you every met her, or are you relying on a black and white photo for your opinion?

Regarding Muslim worldwide populations by nation, the 2011 WORLD ALMANAC published by the New York Times on page 706:

WORLD'S LARGEST MUSLIM POPULATIONS IN 2009:

1. INDONESIA = 202,867,000
2. PAKISTAN = 174,082,000
3. INDIA = 160,945,000
4. BANGLADESH = 145,312,000

At issue since 2009 is the rate of new births. IF I use the same source, 2011 WORLD ALMANAC and it's tables of projected populations, these standings or rankings would remain ranked the same, ie, Indonesia will remain the largest Muslim population nation in the world.

If you really met her as you say then you are very lucky. No I never met her, not even my parents were born at the time of independence of Pakistan. Not even my grandparents ever met the Jinnah family, but they were strong supporters of the Pakistan movement.
 
And again i am least bothered about others what they may think if i am to practice islam.

If Islam did not allow us to give hidayat to fellow muslims then i would be least bothered about this topic.

Do you not see the inherent contradiction in these two statements?

You want to live life according to your interpretation of Islam, but you also want to give hidayat to others who are on the wrong path (according to you).

This is a recipe for civil war.
 
yup there is no islam in pakistan.

we are more concerned about cutting hands etc which are only of secondary relevance and obviously conditional upon your circumstances etc.

one thing which is not conditional and can be implemented by anyone is equality, justice and freedom which is what islam teaches and Jinnah wanted............. yet we do not seem to care about this in our Islamic Republic

sad indeed!
 
yup there is no islam in pakistan.

we are more concerned about cutting hands etc which are only of secondary relevance and obviously conditional upon your circumstances etc.

one thing which is not conditional and can be implemented by anyone is equality, justice and freedom which is what islam teaches and Jinnah wanted............. yet we do not seem to care about this in our Islamic Republic

sad indeed!

Jaahil molvi's will keep playing with the mind of Muslims in Pak have you ever seen two mosque's facing each other?
Yes in khi one colored Green n one whole white now a person going to pray thinks several times am i Wahabi? am i Sunni? am i Shia? which Mosque suits me? We got processions for everything Rabi Ul Awwall Muharram etc why do u need to do this?
The fact is Molvi's are harming Pakistan more than anything
 
Are Muslims marginalized in India?

Yes. The Muslim literacy rate ranks well below the national average and Muslim poverty rates are only slightly higher than low-caste Hindus, according to a November 2006 government report (PDF). Muslims—mostly Sunnis—make up 13.4 percent of India’s population, yet hold fewer than 5 percent of government posts and make up only 4 percent of the undergraduate student body in India’s elite universities. The report also found that Muslims fall behind other groups in terms of access to credit, despite the fact that Muslims are self-employed at a far higher rate than other groups.

This has more to do with the fact that Muslims are more conservative than about Marginalisation by the Hindus. If marginalisation of the minorities is a true fact, then pray tell me how come Sikhs,Jains and Parsis being minorities are the wealthiest and the most developed communities in India. A bit of inward-looking would help here rather than blaming the majority for their plight.

Most dont send female children to school, many send boys to madarrsas, even educated women are not allowed to go to work. Then how come they will develop ?
 
yup there is no islam in pakistan.

we are more concerned about cutting hands etc which are only of secondary relevance and obviously conditional upon your circumstances etc.

one thing which is not conditional and can be implemented by anyone is equality, justice and freedom which is what islam teaches and Jinnah wanted............. yet we do not seem to care about this in our Islamic Republic

sad indeed!


This is one of many dilemmas we are facing.

1: We argue on the very reason of the creation of Pakistan
2: We argue on our national character
3: we have issues with our national identity and system of governance.

Unity , Faith , Discipline at this stage seem like a distant dream which is sad and heartbreaking.
 
Do you not see the inherent contradiction in these two statements?

You want to live life according to your interpretation of Islam, but you also want to give hidayat to others who are on the wrong path (according to you).

This is a recipe for civil war.

Not contradiction or civil war... The brother is only saying that he wants to discuss issues with Muslims so that their imaan becomes stronger and they take an interest in our beautiful deen... this is how I would interpret it...
 
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