Every Eighth Indian

As per an Economic and Political Weekly article written by Abusaleh Shariff in 1995 — it has been reprinted by the NCAER as part of the current Muslim community study — a substantial 35 per cent of rural Muslims are landless while only 28 per cent of Hindus are.

At the other end of the scale, large land holdings are decidedly a non-Muslim preserve. Twenty per cent of Hindus own five acres or more of land, while only 10 per cent of Muslims do so.

NCAER data tells the nuts-and-bolts story. Fifty-five per cent of India’s Hindus live in kuchha houses but 65.9 per cent of Muslims do, 43.2 per cent of Hindus have access to electricity but only 30 per cent of Muslims do, 25.3 per cent of Hindus get piped water but just 19.4 per cent of Muslims do.

Look at NCAER’s disaggregated data for the five states that collectively account for 64 per cent of Muslim India. It is only in Karnataka that Muslims have a slight advantage over Hindus in terms of electricity and piped water consumption.

That aside, you have oddballs Bihar (11.2 per cent to 2.6 per cent) and West Bengal (15.1 per cent to 7.1 per cent) as two states where Muslim access to piped water is far greater than Hindu access. Other indices, across states, indicate relative Hindu prosperity.

How does the Muslim — indeed, how does anyone — get himself out of his present mess? By investing in the future, you’d say, by spending on education, increasing household income, empowering women. Is this happening?

Annual expenditure on education for an Indian is Rs 680. For Hindus it is Rs 667, for Muslims Rs 625. There is a deceptive sameness to these numbers.

Consider Uttar Pradesh, heartland of India, home to 17 per cent of its people, 40 per cent of them living in poverty. Here average annual expenditure on education is Rs 689. For Hindus it is Rs 705, for Muslims Rs 552.

In West Bengal, the Hindu spends Rs 594 a year on education, the Muslim, one quarter of the state, Rs 419. Only in Bihar among the big population states does annual per capita Muslim expenditure on education, at Rs 734, comprehensively outscore the Hindu figure of Rs 676.

Expense is, of course, a function of income. Income, in turn, depends on the ability to earn. In India, as per the NCAER HDR, 37.6 per cent of all adults — 35.3 per cent of all males and 42.8 per cent of all females — are wage-earners.

While Hindu figures are slightly above the national average, Muslim ones are way down. Only 31.4 per cent of all Muslim adults are wage earners; for adult women the figure is a low 26.4 per cent.

The lot of the female Muslim is one community leaders would do well to ponder. If they were to go by NSS 1987-88 data, they would find that in the five-nine years category, 32.8 per cent of Muslim girls go to school, a figure that drops to a chilling 8.8 per cent in the 15-19 years — or senior school — category.

The corresponding Hindu numbers — 40.6 per cent and 12.6 per cent — aren’t exactly exemplary. Yet, even by Indian standards of gender inequality, the Muslim girl child lives a bleak life. Keeping her at home, India can’t get ahead in the world.

No white collars for me

IN the absence of affirmative action or tax incentives for recruitment that reflects social diversity, the Muslim job-seeker is left to his own devices.

It is no surprise then that a majority (53.4 per cent) of working urban Muslims are self-employed. The figure for Hindus is just 35.6 per cent. The other half of the story comes from organised sector employment. While 46.7 per cent of urban Hindus are wage/salary earners, only 28.9 per cent of Muslims are. In contrast, 56.1 per cent of Christians are part of the salariat.

In rural areas, the loose social stereotype that agriculture is somehow ‘Hindu’ and non-agricultural trades relatively ‘Muslim’ finds attestation. While 43.9 per cent of rural Hindus are involved in farming — the figure going up to 72.2 per cent when you factor in agricultural labour — only 36.3 per cent of Muslims are.

When it comes to non-agricultural jobs in the Indian village, Muslims constitute the single largest group. If 21.2 per cent of Muslims are employed thus, only 11.7 per cent of Hindus are.

Some such professions — those of weavers and blacksmiths, for example — have been historically associated with caste groups that converted to Islam. Yet the underlying theme is one of Muslim alienation from land.

A corollary follows: Are Muslims poorer than non-Muslims? A 1993-94 NCAER survey that draws from five states (Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Kerala and Karnataka) — together, 64 per cent of India’s Muslim population —provides a clue.

The average household income in India is Rs 25,653 a year, NCAER says. For Hindus, the figure is Rs 25,713 and for Muslims, Rs 22,807. In the five sample states, the income advantage for Hindu households persists.

There is one exception, Kerala. At Rs 29,991, Kerala’s Muslim households are better off than Hindu ones (Rs 26,344). Yet here too if you compute per capita income, Muslims (Rs 3,826) are worsted by Hindus (Rs 4,235).

As in other fields, Bihar is Kerala’s antithesis. It is the only state in the sample five, where Muslim per capital income (Rs 3,479) is higher than Hindu per capita income (Rs 3,276).

Yet even here household income for Hindus, at Rs 22,812, is higher than than for Muslims, at Rs 21,369. In Bihar, Hindu and Muslim, compete for poverty.

Learning the hard way

ACCORDING to the India Human Development Report (NCAER, 1999), 53.5 per cent of all Indians — or 65.6 per cent of the men and 40.1 per cent of the women — are literate. Literacy among Hindus is 53.3 per cent, among Christians 80.8 per cent but among Muslims a low 49.4 per cent. If two of every five Indian women are literate, only one of every three Muslim women is.

The discrepancies are not recent. Going back to the National Sample Survey Organisation’s data of 1987-88, male literacy for rural Muslims, one finds, is 41.8 per cent and for rural Hindus 48.7 per cent.

Urban differences are far sharper. If 25.3 per cent of city Hindu males were illiterate in 1987-88, the figure for Muslims was 42.4 per cent. If 42.2 per cent of city Hindu females were illiterate, as much as 59.5 per cent of urban Muslim women couldn’t read and write.

The literacy of women is a reasonable barometer by which to judge a community’s development. Muslims lagged Hindus on this score in regions as far apart as urban Maharashtra (43.8 per cent illiteracy versus 28.1 per cent) and rural Assam (74.7 per cent versus 57.8 per cent).

A government report on minority uplift in 1983 made a crucial point: ‘‘At the elementary level the participation of Muslims in schooling is closer to their proportion of the population, however, this decreases at the higher level of schooling as well as for professional courses.’’ That year, 13.44 lakh pupils took the class X examination in India; only 0.54 lakh or four per cent were Muslims. This, when the community comprised 12 per cent of the population.

Some argue the problem lies with the community’s desire to ‘‘opt out’’ from the ‘‘mainstream’’. NCAER data would, superficially, bear this out. Just over 70 per cent of Hindu children in the age group 6-14 go to government schools but only 49.5 per cent Muslim children do.

This leads to the next popular assumption, that Muslims prefer education in community institutions, run for and by themselves. Here, too, statistics paint a piquant picture. Even in Muslim-managed educational centres, Azra Razzack and Anil Gomber write in their paper Case for Empowerment of Muslims, the number of non-Muslim students rises as you go up the, well, learning curve (see case studies below).

At the primary level, the number of non-Muslims in a Muslim-run school is 3.7 per cent. By middle school, it has gone up to 15.1 per cent, by high school to 36.7 per cent. In colleges run by Muslim trusts, the community finds itself in a minority: a massive 59 per cent of the students are non-Muslim.

So, is the problem historical? Yes and no. It is no secret that Muslims did not take to western-style education with the alacrity of Hindus. In 1871-72, a survey carried out in Madras, Bombay, Bengal and Assam, North-west Province, Oudh and Punjab revealed just how far behind the community was.

Muslims made up 22.8 per cent of the overall population but only 14.6 per cent of the school-going population. Even in Punjab, where Muslims were in a majority (51.6 per cent), barely a third (34.3 per cent) of schoolchildren were from the community.

By 1931-32, the situation had improved dramatically. An expanded assessment of eight provinces pointed out that while Muslims made up 25.1 per cent of the total population, 27.6 per cent of schoolchildren were Muslim. In short, the community was a leader, not a laggard in accessing education.

In Bengal and Punjab, it made up over 50 per cent of both the overall and school populations. In the United Provinces (modern Uttar Pradesh), Muslims were 14.8 per cent of the total people but 18.6 per cent of children at school.

Sixteen years after that second, somewhat upbeat survey came Partition. The cream of India’s Muslims, the middle-class talent of Bengal, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh migrated. As the educational indices testify, the community has not recovered from the blow.

Studies for the hereafter

MOHAMMED WAJIHUDDIN

MUMBAI: TWENTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD Mohammed Sajid doesn’t present the image of the typical madrasa student. Dressed in expensive, starched silken kurta-pyjama and sporting a neatly trimmed beard, the son of a wealthy businessman from Palampur, Gujarat, confirms, ‘‘My father could have afforded to send me on a professional course. But main yahan akhrat kamane aya hoon (I am here to earn for the hereafter)’’.

Sajid is a student of almiyat (graduation) at Madrasa Dar ul Ulmoom Azizia, Mira Road. Seated in his small hostel room in the three-storey madrasa building, he admits that studying at the madrasa is a ‘‘luxury’’. For most of the 400-odd students at Madrasa Azizia, though, it’s a necessity, the only way out of illiteracy.

Starting with just five students in 1976, this Deobandi madrasa today pats itself on the back for producing an army of ulemas (religious scholars). ‘‘We provide food and accommodation to poor children who would have otherwise ended up in factories or powerlooms,’’ says Maulana Mazhar Alam Qasmi, the madrasa’s founder-secretary. ‘‘It’s a religious duty sanctified by the Koran and the sunnah (traditions of the Prophet).’’

But education comes here at a price — or with a reward, depending upon your viewpoint. From the time a child is admitted in buniyadi darjah (primary class) till he becomes a fazil (post-graduate), the 16 long years are spent in the study of the Koran, Hadith (sayings of the Prophet), Theology, Islamic Jurisprudence, Philosophy… and little else. Subjects like Maths, Science, History and English are wrapped up at the primary level.

Moazzam Ali Siddiqui, 20, studied upto the 9th standard in Madhubani, Bihar, before his father, a maulvi, admitted him here two years ago. Popular among his classmates because of his ‘‘acquired knowledge of English’’ (he buys an English eveninger thrice a week), Siddiqui is almost a misfit in an institution where most maulvis can’t write anything beyond their names in English. ‘‘I want to improve my English and join a computer course after I become an aalim,’’ he says, then waits for a moment before adding, ‘‘(but) where’s the time?’’

Almost isolated from the outside world and deprived of virtually all means of entertainment (no television, no sporting activities, not even a game of carrom), the boys follow a demanding routine: prayers, studies, homework. Zaheer Khan, 16, from Ahmedabad, watches television only ‘‘when I go home during vacations’’. He wants to liberate Bait-ul-Muqaddas (Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem) but hasn’t heard of Ariel Sharon. ‘‘Sharon kaun hai (Who is Sharon)?’’ he asks innocently.

Qasmi justifies the strict ban on ‘‘TV and outside literature’’ in the madrasa campus. ‘‘TV promotes immorality in society. Look at the women newsreaders. All are dolled up, aimed to draw male attraction,’’ Qasmi says. ‘‘We train the children to be purveyors of moral values and protectors of Islamic ethos.’’ But how does he make the children shut their eyes to the outside world? ‘‘Where do they have time to think of anything but their studies? It’s a training ground for the kamil insaan (complete man),’’ he rationalises.

But there are a few ‘‘clever’’ ones who flip through Hindi filmi magazines and sneak into cinemas. ‘‘The last film I saw was Koi Mil Gaya. I liked Hrithik Roshan,’’ says one boy, to the obvious amazement of his classmates.

Many of the students here are married; their wives live in their respective villages. Abdul Wahab, 20, from a village in Darbhanga, Bihar, tied the knot two years ago because ‘‘my parents wished it so’’. A student of almiyat, he will study for three more years before his hunt for a job begins. ‘‘I have not thought what I will do after I finish my studies. Perhaps I will teach somewhere,’’ he says, uncertainty writ large on his face.

Zaheer Khan, though, has no such doubts. Puffing his chest out with pride, he rubbishes all criticism with a couplet: ‘‘Hamein duniya se kya matlab madrasa hai watan mera/ marenge hum kitab-on par waraq hoga kafan mera (I don’t think of the world, madrasa is my country/I will die on books and the pages will be my shroud).’’

A minority univ? No way

NIRMALA GANAPATHY

NEW DELHI: THE first day of college is generally an unnerving experience for most. For Shamim Ahmed, straight from the rarefied atmosphere of a madrasa, it was like being catapulted into another world. A world that had boys and girls sharing a classroom, exchanging irreverent banter and approaching teachers informally.

Now in his second year at Jamia Millia Islamia, the History honours student has acclimatised to his surroundings. ‘‘I have retained what I learnt at the madrasas, and I am learning from my new life as well,’’ says Shamim. ‘‘(After all), I came here to study further and learn about the world.’’

Not everyone at his madrasa shared his curiosity. Only a handful of his classmates went in for higher studies; the rest either stayed on at the madrasa or started work. The trend is reflected in the composition of students at JMI: Of the 8,000 students, only 200 have madrasa roots. Significantly, JMI is one of the few universities in the country to recognise madrasa schooling.

Though the ratio seems alarmingly lopsided, professors say it is actually better than it used to be. ‘‘Jamia is trying to attract students from madrasas and take them towards a secular education,’’ says Akhtarul Wasey, director of the Zakir Husain Institute of Islamic studies at JMI. The university plans to introduce an English course for madrasa students to open new avenues for them. Competition for the 20-seat course is intense.

The reason is clear: Madrasa students usually go in for traditional courses like history, Islamic studies (90 per cent of the students for the course are Muslims), political science. ‘‘They can’t compete for the professional courses, or even science and language, because the madrasa syllabus does not provide them a grounding in these subjects,’’ says Omar Farooq, a research scholar at Jamia.

But the scenario is changing, surely if slowly. A madrasa student has joined the popular mass comm course. A few have taken up engineering after Plus-2 from a regular school.

And that is not the only statistic that is changing. Over the years, professors have noticed a significant drop in minority community students. ‘‘Initially, we had large numbers of Muslim students, but now the situation has changed,’’ says S M Sajid, media coordinator at Jamia.

It’s difficult to estimate how drastic the drop has been, but one can hazard a guess from the fact that Muslims account for 60 per cent of the students in traditional courses, and only 40 per cent in the professional courses. In mass comm, for instance, only 10 of the 35 students are Muslim.

That uniform decline

FORGET literacy rates, sex ratios and all the other niceties of development. In the end, it boils down to power. In a society such as India, the state is by miles the most powerful engine of the economy, of job dispersal, of patronage.

For all the talk of a Muslim votebank, the community has never pulled its weight in the Lok Sabha, sending a maximum of 49 members or 9.04 per cent in 1980. Whether it was 1952 (23 members out of 489) or 1996 (27 out of 543), it has comfortably made up less than five per cent of the Lower House.

Move to party structure. Quoting from the M K Siddiqui edited Muslims in Free India, the NCAER study details Muslim representation in central executive committees of political parties. In effect, it asks just how much Muslims matter in backroom leverage.

To take a random example, consider 1986, the year of the Shah Bano judgement, high point of ‘‘minority politics’’. Of the 19 Congress central executive members, two were Muslim at that stage. The CPI(M), with four out 65, did even worse. The example may be old, but it is not dated.

Outside of Parliament, India’s most cherished institution is perhaps the army. In 1947, 32 per cent of undivided India’s armed forces were Muslim. As then minister of state for defence Mahavir Tyagi admitted in 1953, the figure ‘‘has come down to two (per cent)’’.

Migration decimated Muslim presence in the army. The next 50 years didn’t mend matters. By 1999, former defence minister Mulayam Singh Yadav was to estimate — MIT sociologist Omar Khalidi quotes Yadav in his forthcoming Khaki and Ethnic Violence in India — that ‘‘just one per cent out of a total 1100,000 men-at-arms’’ were Muslim.

Move to the paramilitary. Khalidi cites a variety of reports to establish Muslim under-representation in the Assam Rifles (2.5 per cent), BSF (4.54 per cent), CISF (3.76 per cent), CRPF (5.5 per cent).

To the common man, the most visible face of the government is the policeman. The Indian Police Service, Khalidi’s research tells us, was 1.55 per cent Muslim between 1947-56. By 1965, the figure had risen to 3.58 per cent, oscillating in a narrow band to finally settle at 3.65 per cent in 2002.

In sum, one out of every eight Indians may be Muslim; but 26 of every 27 senior police officer are not.