Indian Muslims

Few days ago, I read an interview by Shabana Azmi in which she had criticized Indian politicians and said that “Indian Politics is unfair to Muslims”, had it been some extremist Islamic leader, some leader of any political outfit I wouldn’t have cared much but this is coming from the mouth of an educated lady who has been quite successful and has received adulation from all strata of society. This coupled with a remark a relative of mine made once about the status of Muslims in India wondering whether Muslims also need reservations made me think on the issue of Indian Muslims.

There have always been demands of giving special status and reservations to muslims and looking at the present situation, you can’t help thinking that something needs to be done to bring them out of the depths in which general muslim is living. If you look through the student list of any good institution in India, you will find only a handful of muslim names if by chance you find any. If we look at the 20%(unofficial figure)and 13%(census) population which is muslim there must be maximum 2% in good institute.

Even if you look at the stats then if the literacy is 65.1% for Hindus then it is 59.1% for muslims, only a difference of 6% but generally we tend to see muslims in the lower strata of society.  This question definitely puzzles me as to why Indian Muslims couldn’t progress much in life and there are not many of them who are there in academic field (ofcourse there are a few exceptions but they are one in a thousands if not lakhs).

One of the reason which SCs, STs give for their backwardness is that they were suppressed for centuries by the upper classes of society but this is certainly not the case with muslims, there have been quite a few muslim rulers in India and if we consider the fact that not all of them were quite secular and even if some were completely unbiased about religion then even they wouldn’t have made any policies which would have hurt the muslim junta.

People might want to point that there are points in Muslim religion which oppose things like family planning and also the point that some of them are still ignorant enough to make their children study in Madarsas, but then you can look at the example of the gulf nations and they would also be following these philosophies and still they are rich and about family planning. We can leave these examples as India as these countries are quite different but if you look at Hindus also, then a generation back (that is of our Grand Parents), they also didn’t give a shit about family planning, then how come Hindus are far far ahead in term of education, richness or overall lifestyle.

There has always been a discrimination and hatred amongst the two religions and people might want to say that this can be one of the reason as Hindus are already powerful and they don’t let muslims rise up the pedestal but even to this point there are counter points, first of all not all Hindus are like that and the second thing is if Hindus can progress under Muslim rulers, why can’t it be vice-versa?

It seems the 2% figure I stated could be an understatement but as this table which is a report by Sachar Committee shows that the number is about 5% which is still dismally low, in contrast Sikhs constitute only 2% of the population but generally you can see more Sikhs than muslims having influential positions.

Area	Muslim %
Total	4.9
PSUs	7.2
IAS,IFS & IPS	3.2
Railways	4.5
Judiciary	7.8
Health	4.4
Transport	6.5
Home Affairs	7.3
Education	6.5

All said and done about the situation, I still wouldn’t ever support any special treatment to them just because they didn’t have to suffer any atrocities or problems like for say SCs & STs for whom reservation is justified to an extent though the way it is implemented needs to be looked into. I personally feel that Indian Muslims themselves have been digging a hole while not being pressurized or anything so why should govt do anything special for them.

I am sorry if this post seems disturbing to some but just to assure you that I have no personal bias against any Muslim and I certainly respect the religion but there are some things which need to be pondered upon by somebody.

Song of the Day:- She came in through the Bathroom Window by Beatles

PS1:- Saw Bachna Ae Haseenon… first half was ok but second was just pure pathetic… though we enjoyed a lot.. BC zindabad!!
PS2:- Quite a lot of people got their papers published.. Congrats to Skp,Orb, Raman, Maruti & Deepti!! GG guys!!
PS3:- Two people (Ojasvi & Vivek Prakash)from our batch got PPOs in Microsoft and one(Somani) in Google… Congrats to you guys too…
PS4:- All my school friends are getting placed these days, but placement session in our college is ages away.. Why?? Why?? Why?? Btw Congrats to Mansi, Sushant, Preety, Bhatti & Piyush!!
PS5:- India once again humbled by Sri Lanka and Akhil Kumar lost in Quarter Finals.. Sad day!! : (
PS6:- What the hell is with China.. They are whipping American ass.. a margin of 17 gold medals, there seems to be no chance of USA reaching even close now.
PS7:- The awesome thing about China is that they are winning all golds… even after getting 17 golds more, their medal count is 5 less than US… Some strange place.
PS8:- And whats the deal with Swimmers this time?? Everybody seems to be making here.. WTH man!!
Ps9:- Read about two >100 storied buildings coming up in Hyderabad!! What is happening man.. Lanco Hills Signature Tower(proposed)(640 m) & APIIC Tower(under construction)(450 m).