by Manish Anand
The Indian government has been finally enlightened with the fact that Muslims in India are worse off than scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs)! Was anyone in India unaware of the fact, which the Sacher Committee has dug out?
Muslims unfortunately have not grown up as community so far and remains waded up into the pre-independence mindset when they had aligned with the Muslim League, for motives which was purely communal. When the SCs and STs kept on making educational and social advancement with keen interest of many co-religious and missionary support, the Muslims in India remained a laid-back community deeply rooted in madrassa based education.
The Central government led by the Congress, which is faced with total erosion of popular support base in North India, is threatening to play the communal card for political purposes. There could be nothing more alarming than the statement of the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, hinting at much abused affirmative actions to socially and educationally uplift the Muslims in India.
It has been pointed out many a time that Muslims in India are cursed by them being clustered for political purposes, which exploited the religious insecurity deeply entrenched in the mindset of the Muslim leaders. Abysmal representation of Muslims in government services and judiciary could be ascribed the community still refusing to join the national mainstream. Also, the community could never come up with any socio-religious movement like Arya Samaj, which gave DAV schools and colleges, or many Hindu reform bodies who emphasized on socio-educational reforms in the community. Did any Muslim body come up with any broad-based socio-educational movement, which could have empowered the community effectively?
It must be noted that whereas the middle class and the upper middle class Muslims have been reaching out to the English medium schools even in the interiors of the nation, thus benefiting the fruits of good education, the majority remain still entrenched in madrassa based education, which take away any chance of the community youth to fetch government jobs and place in judiciary. Theirs being the largest in jails for criminal charges has nothing to do with religion but with the socio-economic conditions.
Any affirmative action for the Muslim community by the government taking advantage of the much abused reservation exercise in jo0bs and educational institutions would be fraught with surrendering of the governmental responsibility for exploiting vote-bank opportunity. The community must come out of the shell and join the mainstream. Muslims must be de-clustered. They have to be like Christians, Sikh, and Zorastrians, who are all into the mainstream, and never crib about being under-represented in jobs and judiciary.
However, the first step that the Muslims need to do is to come out of the political and social blindness.
The Indian government has been finally enlightened with the fact that Muslims in India are worse off than scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs)! Was anyone in India unaware of the fact, which the Sacher Committee has dug out?
Muslims unfortunately have not grown up as community so far and remains waded up into the pre-independence mindset when they had aligned with the Muslim League, for motives which was purely communal. When the SCs and STs kept on making educational and social advancement with keen interest of many co-religious and missionary support, the Muslims in India remained a laid-back community deeply rooted in madrassa based education.
The Central government led by the Congress, which is faced with total erosion of popular support base in North India, is threatening to play the communal card for political purposes. There could be nothing more alarming than the statement of the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, hinting at much abused affirmative actions to socially and educationally uplift the Muslims in India.
It has been pointed out many a time that Muslims in India are cursed by them being clustered for political purposes, which exploited the religious insecurity deeply entrenched in the mindset of the Muslim leaders. Abysmal representation of Muslims in government services and judiciary could be ascribed the community still refusing to join the national mainstream. Also, the community could never come up with any socio-religious movement like Arya Samaj, which gave DAV schools and colleges, or many Hindu reform bodies who emphasized on socio-educational reforms in the community. Did any Muslim body come up with any broad-based socio-educational movement, which could have empowered the community effectively?
It must be noted that whereas the middle class and the upper middle class Muslims have been reaching out to the English medium schools even in the interiors of the nation, thus benefiting the fruits of good education, the majority remain still entrenched in madrassa based education, which take away any chance of the community youth to fetch government jobs and place in judiciary. Theirs being the largest in jails for criminal charges has nothing to do with religion but with the socio-economic conditions.
Any affirmative action for the Muslim community by the government taking advantage of the much abused reservation exercise in jo0bs and educational institutions would be fraught with surrendering of the governmental responsibility for exploiting vote-bank opportunity. The community must come out of the shell and join the mainstream. Muslims must be de-clustered. They have to be like Christians, Sikh, and Zorastrians, who are all into the mainstream, and never crib about being under-represented in jobs and judiciary.
However, the first step that the Muslims need to do is to come out of the political and social blindness.
