Per a report by a committee led by ex-chief justice of India Rajender Sachar, Muslims are worse off than Dalits.
ISLAMABAD: This is with reference to Yaqoob Khan Bangash’s piece “Incomplete freedoms” (August 15). It is very sad to know that the writer was left with no answer while talking to an Indian Muslim in India. Let me give an answer on his behalf so the next time he is asked about comparing the lot of Muslims living in India and Pakistan, he can answer with confidence and pride.
According to a report produced by a committee led by a former chief justice of India, Rajender Sachar, Muslims are now worse off in India than the Dalits, or those once called untouchables. Some 52 per cent of Muslim men are unemployed, compared with 47 per cent of Dalit men. Among Muslim women, 91 per cent are unemployed, compared with 77 per cent of Dalit women.
Almost half of Muslims over the age of 46 cannot read or write. While making up nearly 14 per cent of the total population of the country, Muslims account for 40 per cent of India’s prison population. They hold only 4.9 per cent of government jobs and only 3.2 per cent of the jobs in the country’s security agencies, thus creating a new set of ‘untouchable Indians’ in the modern, democratic republic of India.
Official data is, at least, enough to figure out that in post-independence India, the Muslim community remained downtrodden economically in comparison with all other majority or minority communities, something that is indicated by authentic findings reported through the National Sample Survey Organisation and the Sachar Committee report about the profile of the second-largest religious group of India.
Sagheer Ahmed
Published in The Express Tribune, August 17th, 2013.
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