Social, Economic and Political Status of Muslims in India

2017

Social exclusion broadly refers to lack of participation in social life. It is a powerful form of discriminatory practice. In course of human development, exclusion has taken the form of segregating a group of people from the social, political, economic, cultural, educational domains of societal life. Giddens defines social exclusion as “it is not about gradations of inequality, but about mechanism that act to detach groups of people from the social mainstream”. Muslim in India remains far below the national average in almost all aspect of life. Sacchar committee estimates that the situation of Muslims in India is that of a deprived community which is above that of SCs and STs but below that of Hindu general, Hindu OBCs and other socio-religious category in almost all indicators of development. The due representation of Muslims in parliament, state legislature and Panchayati raj institution is crucial for the country because this is the only way in which this excluded community can ...

India is the third largest Muslim dominated country, a nation home to 10.9% of the world's Muslims after Indonesia (12.7%) and Pakistan (11%). After the publication of Sachar Committee Report (2006) and periodic publication of religion based data in 2001 and 2011 by the Census of India, it is a well-known fact that the Muslims are the demographically largest and sociologically most significant minority of our country. The sociological significance of the Muslims as a minority group does not rest solely on their numerical strength. Rather, their social construction as a minority in the socio-political history of India is a crucial factor [1].Therefore, the assessment of educational status as a very significant indicator of human development for all including the Muslims remain an important task. The contribution of education to inclusive growth and development is widely recognized. "Education is found to be a more sustainable and more effective measure than other measures to reduce inequality in society. Unequal education reproduces social inequality [2]. "Much theoretical and empirical literature rightly lays emphasis on education as a necessary precursor to socioeconomic mobility. In fact, the positive outcomes of education are so huge and so crucial for human development that one often takes education as a single measure to assess the overall well-being of a population or a subset of it. In brief, the higher the proportion of a population with formal schooling, the wider is the stock of human capital and the greater the ability to achieve upward socioeconomic mobility" [3].

Poverty has become - a global concern especially for the developing nations like India. There are various socio-economic factors causing poverty at different level. A considerable proportion of the India’s population lives below poverty line. Muslims fall under one of the poorest communities in India. Numerous reports confirming the socio-economical condition of Muslims in India reveals that Muslims are either equal or worse than the backward classes. In spite of some initiatives taken by the Government of India (GOI) to improve their lot, there seems no much change in pathetic condition of Muslim community. They are caught in a vicious circle of poverty. Therefore, in the present paper our focus is to highlight the important factors responsible for sad state of affairs of the Indian Muslims and comprehensive strategies needed to combat poverty and further enable them to stand and play a key role in economic development of the country from Islamic perspective. in the light of Islamic teachings have been discussed. In the conclusion a few practical measures have been proposed for the subjected issue.

res publication, 2014

This research is an attempt to explore the unevenness of human development among social groups in India with a view to understanding the relationship between such unevenness and structural inequality. Given the richness and complexity of Indian society, it is rather difficult to determine where the focus of such an investigation should lie. There are at least eight religious communities in India, each with sizeable populations and distinct cultures. India's Muslim community, with a population of 138 million, is the third largest Muslim community in the world and constitutes approximately 14 per cent of India's current population. In addition, there are several other communities comprised of fairly large populations characterized by distinct historical patterns of deprivation and disadvantage. Foremost among them are the Scheduled castes (SCs), who comprise about 16 per cent of the population. SCs constitute the various groups known in official Indian parlance as Scheduled Castes (SCs) and are groups which fall in the lower echelons of the social hierarchy that is premised on Bramhinical Hinduism.

The Indian Journal of politics, 2021

Muslims in India form the largest religious minority in the country. According to the 2011 Census, they comprise 14.4 percent of India's total populationroughly 174 million people. They are the third largest Muslim population anywhere in the world, after Indonesia and Pakistan. It is a universally accepted notion that education is the only mechanism that enhances the process of socioeconomic and cultural development of communities. While the level of education all through India is still below the universally accepted standards, the educational status of Muslims, in particular, is of grave concern. The statistics irrefutably demonstrate that Muslims are far less accomplished than their non-Muslim counterparts on the educational front, and this is so across almost every state in India. The community has progressed at a pace more gradual than any other Socio-Religious Community. In several aspects, they have even been overtaken by the traditionally underprivileged SC/STs. Against such a backdrop, the present paper analyses the factors responsible for the educational backwardness of the country's largest minority despite state intervention. Further, the present study has also identified the problems of Muslim's education in India and further advanced suggestions and measures for improvement.

The Muslim women tend to suffer not only the gender problem, but also the impoverished minority status of the Muslim community. Muslim women are at double disadvantage with low educational status and community pressure. Their lives, movements in public places are under constant scrutiny and control. Education is the oxygen of the human beings in the contemporary technology-driven world of knowledge and economy. Low level of literacy and education impede national growth and lead to violation of human rights as well as the rights of religious community. At the same time, higher literacy rates bring social change, cultural advancement and economic development. The present study examines the reciprocal relationship between literacy and socio-economic determinants as consequences of the low level of socio-economic development of the Muslim Community in West Bengal and an attempt to analyses the empowerment of Muslim women in the three selected villages of the District North 24-Parganas is done. The study concludes with the suggestions to enhance Muslims literacy, which is an ultimate solution to reduce existing group disparities in socio-economic development in West Bengal.

2021

This paper decided to explore the ideas of the development status of Muslims in India from 2014 to 2019 because of two major reasons:- • There was a change of regime following the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, which brought a lot of changes in the development status of Muslims. • The Muslim community in India have had targeted attacks over the years. Thus, this paper will try to explore the silver linings, facts and the multi-faceted aspects of development. UNHRC defines religious minorities as: “An ethnic, religious or linguistic minority is any group of persons which constitutes less than half of the population in the entire territory of a State whose members share common characteristics of culture, religion or language, or a combination of any of these.” In the recent years, the way with which the legislature, executive and even the judiciary has operated in an almost organized way to suppress the voices is worth noticing. Thus, in these turbulent times, it becomes even more important to reflect back on the ideas, philosophy and history of the minorities in general and Muslims in particular, in India. The ‘normalcy’ that is onsetting around the issues of violence is not just alarming but also uncomfortable and problematic in ways more than one. This paper will try to examine the development of the Muslim community over the years and in particular, the years that followed 2014. It will try to look at the socio-economic, political, and other aspects of the community and how the development process for them unfolded, since independence. It will be an attempt to unveil and interpret the various reports, articles, and books over the years that have tried to understand the Muslim community in general and their development in particular. The paper will start by decoding the idea of development followed by a historical perspective on the Muslim community and its development and ending with contemporarising it.

International Journal of Research Publication and Reviews, 2022

For India's Muslims, it has been a protracted struggle. They have been making an effort to mend their broken lives after the trauma and hardships of division, despite tremendous obstacles including extreme poverty, illiteracy, discrimination, and neglect. The community is disjointed and dysfunctional on many levels, lacking both vertical and horizontal communication and coherence. Sometimes the average Muslim is without a leader, and other times they are led by politicians and charlatans. The common Muslim suffers from both internal and external discrimination. The institutionalised riot mechanism frequently alarmed them as they dealt with genocidal acts and ethnic cleansing. Their attempts to establish themselves in North India have run across official resistance and apathy. Ghettoes without even the most basic utilities have become the home of Muslims from all social groups, even in cosmopolitan places like Mumbai and Delhi. They are compelled to choose hazardous, filthy parts of cities like Kolkata, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, and many more in the west and the north where they must live. The concerns of all people for economic and political justice, there is a need for a party or parties, or for a political front. Muslims are given several advantages in their attempts to create a widespread political movement against social and economic exploitation. In comparison to other groups, they have better interactions with the pan-Indian communities, an all-India presence, a sense of pride in their rich culture and heritage, and an all-India presence. They will also have an advantage because of their innate sense of justice.

The present paper aims to analyse the state wise educational status of Muslims in India. It also aims to compare the educational status of muslims with the educational status of other religious communities in India. The country level and state level published data have been obtained from census of India. At the same time the association between the educational status of muslims is sought with their socio-economic development. The results have revealed that the educational status of Muslims in India is not satisfactory and needs special attention. It is found that more than half i.e., 53.95 per cent of the total population of the Muslims in India is illiterate with 17.48 per cent literate people just for the name sake only. Technical education or higher education is meager among the muslims. From the results it is also clear that Muslims who accounts for 13.46 per cent of the total population of the nation show lowest literacy rate, lowest percentage of higher education and lowest degree of female education. Budhist who only claim for less than half per cent of the total population of the country are most literate. The percentage of higher education, sex ratio and female literacy rate is also highest in this religious community.

Journal of Political Sciences & Public Affairs

Marginalization is a process that leads to sidelining of a certain community/individual to the periphery of the social space that eventually constrain their life choices at political space, social negotiation, and economic bargaining. It is a complex contested umbrella term is inextricably linked with the concept of inequality within the marginalized communities. In fact, inequality and marginalization are usually at interface in that they both with interacts and reinforces each other. Religious minority groups are amongst those who encounter severe exclusion, discrimination and oppression. In case of Indian Muslims as a religious marginalized community, these two concepts overlap. However, concern with 'marginalization' is relatively recent and it is imperative to check the development trajectory on the marginalized groups. As considerable evidence exists, a process of 'marginalization' of minority communities exists in almost all societies and nothing warrants that the same is not true of Muslims in India to a greater or a lesser degree. While discussing social structure of Indian Muslims prominent scholars like Imtiaz Ahmad and Zoya Hasan brought forth the theoretical debate "Can there be a category called Dalit Muslims" 1. However, there are different and distinct categories of 'marginalization' which sometimes intersect each other and therefore essentially limit the possibility about a proper and comprehensive diagnosis, thereby, making it difficult to resist the actual power-relations. This study explores the systemic processes through which Muslims are being marginalized systematically in different domains of life.

Population is a dynamic phenomenon that varies spatiotemporally. Rapid growth of population over the past hundred years results from the gap between birth rate and death rate. Population growth becomes a threat to socio-economic well-being of human beings, and is more vulnerable where the group is already socioeconomically underprivileged. Though, population growth has its positive impact on economic development. Bengal occupies the third position among states of the country in terms of percentage of Muslim population (i.e. 25%). The present study aims to analyse the population distribution and educational status of the community in the districts of West Bengal. The analysed data show that Muslims are not uniformly distributed in all districts of the state. Moreover, Muslims of West Bengal are largely rural community in comparison to their coreligionists in other parts of the country. This means that Muslims of West Bengal are less urbanized. There are only two districts where Muslims constitute more than fifty percent population. Lower literacy rate and educational attainment is the overall characteristic of the Muslim in India in general and Muslim of West Bengal in particular. The paper proves with the percentage of Muslim population increases in a district the literacy and educational attainment decreases. Finally, the estimates of population growth, population distribution and educational attainment computed in this paper will contribute in providing an empirical basis to the debates in this regard objectively.

2023

India being a dynamic emerging economy, with religious and cultural diversity, is home to 0.172 billion Muslims, that is 14.2 percent of the population at all India level living as the financially excluded minority community in the country. The Indian Muslims according to Sachar Committee Report (2005) are the financially 'excluded' community and are not the major beneficiary of Govt. schemes." The Reports/Commissions such as Ranganathan Misra Committee (2007); Mahmoodur Rahman Committee (2008); Sudhir Commission Report (2016) and Commission of Inquiry (Telangana 2016), reveal that Muslims in India, are living in pathetic conditions with underdeveloped socioeconomic and educational setup. In this context, the current paper aims to-explore through qualitative analysis the possible dimensions of social finance and to evaluate the current socioeconomic conditions of Muslims in India. This study will be an attempt to assess the potential of Islamic social finance institutions, namely the zakat and the waqf, for community upliftment in a much broader national context.

With the fruits of economic growth not being accruable to various social groups uniformly, they happen to be marginalized. Their marginalization manifests in not only unfavorable exclusion from social, economic and political spheres but also in unfavorable inclusion, where they tend to be placed on less-privileged terms vis-à-vis others . The mediation of marginalization through exclusion results into the lack of economic opportunities, including low income, low productivity, low wages, and low occupational attainments, etc. In India, the brunt of such social and economic exclusion is faced by the historically discriminated communities like STs and SCs, and women, and ethnic, religious minorities. While numerous studies have been conducted on the question of socio-economic exclusion and marginalization faced by the disadvantaged sections of STs, SCs, and women, the religious minorities have not been able to garner sufficient attention