The sad lot of many Muslims in India today

A new report commissioned by the Indian government lays bare the discrimination and poverty suffered by India’s Muslim minority. Some highlights from the article (emphasis added):

India, which has long prided itself as a shining example of democracy and religious-cultural pluralism, is being forced to contend with an unpleasant truth: the foundations of its claim to religious integration and harmony may be far shakier than earlier believed.

This is a greatly underreported problem that I’ve mentioned here before.

“The truth is that Muslims now constitute India’s ‘new underclass’; they are worse off than the rest of the population in respect of access to public services, literacy, education, income, social mobility and jobs,” adds Ansari.

[…]

In some respects, Muslims compare unfavourably even with Dalits [That says it all.  – Svend] (officially called Scheduled Castes), India’s former untouchables, who have suffered systematic, cruel discrimination for centuries at the hands of upper-caste Hindus.

“If you are a Muslim, the chances are that you live in areas deprived of electricity, roads and municipal services,” says Ansari. “There is growing ghettoisation of Muslims.”

[…]

Muslims are altogether excluded from “sensitive” posts like jobs in the intelligence agencies, especially the external espionage agency Research & Analysis Wing, and the National Security Guard and other elite VVIP protection forces. Their presence in the top national police and paramilitary agencies is nominal.

However, there is one place where Muslims are over-represented: prisons. Muslims claim a grossly disproportionate share of prisoners, including convicts and undertrials. Barring the northeastern state of Assam, their proportion in prison is considerably higher than their population share.

Read the whole thing.

Powered by ScribeFire.