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| Spotlights are on Indian Muslims | | Sachar panel's survey will trigger political overtones | | B L KAK
NEW DELHI, NOV. 2: With less than three weeks left for the commencement of Parliament's winter session, political parties have begun animated discussions on how the Congress-led coalition government at the Centre will act on the report of the Justice Sachar Committee that was entrusted with the task of ascertaining various economic and social facts about Muslims in India.
The media had gone hammer and tongs against the Manmohan Singh government for constitution of the committee. The BJP, finding a chance to make hay while things went haywire in the government, had joined the chorus. This is discrimination against the minority community, said some while others maintained that surveys sponsored by the government of any single religious community will always end up having political overtones.
The results that have been thrown up by the Sachar Committee are at once revealing and shocking and the media is really happy and surprised to report the committee’s findings in detail. Here is a sampling: Muslims across the country are severely under-represented in government employment, including public sector units (PSUs), compared to the percentage of their population in the respective States.
For example, while Assam, which at 30.9 has the second highest percentage of Muslim population after Jammu and Kashmir, employs just 11.2 per cent, Uttar Pradesh, with 18.5 per cent as its Muslim population, has only 5.1 per cent of the community in government service.
Curiously, Gujarat, ruled by the BJP and which witnessed the massacre of Muslims post-Godhra, fares far better with 5.4 per cent of employed Muslims in government against the community’s share of 9.1 per cent of the population.
Be it education, health, transport or home, in virtually all departments of state government, the share of Muslims employed is way below their share in the population. The gap is more palpable in judicial jobs. In Assam it is 9.4 per cent while in West Bengal it is a shocking 5 per cent or even less.
There is, however, one place where Muslims have a higher representation as compared to their total population-- India’s jails! In fact, according to the Sachar panel, in many States Muslims even make up a higher percentage of the population in jail that they do outside! It is indeed a sorry state. There is much to be learned from the Sachar panel report, by the government, the opposition and even the media.
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