Author:
Publication: Organiser
Date: December 31, 2006
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=163&page=8
Sachar report defies logic, Muslims are better
off
Tales of backwardness and creation of political myths
There is the unique case of the Hindus of
India's Kashmir: about 10 per cent of the population in 1947, they have been
reduced to a tiny number (5,000). The rest numbering about 4,00,000 have been
compelled to abandon their home and hearth and made refugees in their own
land.
While Hindu population is falling steadily,
the Muslim population is increasing. This is too well known.
The series of reports on the under-representation
of the Muslims in services etc (obviously being presented as a monolithic
community) and their over-representation in the jails and more such disclosures
through the Sachar Committee's report, are meant to portray the overall image
of a deprived community while implying that the Hindus in post-Partition India
have an over-representation in services and other arenas, which is neither
warranted by history nor by their number.
But first, the very methodology of producing
this genre of statistics and its derivatives, which leave out the context
and other parameters. In this arithmetic, it is imperative to calculate what
the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians have lost for ever in what are
now Pakistan and Bangladesh. Their losses were entirely appropriated by the
Muslims. This never happened in India. The relative position of religious
communities in India can never be seen in isolation: that would make sense
only when the overall scenario-the political status, economic condition as
well as the security concerns of both Hindus and Muslims in India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh and also in India's Kashmir-is taken into account. While Pakistan
and Bangladesh have carried out a religious and ethnic cleansing of its minorities,
the Muslim population in India continues to rise at a rate higher than that
of the Hindus.
Since the Muslim community looks at itself
as a part of the fraternity of the believers world-wide, they are generally
concerned at the fate of the Muslims outside India. This prompted Gandhiji
to take up the Khilafat issue. That justifies rallies against Bush when he
visits India but red carpet for Musharraf. Hence GoI espouses the Palestinian
cause while smothering the horrible plight of the Hindus, Buddhists and Christians
in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Softness towards the latter are explained because
of the exigencies of the vote-bank politics and the role of petro-dollar.
It is because of this umbilical chord that Pakistan keeps harping on the "plight"
of the Muslims in India.
The projection of the Muslims as the only
losing community is unconvincing if the totality of the picture is not smothered.
Historic problems can't be viewed from arbitrarily selected starting points.
Additionally, there is the unique case of
the Hindus of India's Jammu and Kashmir: about 10 per cent of the population
in 1947, they have been reduced to a tiny number (5000). The rest numbering
about 4,00,000 have been compelled to abandon their home and hearth and made
refugees in their own land. Now eking out a miserable living in the refugee
camps of Jammu and elsewhere for more than 16 years, they have been resorting
to distress sell-off of their ancestral properties to the Muslims of the Kashmir
Valley for a pittance.
While the Jews can return to Germany now and
re-establish their synagogues and claim their property back, and the Asians
of Uganda can return, that option is firmly closed to the Kashmiri Hindu refugees.
Even after this, a central minister from Kashmir wants a reservation for Muslims!
Muslims of India on the whole are better off,
more secure than the Hindus of Kashmir Valley. The point is some minorities
are different from other minorities and some majorities are different from
other majorities.
A look at this chart would further clarify
this enigma of the "persecuted" minorities and "pampered"
majorities.
The top three positions in India, Pakistan
and Bangladesh:
President, Prime Minister and Army Chief
India: Muslim, Sikh, Sikh
Pakistan: Muslim, Muslim, Muslim
Bangladesh: Muslim, Muslim, Muslim
In India's case, it needs to be noted that
Sonia (nee Maino) Gandhi, an Italian-born is the Chairperson of the ruling
UPA. That is, she is the de facto head of the government. Her most trusted
political advisor is Ahmad Patel
So the share of Hindus (%) in what is called
the Indian sub-continent for the top jobs is nil.
Additionally the Deputy Chief of the armed
forces in India happens to be a Muslim and how about the comparable figures
in Pakistan and Bangladesh? As for some other prestigious positions:
Chairman of the Central Public Service Commission,
which recruits the elite civil services:
India: Muslim
Pakistan: Muslim
Bangladesh: Muslim
Chief of the National Planning Commission:
India: Sikh
Pakistan: Muslim
Bangladesh: Muslim
Chief of the Election Commission:
India: Muslim
Pakistan: Muslim
Bangladesh: Muslim
Here also the Hindu share (%) is nil.
Last but not the least, the cricket teams
in this part of South Asia:
India: Out of 16 players currently playing
there are five Muslims.
Pakistan: So far only two Hindus have played
for Pakistan (in 59 years).
Bangladesh: Only two Hindus have played so
far but now they are out of the team.
I am leaving out the "heroes" from
the filmdom and the advertisement world in India which are conspicuously getting
bereft of Hindus. If that does not mean much, as some would say, why not name
the number of non-Muslims recognised in those fields in Pakistan and Bangladesh?
Population figures: While Hindu population
is falling steadily, the Muslim population is increasing. This is too well
known.
In all, it may be said, very definitively
that Hindus as a community are losing political power and clout very rapidly
in a "shrinking and shrunken India", and would lose whatever is
still left in their hands. Having been victors all along, the Muslims can't
claim to be hapless victims now.
Those who tend to compare the plight of the
Blacks in the USA with the Muslims in India are oblivious of history and logic.
The Blacks were imported by the Whites as slaves unlike the Muslims who came
as invaders and converted the local people. The Black minority has neither
ruled the USA nor has it partitioned its country.
Our market-savvy pundits would say that despite
the steady political/demographic decline of the Hindus, some of them are very
resourceful and so there is nothing to worry. History provides many examples
when money-power without the backing of politico-military support just withered
away. Moreover, the number of prosperous Muslims is quite substantial. It
would be quite revealing to see the percentage of the Hindus in the ever-growing
list of the farmers committing suicides in Vidarbha, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh
and even in the communist-ruled West Bengal
Their socio-economic under-development is
explained by social, psychological, political, historical and demographic
factors. They also suffers because of their obsessions and misplaced priorities.
The Muslim under-representation is also explained by their larger families
and fascination for the madrasa.
Poverty of the people (Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs,
neo-Buddhists, etc) is caused by the phoney policies for the underprivileged,
like the "socialistic" policies enforced by the "secular"
dispensations without creating jobs.
Number game can help in making identity in
politics, as it did before partition, but can never become the criterion for
any unfair communal entitlements now. It may be recalled that the Jews with
0.21 per cent of the world population have got 22 per cent of all Nobel Prizes.
So, how about a campaign against this "anomaly" first?
(The writer teaches history at Hansraj College,
University of Delhi and is a former Member of ICSSR, a former Post Doc Research
Scholar, University of London, and Visiting Fellow, Dept of Politics, University
of Hull.)
