M Hamid Ansari
The principal challenges confronting Indian Muslims now go beyond educational and economic disadvantage to questions of security, equal opportunity, and social acceptance, challenging the constitutional promise of equality and fraternity.
Indian Muslims are citizens of India who profess Islam. They constitute 14.22 per cent of the population, are a minority numerically but equal legally, and fraternal constitutionally. The story of their faith has been woven into the multi-religious fabric of India for almost 14 centuries; together, these provide good reasons why the Muslims of India are unsubduable. As the Islamic scholar Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi put it: “They are determined to ensure for themselves an honourable place in the Indian sun.”
Six decades earlier, Wilfred Cantwell Smith had observed: “The Indian Muslim community, battered by outward circumstances and gripped inwardly by dismay, had stood disconcerted, inhibited by effective self-recognition and by active vitality. Yet not only is the welfare of the community itself at stake now and for future generations. Also, the histories in solving its present and future of both India and Islam will in turn part on the success or failure of this community in solving its present problems, on its skill and wisdom in meeting the challenge of the today.”
Some of the problems were of older vintage. G.R. Thursby, in his study of “Hindu-Muslim Relation in British India” (1923-1928), studied 112 riots classified as communal and studied them as cow conflicts and music before mosques and as part of movements such as Shuddhi and Sangathan. He opined that all these and the Communal Award of 1932 became “landmark on a trek towards the partition of India and Pakistan”.
“Muslims in India are placed in a political environment which is also predominantly Hindu. He feels he will be suppressed and that political suppression will make Muslims a depressed class. It is this consciousness that he must save himself from being submerged by Hindus socially and politically, which to my mind is primarily cause why Indian Muslims are backward in matters of social reform”
The past seven decades since Independence bear witness to the scorecard. Lamentations came early and was widespread. As in the period after 1857, Muslims perceived radical change in the political order amidst political and social disorder as a threat to old ways of living. Our Constitution is very good and our laws and rules and regulations are also fair. But the fact remains that in practice some of our minorities, and notably Muslims, suffer from a deep sense of frustration. They feel that the services are not really open to them in any marked degree, whether defence, police or civil. In business, the evacuee property laws, which unfortunately continue even though they are not applied frequently, bear down upon them and restrict their opportunities. In elections to our Assemblies and Parliament, it is not easy for Muslims to come in. Even in our public organisations, it is becoming increasingly difficult for proper Muslim representation.”
After decades of agitation about the Muslim condition, the Central government in 2006 established the Rajendar Sachar Committee “to prepare a report on the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community in India”. The committee’s report suggested policies to deal with “the relative deprivation of the Muslim community in the country should sharply focus on inclusive development and ‘mainstreaming’ of the community while respecting diversity.” The decisions taken by the government on the recommendations of the Sachar Committee have been grouped under (i) Education; (ii) Skill Development; (iii) Access to credit; (iv) Special development initiatives;
The findings of the committee laid to rest the political untruth about the Muslim condition and asserted that on most socio-economic indicators they were on the margins of structures of political, economic, and social relevance and their average condition was comparable to or even worse than the country’s historically most acknowledged backward communities, namely the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The view has been expressed that Indian Muslims are “in danger of becoming second class citizens”.
These findings specified the place of the majority of Muslims about education, livelihood, and access to public services and the employment market across States.
Following it, Expert Group Reports were prepared in 2008 on the need to develop a Diversity Index and establish an Equal Opportunity Commission. These studies brought forth sufficient evidence to substantiate the finding of the 2008 Expert Group Report on Diversity Index that “inequality traps prevent the marginalized and work in favour of dominant groups in society” because “unequal economic opportunities lead to unequal outcomes which in turn lead to unequal access to political power. This creates a vicious circle since unequal political power determines the nature and functioning of the institutions and their policies. These result in persistence of initial conditions.”
In September 2014, the Kundu Report evaluated the progress made and concluded that though “a start has been made, yet serious bottlenecks remain”. It made some specific recommendations and asserted that “the development of the Muslim minority must be built on a bedrock of a sense of security.”
Out of the 76 recommendations listed in the Sachar Committee Report, the Government of India approved 72. These included approval for the Communal Violence (Preventive, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, 2005, aimed at empowering the State and Central governments to take measures to provide for prevention and control of communal violence which threatens the secular fabric, unity, integrity, and internal security of the nation and rehabilitation of victims of such violence and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereof.
More recent happenings, like the Muzaffarnagar disturbances in 2013 and the Delhi riots of February 2020, show the emergence of hate as a state project to dehumanise a section of the populace and make them invisible.
Studies show that in 2025, 1,318 hate speech events have occurred targeting religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians, across 21 States, one Union Territory, and the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi. On average, four hate speech events occurred per day. This marks a 13 per cent increase from 2024, and a 97 per cent increase from 2023, when 668 such incidents were recorded. This suggests an institutional normalisation of hate. Facebook groups have emerged as primary online hotbeds in nationalist communities where shared ideological interests facilitate the rapid circulation of inflammatory content. Demographic and social concerns: Misplaced and/or distorted apprehensions persist about population growth, religious conversions and inter-faith marriages, “love jehad”, “land jehad”, cross-border infiltration, plight of Muslim women, polygamy, and personal law. Debate continues on the Uniform Civil Code with implications for Muslim personal autonomy and minority legal identity.
Muslims are fellow citizens in a larger conglomerate and have to be viewed in terms of capabilities and handicaps about social functions. Foremost amongst these education and social skills. The instrumentality, within canons of tradition of adaptation, to change, or ijtihad, is frowned upon or glossed over. Forgotten is its purpose, defined by Sheikh Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi as “the ability to cope with the ever-changing pattern of life’s requirements”.
(Courtesy Frontline Digital)
