Is India a good country for Muslims to live in?
I think how good a country is, depends on general quality of living. India doesn’t top any list of ‘Best countries to live in’. So not just Muslims, technically India is arguably not the best country for any of her citizens.
Excerpt from: The Best Countries To Live In
What Makes a Country a Good Place to Live?
This research is based on the Legatum “Prosperity Index” of each nation and does not take into account some of the other factors that were previously mentioned like climate, lifestyle, and population.
While this article is only one out of the many thousand, it is no coincidence that countries like Finland, Norway, Sweden, Canada and Switzerland constantly show up in these lists.
But within India, we can see how Muslims as a community are faring. I feel most articles stick to a narrative that Muslims have it pretty bad or very good in India. I will let you draw your own conclusions.
Overview of a 2016 NSSO report:
- Muslims are the poorest religious group in rural and Urban India.
- At 46 percent, Muslims form the biggest chunk of population in urban areas with self employment as the main source of earning. In contrast, only 30.4 percent Muslims form the urban work force, the lowest in the salaried category among the various communities
- In rural India, proportion of households, having major source of income from self-employment, Muslims were at the lowest (49.2 per cent)
- In urban India, proportion of households with casual labour as the major source of income was the highest among Muslims (15 per cent)
- Among persons of age 0–29 years, for major religious groups, current attendance rate in educational institutions was the lowest among Muslims
Open and shut, right? Muslims have it worst? Well not necessarily. I just provided half the data here. Let us slice other data that might indicate better living conditions. We will be checking Four major areas for ‘prosperity’.
Employment
- While Muslim self-income households are lowest at 49.2, they are not far away from Hindus(49.9) and Christians(49.5)
- In both rural and urban areas for both males and females LFPR (Labour Force Participation Rate) was the lowest for Muslims (51.1 per cent for rural males, 15.9 per cent for rural females, 55.3 per cent for urban males and 10.9 per cent for urban females). This is a worrying number for Muslim females as the highest in this category is owned by Christians — 30.4% in Rural and a close 27.7% in urban areas.
- In both rural and urban areas for both males and females WPR (Worker Population Ratio) was the lowest for Muslims (49.9 per cent for rural males, 15.3 per cent for rural females, 53.2 per cent for urban males and 10.5 per cent for urban females). Another worrying percentage drop for women when we shifted from Rural to Urban.
- Muslims do not have the lowest unemployment rate in the country as that is currently with Christians
- While there are citations to implicit bias in recruitment of Muslims, there is little data to support this claim.
- Muslims number at 20% of overall incarceration in India,sampled for the year 2013(Hindus are topping the chart at close to 70%, A significant number could be from less-privileged communities). This is proportionately higher than their percentage in population. Apart from lack of education, crime is a major deterrent for employment.
Education
Among persons of age 0–29 years, for major religious groups, current attendance rate in educational institutions was the lowest among Muslims (48.7 per cent for rural males, 42.1 per cent for rural females, 47 per cent for urban males and 46.3 per cent for urban females).
Look at the difference in attendance of males and females in Urban areas — lowest in the country probably. This means Urban Muslims value education equally for males and females than all other communities. This is why Professor Rakesh Basant of IIM remarks
“There are not many good schools in Muslims neighborhood and that of many marginalized communities. This is a problem in supply side. Participation in education goes up when supply of educational institutions is addressed.”
Education is a major concern for Muslims as most of them do not seem to have access to it or interest for it.
Households
Nearly 83 per cent of the households in the country belonged to Hindus, about 12 per cent belonged to Muslims, about 2.3 per cent belonged to Christians and 1.6 per cent belonged to Sikhs. (The survey accounted for About 68.8 per cent of the households belonged to rural India for nearly 71.2 per cent of total population, so a near-match)
The population of India can be approximately split as 81% Hindus, 13.4% Muslims, 2.3% Christians, 1.9% Sikhs. If we assume the same data applies here, the household ownership is pretty much aligned with the national population. Also the average household size was highest for Muslims(5.0), while Christians have it lowest(4.1). This is for both rural and Urban areas.
Support for Muslims in India
Government schemes in India are aimed at ‘minorities’ rather than at Muslims specifically. So technically speaking Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists also fall under the same bracket.
Full list of schemes — http://ncm.nic.in/pdf/index/SCHEMES%20FOR%20MINORITIES.pdf
These are apart from common schemes like Sukanya Samridhi Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana to name some, that are open to all Indians.
On other parameters like access to bank loans, most Islamic organisations claims discrimination against Muslims.
(Muslims get only 2% of PSU bank loans, shows RTI query | Mumbai News — Times of India)
Catch here? Ignoring the obvious bias of the activist and article, this includes data from only 6 PSU banks — Punjab & Sind Bank, Allahabad Bank, Corporation Bank,Bank of Maharashtra, Vijaya Bank and Andhra Bank. That still leaves out SBI,PNB,CBI,UCO,Canara, IOB, BOI — some of the heaviest hitters among the PSUs. Also there is no data on Application — Rejection ratio.
A telling problem is the lack of interest in banking from the Islamic community itself : There’s no banking without interest. Missing out on loans can be seen a direct result of bad banking track records. For most Muslims depending on self-employment, lack of loans is a problem as the article rightly points out.
Also Muslim-owned businesses are not boycotted or avoided in any manner across most of India, especially in developed states like TN, Telengana and Kerala.
Conclusion
I have done my best to not cherry-pick data anywhere, so I am obviously open to corrections. My only point here is to indicate that Indians are not out to destroy their Muslim population. That would be absurd. Indians also do not change with respect to who is there at the center. I am neither making a case for Muslims nor blaming everything on them. Also I have deliberately tried to leave out constant topics of discussion like opinions of right-wing hindus, lynching, Love Jihad,etc., as they add little to this discussion. But to summarize, no community in India can come up without great effort. The Govt and social setting doesn’t allow for an encouraging livelihood for any Indian — Muslim or otherwise.
Reference:
http://mospi.nic.in/sites/default/files/publication_reports/nss_report_568_19feb16.pdf
