Socio-Economic Status of Muslims in India: St...

Socio-Economic Status of Muslims in India: Struggle for Inclusion

Author Name : Nalin Kumar Ramaul, Pinki Ramaul, Vivek Negi

ABSTRACT

The paper analyses the turning point in the discourse on development and inclusion with the publication of Sachar Committee report which helped transcend the earlier popular view in India where religion had traditionally been neglected in economics and development studies. The question of differences in the levels of prosperity between religious communities has been brought into the domain of state policy. Still Muslim Indians remain relatively ill-understood and understudied.The paper unequivocally laments the fact that the database in respect of socio-economic indicators on religious basis is absolutely inadequate and whatever data is available is often not reliable generating opportunity for data misinterpretation for narrow political motives.

Despite gross inadequacies of data, the Muslims unambiguously lag behind other socio-religious communities in India. The present paper utilises data from a variety of sources toassess the performance of India’s Muslim population in comparison to other socio-religious communities and comes to an unambiguous conclusion that the majority of Muslim minorities are at the bottom of the socio-economically ladder and Muslims are the most socio-economically under-developed community among all the religious communities in Indian society. Therefore, the paper emphatically calls for affirmative action and adequate targeting Muslim minorities as they are amongst the most marginalised and disadvantaged group in society.The present research paper may inform better policy and programming, through the identification of critical factors and feasible, realistic solutions to the issues confronting Muslim minority.

Keywords: Inclusive Development, Minorities, Muslims, India, Education, Health, Religion, Socio-Economic Status