Empowering Indian Muslims The way forward

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for empowering Indian Muslims is indeed welcome. He said this while addressing party cadres at Kozhikode, Kerala, recently. The underlying objective behind this call appears to be to rally all shades of public opinion in the country to enable the Muslims to come out of their isolation to enjoy the fruits of all-round development like other Indian communities and not be left behind. It is also a clarion call to the Indian Muslims to step out and play their due role as equal partners in the progress and development of their country.

- Khurshid A Ganai

There is no doubt that the socio-economic development indicators of the Muslim community in India are nearly at the bottom when comparisons are made across communities and social groups. The famous Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee report released about a decade ago revealed all round backwardness of Indian Muslims through many and myriad statistics. All this is notwithstanding the fact that the developmental schemes excellently formulated by experts and civil servants are always religion neutral. It is also not with standing the fact that the Congress Party which was in power at the Centre and in the States for the maximum period after Independence has often been criticised for the so-called “appeasement of Muslims”.

Many people in the country, including many Muslims, hold the Muslim community itself responsible for its educational, social and economic backwardness. The community is blamed for its own ghettoization, showing preference for madras as over the common school system, gender inequality, resisting reform in its personal laws, resisting joining the mainstream and acting as a vote bank.