Segregation in India 2: Indian Muslims are not Khans or Kalams

India constantly refers to many Muslim Presidents they have had to showcase its tolerance and equal treatment of Muslims.  Nowadays many Indian Hindus repeatedly take the example of our erstwhile President, Abdul Kalam.  They say, ‘Look! We have had a Muslim as our President.  And he was selected by a Hindu Party!’ By saying this, they want to showcase India as a tolerant and magnanimous country that allows anyone to become the President of India, even a Muslim.  These Hindus also refer to the three Khans who dominate Indian Hindi Cinema – Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Amir Khan.  And they point out the cricketers like Yusuf Pathan and musician like AR Rahman.  They use these examples to say that Muslims are not discriminated in India, that they are not marginalized, that they get the same access to education and opportunity, that they are not unequal, that they are not second-class citizens. 

According to these Hindus, the Muslims are in fact ‘appeased’, they are given certain sops unnecessarily, like subsidies on Haj, and they are given special treatment unnecessarily, like special personal laws.  These people think that these ‘appeasing’ measures have a definite purpose - only to win votes.  They believe that Muslims are so naïve, so innocent that they could be beguiled by such silly sops, like Haj subsidy, to form a single vote bank.

‘Indian Muslims are appeased.  Stop this appeasement!’ they protest.  Each of these appeasements supposedly hurts Hindu sentiments.  Giving Muslim men the right to marry more than one woman, while Hindu men have to endure the pains of sticking to only one wife is just too much – the sheer injustice done to Hindus this way causes lot of heartburn to Hindus.  Allowing Muslims the right not to sing Vande Mataram while Hindus have to stand in a line, in rain or sun, and sing the song aloud causing sore throat is just too much – this hurts Hindus sentiments like no other.  Why are Muslims given these special exemptions while Hindus have to endure through these painful practices of sticking to one wife and singing Vande Mataram in sun and rain?

Why does each government bend over backwards to treat Muslims so special? Especially when they have every access to become whatever they want to in India?  Look at Abdul Kalam, look at Shah Rukh Khan, and look at Irfan Pathan!  Does it look like we discriminate Muslims? Doesn’t it show how tolerant India is of its minority religions?

The assumption that showcasing these prominent Muslims is somehow reflective of the status of a common Muslim is extremely flawed.

Let’s make it clear - Abdul Kalam is an exception.  Not many Muslims are represented in Indian Parliament or State Assemblies; they are not well represented in IAS or IFS, they are not well represented in Indian administration or Indian Army. 

Also, Abdul Kalam is not even a typical Muslim. He is a Bhagvad Gita toting, shloka chanting, and Saraswati idol displaying Muslim.  He does not actually fit the bill of ‘typical’ Muslim.   Same goes with Shah Rukh Khan.  They are not the typical Muslims that Muslims identify with.  They are actually far from it.  They are actually more palatable to Hindus than to Muslims.  Hindus love such Muslims who don’t show off their Muslim-ness.  The closer they appear to be Hindus the more they become acceptable.  You should write them off as exceptions. 

The presented argument is similar to women’s representation in Indian society.   Women representation in India is pathetically low.  In legislative bodies, India ranks 105 out of a total of 143 countries, lower than most Muslim countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and others.  In corporate world, their representation is abysmally low.  However, Indians would like to cite the examples of Indira Gandhi, Jayalalita, Sonia Gandhi, Mayawati, etc., to showcase how progressive we are.  Actually, all these examples can be dismissed as exceptions. They are not reflective of ground realities.  All these women have earned fame ONLY because they were associated to other male personalities as wives, mistresses, daughters, etc.

Ugly Muslim

In fact, your average Muslim is an ugly Muslim, the way your average Hindu is an ugly Hindu.   This ugly Muslim coworker would suddenly vanish around noon to go to mosque and not show up for the meeting, the way your ugly Hindu coworker would suddenly vanish for few days to visit a pilgrim temple when there is an important delivery to make.   This Muslim coworker may sport a beard to work the way Hindu coworker may suddenly shave his head off and show up next day.  Your Muslim coworker will have funny dietary habits of eating beef much the same way as Hindu coworker who fusses over his vegetarian diet.

As an atheist, I find an average Hindu as ugly as average Muslim.  I tend to tolerate them both without making complaining too much.  To me, the average Muslims comes with quirks and idiosyncrasies much the same way your average Hindu does. 

But that’s now how Hindus look at Muslims, or how Muslims look at Hindus. 

Hindus have a much greater degree of tolerance to quirkiness of Hindus just because we are born into Hindu families.  As Hindus, it doesn’t bother us much when one of our coworkers suddenly springs a surprise on you that he won’t eat meat that day, or that he has to skip office to do a puja to ward off evil forces.  It doesn’t bother us much when one of your customers doesn’t sign an agreement or send a check on a Tuesday.   And yet, a Hindu finds the idiosyncrasy of Muslim far too intolerable, so much so that they don’t find them fit to be employed.

One Hindu friend while referring to her cousin’s Muslim husband told me that ‘he is so unlike a Muslim.  He is not religious.  He doesn’t even believe in God.  He is so nice’.  To be a tolerable and acceptable Muslim, one has to shed all Muslim-ness.  I have never been introduced in such good words by fellow Hindus – ‘He is such a nice Hindu, he is an atheist’.  

One fellow entrepreneur expressed surprise that I have Muslim employees at work though we are small company.   He asked me if we ‘face problems’.   He confided in me that they maintain a strict homogeneity because it makes things easier.   Most of the workers at his company are vegetarian Hindus.  He says that it makes lot of things easy, removing all complications. 

A Muslim friend looking for an apartment got favorable response till he disclosed his full name by which the owner got to know his religion.  Immediately the owner changed his stance and refused to rent the apartment.   Most Hindus rent out apartments to Hindus citing they just want to avoid ‘complications’, or that such a trend makes ‘things easy’.  [1, 2, 3, 4]  All these conveniences add up to discrimination and segregation of Muslims and we just don’t want to admit it.  In the apartment complexes that I am familiar with, most of them are invariably Hindu, and there is no Muslim family in 100 families.  That is not an exception – it is the norm.

I am not the only one who finds this odd.

According to Census 2001, Hindus comprised 80.46% of Indian Population, while Muslims were 13.43%. And, according to Sachar Report:

• The socio-economic status of Muslims is lower than that of OBCs and a little higher than SC/STs.
• In literacy, Muslims are far below the national average. 1 out of 4 Muslim children in the 6-14 year age group have never attended school or never finished school.
• In premier colleges only 1 out of 25 under-graduate students (4%) and 1 out of 50 post-graduate students is a Muslim (2%).
• Unemployment rate among Muslim graduates is the highest among all socio-religious communities.
• The average amount of bank loan disbursed to the Muslims is 2/3 of the amount disbursed to other minorities. In some cases it is half.
• The presence of Muslims has been found to be only 3% in the IAS, 1.8% in the IFS and 4% in the IPS. The share of Muslims in employment in various departments is abysmally low at all levels. Muslim community has a representation of only 4.5% in Indian Railways while 98.7% of them are positioned at lower levels.
• Representation of Muslims is very low in the Universities and in Banks. In no state does the representation of Muslims in the government departments match their population share. Their share in police constables is only 6%, in health 4.4%, in transport 6.5%.

The list goes on.  I don’t need to include all the facts.  It is pretty clear that Muslims are being pushed out of the mainstream representation and it is being done silently without an explicit global mandate, but it is happening at a local level by Hindus who succumb to their natural prejudices.  These small and little prejudices add up to give you the grand picture where Muslim is discriminated and marginalized in India. 

The question we have to ask is whether we are living up to the fear of Mohammed Ali Jinnah who said that a Muslim will never the equal status in a country where Hindu is majority.  Are we that nation that Jinnah feared?  Or are we the secular nation that some of us continue to believe in spite of all the trends that suggest that are on the reverse path?

Related Posts:

Segregation in India: Plight of Muslims

External Links:

1. With Delhi landlords, hard to escape the stereotype

2. Housing apartheid flourishes in Delhi

3. In Mumbai, a ‘no rent, no sale’ policy

4. India’s IT powerhouse is mired in social prejudice