HINDU
Saturday, November 4, 2006
The reality of exclusion and discrimination
can no longer be denied. But the remedy requires
political courage on the part of the Manmohan
Singh Government and wisdom on the part of those
claiming to speak for Muslims.
WHEN THE Justice Rajinder Sachar committee
submits its report on the socio-economic status
of Muslims, the full extent of the community's
exclusion will be obvious to all. Especially
those who have made political careers out of
the canard that Muslims in India enjoy special
privileges and have been "appeased."
Based on the data leaked so far, it is evident
there are entry barriers Muslims —
who account for 17 per cent of India's population
— are unable to cross in
virtually all walks of life. From the administration
and the police to the judiciary and the private
sector, the invisible hands of prejudice, economic
and educational inequality seem to have frozen
the `quota' for Muslims at three to five per
cent. Thanks to a hysterical campaign run by
the Bharatiya Janata Party and some media houses,
the Sachar committee was denied data on the
presence of Muslims in the armed forces. But
even there it is apparent that the three per
cent formula applies.
This gross under-presence of Muslims in virtually
every sector is presaged by substantial inequalities
in education. Muslim enrolment and retention
rates at the primary and secondary levels are
lower than the national average and this further
magnifies existing inequalities at the college
level as well as in the labour market. For virtually
every socio-economic marker of well being, the
Muslim is well below the national norm —
not to speak of the level commensurate with
her or his share of the national population
— and the evidence suggests
these inequalities are not decreasing over time.
This bleak statistical picture is rendered
drearier still by new trends visible in many
cities. Muslims, for example, find it extremely
difficult to rent and buy property outside of
"Muslim areas" in some metros. Apart
from several journalists, I even know of one
former Muslim Union Minister in Delhi whose
Hindu colleagues had to intercede to find him
a flat. In Mumbai, the situation is perhaps
worse. Many Muslim businessmen have problems
accessing credit, besides having to run the
gamut of uncooperative officials who look upon
them with suspicion at every turn. Even in politics,
as Iqbal A. Ansari's recent book, Political
Representation of Muslims in India, 1952-2004,
has shown, Muslims have consistently been under-represented
in the Lok Sabha and all State Assemblies since
Independence except Kerala. Only half as many
Muslim MPs and MLAs get elected as one might
expect based on their population share. In the
absence of our political parties throwing up
a large enough number of Muslim elected representatives,
clerics and obscurantists are only too willing
to step into the breach.
The `war on terrorism' has added a new layer
to this already intolerable situation as policemen
across the country give free vent to their ignorance
and religious prejudice. The tendency of law
enforcement agencies to target Muslims during
incidents of communal violence is well known.
The complicity of the police in the Gujarat
pogrom of 2002 was reprehensible but not so
different from what the country witnessed at
other times in other
places. As for legal redress, neither government
nor judiciary shows any sense of urgency. Terrorist
crimes such as the Mumbai blasts are prosecuted
energetically and this is a good thing. But
no one is able to explain what happened to the
cases stemming from the killing of Muslims in
Mumbai in 1992 and 1993 nor why the Srikrishna
Commission recommendations against erring policemen
remain unimplemented.
The media are a corrective but only to a limited
extent. If one section has sought to highlight
the plight of Indian Muslims, another section
is constantly ready to inflame prejudice by
staging debates on irrelevant issues, giving
undue prominence to ridiculous statements by
unrepresentative `Muslim leaders' or broadcasting
marital disputes within Muslim families (as
one channel did last week) as proof of `Muslim
backwardness.'
In the U.S., the old journalistic adage was
`Jews is News'. In India, it seems, anything
that shows Muslims as ignorant or fanatical
helps propel TRP ratings, while rational comment
is frowned upon as unhelpful. A Muslim MP was
asked recently to take part in a TV debate on
whether there should be reservation for Muslims.
He agreed, but added that he would argue against
it. The channel's reporter then tried convincing
him that "surely your community needs reservation."
When he didn't agree, the channel lost interest
in putting him on air. One studio guest recently
advised Muslims to shed their `persecution complex'
and to not forget that theirs were the "hands
that built the Taj Mahal." Though no one
would dare accuse Dalits of "doing nothing"
to uplift themselves, Muslims are blamed for
their poverty and poor education. They are gratuitously
advised to study hard, as if the problem of
lack of schools, delinquent teachers, inadequate
books, and poverty can be remedied by will power
alone.
The reservation trap
It is against the backdrop of this highly vitiated
atmosphere that the Manmohan Singh Government
must formulate a response to the Sachar committee's
findings. The reality of systemic inequality
cannot be wished away and the Government must
find the political courage to confront this
situation head on. So serious are the implications
of Muslim marginalisation that the Congress
must open a channel of communication with other
parties, including the BJP, to evolve a consensus
on the necessity for urgent corrective measures.
Among the remedial measures to be considered,
the least helpful in substantive as well as
political terms will be reservation. Whatever
they do, Muslim leaders and those who claim
to speak in favour of Muslims, must avoid the
trap that the demand for reservation is. Sixty
years of affirmative action have led to some
improvements for Dalits and Tribals but it is
clear that the country and its rulers have used
the sop of reservation as an excuse to do nothing
about the persistent, underlying causes of caste-based
inequality.
It is now universally recognised that the pursuit
of "equality of outcomes" and "equality
of opportunity" must go hand in hand. Even
equality of opportunity has a formal and a substantive
aspect. `Formal' equality means ending discrimination
on the basis of caste, religion or gender. `Substantive'
equality means overcoming the barriers (or benefits)
children of equal native talent inherit from
their parents so that none is advantaged or
disadvantaged by birth. The India state pays
lip service to the idea of equality of outcomes
(through quotas) but completely ignores the
necessity of crafting expenditure policies that
can provide equality of opportunity. Nowhere
is this more glaring than in the field of education
where the increased notional access of Dalits
and Tribals to university is undercut by high
dropout rates and underperformance at the school
level.
In a 2000 paper, Julian Betts and John Roemer
model the amount of differential expenditure
the United States government would have to make
to provide equality of opportunity to its citizens.
In a typology where they define four categories
of males based on whether they are White or
Black and whether their parents have `High'
or `Low' education levels, Betts and Roemer
conclude that the `equality of opportunity'
expenditure on education must be nine times
higher for members of the `Low Black' group
than the `High Whites'. They also found that
the `High Black,' `Low Black,' and `Low White'
groups must all receive more than their per
capita share of educational resources if equality
of opportunity were to be guaranteed.
Both in the U.S. and in India today, the actual
allocation of educational resources is regressive
in that those who are affluent and socially
privileged corner a greater share of social
allocations for education than their relative
size in the population. In reality, then, existing
affirmative action — or reservation
— is for the privileged and
the goal of public policy has to be to reverse
that by using the target of public expenditure.
An important finding in Betts and Roemer's work
is that economic targeting alone won't alter
the relative distribution of income across cohorts.
The targeting has to be aimed at the discriminated
or excluded cohort.
In India, the first task of the government
must be to guarantee formal equality of opportunity
by dealing firmly with discrimination in the
labour, housing and credit markets as well as
educational system. Without instituting a system
of reservation — which would
generate more political heat than tangible benefit
for Muslims — the Government
must send out a clear and unambiguous message
that the social cohesiveness and future growth
prospects of the country require government
departments and private firms to encourage the
recruitment of Muslims. But in order to generate
substantive equality of opportunity and uproot
inequality and exclusion from their roots, the
government has to guarantee better access to
education at every level for Muslims, Dalits,
Tribals, and OBCs.
http://www.thehindu.com/2006/11/04/stories/2006110402841000.htm
