In 2005, in lieu of the critical situation of Muslims, Government formed a committee named Sachar Committee which was asked to collect all relevant data which could provide relevant information on the backward situation of this minority. As per the government, this committee did an appreciable job when it submitted its report in 2006 before the lower House. Definitely it went through enormous amount of criticism because of it's only cynical views and no specific solutions for that. Now let us have a brief look over what Sachar revealed.
Results of Report
In it's report, committee well highlighted the critical situations of Muslims, a few of which are as under:
Identity-related issues: Muslims carry a double burden of being labelled as “anti-nationalists” and being appeased at the same time. The fact that the so-called appeasement has not resulted in any benefits is ignored. The feeling of insecurity among Muslims is high, especially in communally sensitive states and among women. The discriminatory attitude of the police and others compounds this feeling; ghettoisation is a result of insecurity and discrimination in housing, schools and jobs. The perception of discrimination is widespread, leading to a sense of alienation and thus appears as an important cause of inequity.
Analytic Interpretations :
Muslims constitute about 13.4% of the total Indian population and 15.7% of the OBC population. A larger proportion of Muslims live in urban areas (36%) as compared to the population average (28%). The community is also geographically concentrated in specific areas – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Maharashtra. Studies suggest that the population share will stabilise at less than 20% by the end of the century. Fertility rates among Muslims are higher than average but are declining, and converging towards the average. Muslims use family planning methods and the contraception prevalence is about 10% points lower than average. Definitely education has to take its concern over here.
Literacy rates among Muslims are lower than most other SRCs (except for SCs/STs) and are not increasing fast enough to converge with literacy rates of other groups. In-fact in recent years, the growth in literacy rates among SCs/STs has been higher than for Muslims. Dropout rates are the highest among Muslims and this seems to go up significantly after middle school. School enrollment rates are among the lowest but interestingly have improved in recent years.
When we come to employment profiles, than as compared to others, Muslim workers (especially women) are concentrated more in self-employed (home-based) activities and their share in regular work, especially in the government, public sector and large private sector, is very low. Some even complained for discrimination in interview. Also in case of Bank related concerns, the share of Muslims in loans is relatively low but deposits relatively high, at times almost close to their population share. Thus, the notion that Muslims do not participate in banking is a myth but their participation is lower than that of other SRCs. One obvious explanation for this low share in number of loans and loan amounts is the lower demand for credit due to high levels of poverty within the community. For participation in government programmes, coverage of Muslims in regular programmes is generally limited. But participation varies with programmes. For example, the coverage of Muslims in the mid-day meal programme is decent in relative terms but the overall coverage is low while the coverage of Muslims in ICDS is low and so is the overall coverage.
Also, in general, the mean per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) is lower for Muslims than for all SRCs except SCs/STs and the incidence of poverty (headcount) is also higher for Muslims than for all SRCs except SCs/STs. Internal differentiation in the community is a reality. Several studies over the years have distinguished three broad groups within the Muslims that roughly correspond to high-castes, OBCs and SCs in the Hindu community. These are ‘ashraf’, ‘ajlaf’, and ‘arzal’. In large data sets only the Muslim – general and Muslim-OBCs can be meaningfully distinguished; the sample of Muslims with SC/ST background is too small to undertake any meaningful analysis. Thus, the “socio-economic hierarchy” among these SRCs is reasonably clear: Hindu-OBCs are on top followed by Muslim-general and then Muslim-OBCs. Thus, if reservation is seen as the policy option, a “most backward” class (MBC) status for arzals would make sense.
These all analysis has led to a very important conclusion : Should there be any margin in the OBC reservation for Muslims ?
My cynic view ON Sachar Report
As per my view, many jobs in which Muslims have remarkable dominance have been left out, for example, in Bollywood which may employ very less number but the dominance, is it discrimination ? What report failed to distinguish is the contribution of the migrants from Bangladesh who are coming under this purview. They constitute to the 8% (estimated on the data provided by previous governments : UPA gave 13 million and NDA projected it 15 million, but let us take the lower one, to be on worse calculations ). According to the Sachar report (appendix table 4.1), Indian Muslims have a 59.1% literacy rate, which places them well below the national average of 65.1%, with a literacy rate even below that of SCs/STs. If, for the sake of argument, however, we were to assign the 2002 Bangladesh literacy rates – 31% for women and 50% for men – to 8% of this total, then the literacy average for the remaining Indian Muslims would rise by almost a full percent nationally, and by somewhat more than this in states such as Assam and West Bengal in which illegal migration has been the greatest. On other factors such as our estimates of Muslim poverty levels the difference might potentially be even greater. Much of the analysis March 10, 2007 in Sachar focuses on education, but the report still leaves the reader without a good sense of which factors leave Muslim children, and especially Muslim girls, without sufficient access to primary, secondary and higher education. But this cannot be the total answer, because in some states Muslim participation in education is much higher than the norm. In fact, on many measures Muslims are doing better in western and southern states than they are in the rest of the country. Just to give one example, although in general Muslim literacy rates are below the Indian average, in 10 of the 21 states studied (including Maharashtra Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka) Muslim literacy rates are actually higher than average (SCR: 53). So there is clearly something that is state- or region-specific that seems to be making a major difference to Muslims’ life chances.
Now comes a 65000 dollar question, is it necessary to give a special concern to Muslim OBCs in terms of reservation. My answer, "NO", perhaps there should be no reservation at all, let me put it this way:
Nehru said once
"The only real way to help a backward group is to give opportunities for good education. That includes technical education, which is becoming more and more important. Everything else is provision of some kind of crutches, which do not add to the strength or health of the body.”
“But if go in for reservations on communal and caste basis, we swamp the bright and able people........ I am grieved to learn of how far this business of Reservation has gone on communal considerations. It has annoyed me to learn that even promotions are sometimes based on communal or caste considerations.”
“This way lays not only folly but disaster. Let us help the backward groups by all means, but never at the cost of efficiency.”
