Only one out of every six Muslim children entering an Indian school stays till his matriculation. I use “his” deliberately; the figures are worse for girls—only two out of five Muslim girls enter schools, and fewer than one-tenth complete secondary education.

These stark dropout rates explain the malaise affecting Indian Muslims, and unless that’s addressed, all other solutions are ineffective.

Such low enrolment figures and high dropout rates mean that only one of 25 undergraduate students, and barely one out of 50 postgraduate students in Indian universities, is a Muslim. India defines literacy rather generously, and yet Muslim literacy rate is only 59.1%. According to the Rajinder Sachar committee’s report in 2006, Muslim enrolment at the Indian Institutes of Management was 1.3%, and at the Indian Institutes of Technology, out of 27,161 students, only 894, or some 3.3%, were Muslim.

The consequence? Inevitably restricted professional opportunities. Just about 5% of applicants for the civil service examinations are Muslim, and of the elite bureaucracy, only 3% of Indian Administrative Services, 1.8% of the Indian Foreign Service, and 4% of the Indian Police Service, are Muslim. The figures improve marginally in other government departments, but only just. Muslims form 4.5% of employees in the railways, and an astonishing 98.7% of them are employed at lower levels. In other departments, such as education, health, and transport, representation varies between 4% and 7% of the total number of employees.

Lacking education and skills, many Muslim men and women find it hard to get jobs, and many end up being self-employed. While 44% of Muslim women are economically active (in itself a low figure) only 25% work outside their homes. Many men work in small businesses. Such jobs typically have minimal protection—no unions, poor work conditions, limited probability of training or advancement and low wages.

Even if they become entrepreneurs, credit may be hard to access without paper qualifications. Figures bear that out: the loans that average Muslim borrowers get are smaller than the loans others get. Furthermore, between 2000 and 2006, of the Rs. 266 billion that the Small Industries Development Bank of India disbursed, Muslims received only Rs. 1.24 billion…

And what does the government do? It “promises” to keep madrassas outside the purview of the RTE Act, thus making sure that there is no move to reform and formalise madrassa education . As the report (in the link notes):

Almost 90% of underprivileged Muslim children attend madrassas. However, devoid of a modern curriculum, madrassas are unable to equip these students for the contemporary job market.  This in turn limits their economic opportunities. By bringing madrassas under the provisions of the RTE Act, the Islamic seminaries will be forced to submit to universal standards and modernise.

..and goes on to promise them additional money from the coffers. Sometimes I wonder, where is the enlightened Muslim leadership? Why does it remain silent? Do Muslims not realize that these moves are leading to further ghettoization, further alienation and widening of the chasm between a rapidly modernizing society and the Muslim community? and worse – fueling further resentment among non-Muslims?

P.S. Some of you may have noticed I put “backwardness” with quotes in the title. The reason is that there is scant data to support such “backwardness” – although it is increasingly taken as a “given” in any discourse on development. The reason for my doubt/scepticism is here.  Comment and thoughts welcome, as always..

Related Post: Literacy rates and “first claims”… UPDATED

More on Sachar, OBCs, reservations etc… and Communal Reservations via the back door?

I don’t know how this man Narayana Murthy gets the audacity to lecture to others about doing something.

For nine years now I have been trying to get him (or Nandan Nilikani) interested in CITIZENSHIP – namely, in the process of active participation in the affairs of their nation. Numerous email communications I’ve had with both of them ..I even met both of them. They pretend to be “supportive” of the ideas I advocate but then do nothing.

One of them even asked me to consider joining an existing party to which I responded that I have something valuable: self-respect. Something they don’t seem to either have or understand. Their “honesty” means nothing if it doesn’t translate into self-respect.

…Unfortunately (for India and for their own reputation), they don’t seem to notice any discrepancy in LECTURING others even as they sit on the sideline as smug observers.

…During the lecture Murthy gave a few days ago he is reported to have said that the biggest malady of the country at present was the apathy to social problems. “We feel that problems surrounding us belong to somebody else. We do not take action or rather postpone the decision”.

Nicely said, Mr Murthy, but SINCE WHEN HAVE YOU DONE ANYTHING ABOUT INDIA’S PROBLEMS? Only complain endlessly (or bribe the corrupt?).

The ONLY thing I’ve seen from you in the last nine years are lectures. I’m sorry to be publicly saying this but I’ve formed the view that you are a TIGHT FISTED STINGY MAN WHO IS EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY SUPPORTING INDIA’S CORRUPT SOCIALIST PARTIES.

Why is it that you fear to build or support a political opposition that wants to fix India’s governance? Why not be a citizen instead of being a carping, stingy old man? Why is it that NOT A SINGLE PAISA has been spent by you in supporting the right cause?

Prior to you I met many Indian origin CEOs of IT companies in the Silicon Valley. Same result. TOTAL APATHY.

These are not Indians. They are BLOOD SUCKERS OF INDIA – who will exploit India for all they can but give back nothing in return. They will leave behind a WORSE INDIA than when they were born. That will be their legacy – of DO NOTHINGS.

In THIRTEEN years (fourteen in February 2012) since I’ve been fighting to establish a classical liberal political party in India not ONE so-called “honest” CEO has bothered to even inquire in some detail about how we can transform India.

And not ONE paisa spent. Not one. All hot air and mindless talk.

If you want your reputation to go down well in India’s history, please do something. Or BE QUIET, now. I’m getting a bit sick of all this.

Also read: Narayana Murthy – the most apathetic of them all (by Sanjeev)

and … On Politics, Corruption and FTI, Why bother with politics? and FTI comes of age on this blog

*** Excerpts from “Why is England in India at all?” by Jabez T Sutherland ***

What causes this awful and growing impoverishment of the Indian people? Said John Bright, “If a country be found possessing a most fertile soil, and capable of bearing every variety of production, and, notwithstanding, the people are in a state of extreme destitution and suffering, the chances are there is some fundamental error in the government of that country.”

One cause of India’s impoverishment is heavy taxation. Taxation in England and Scotland is high, so high that Englishmen and Scotchmen complain bitterly. But the people of India are taxed more than twice as heavily as the people of England and three times as heavily as those of Scotland. According to the latest statistics at hand, those of 1905, the annual average income per person in India is about $6.00, and the annual tax per person about $2.00. Think of taxing the American people to the extent of one-third their total income! Yet such taxation here, unbearable as it would be, would not create a tithe of the suffering that it does in India, because incomes here are so immensely larger than there. Here it would cause great hardship, there it creates starvation. Notice the single item of salt-taxation. Salt is an absolute necessity to the people, to the very poorest; they must have it or die. But the tax upon it which for many years they have been compelled to pay has been much greater than the cost value of the salt. Under this taxation the quantity of salt consumed has been reduced actually to one-half the quantity declared by medical authorities to be absolutely necessary for health. The mere suggestion in England of a tax on wheat sufficient to raise the price of bread by even a half-penny on the loaf, creates such a protest as to threaten the overthrow of ministries. Lately the salt-tax in India has been reduced, but it still remains well-nigh prohibitive to the poorer classes. With such facts as these before us, we do not wonder at Herbert Spencer’s indignant protest against the “grievous salt-monopoly” of the Indian Government, and “the pitiless taxation which wrings from poor ryob nearly half the products of the soil.”

Another cause of India’s impoverishment is the destruction of her manufactures, as the result of British rule. When the British first appeared on the scene, India was one of the richest countries of the world; indeed it was her great riches that attracted the British to her shores. The source of her wealth was largely her splendid manufactures. Her cotton goods, silk goods, shawls, muslins of Dacca, brocades of Ahmedabad, rugs, pottery of Scind, jewelry, metal work, lapidary work, were famed not only all over Asia but in all the leading markets of Northern Africa and of Europe. What has become of those manufactures? For the most part they are gone, destroyed. Hundreds of villages and towns of India in which they were carried on are now largely or wholly depopulated, and millions of the people who were supported by them have been scattered and driven back on the land, to share the already too scanty living of the poor ryot. What is the explanation? Great Britain wanted India’s markets. She could not find entrance for British manufactures so long as India was supplied with manufactures of her own. So those of India must be sacrificed. England had all power in her hands, and so she proceeded to pass tariff and excise laws that ruined the manufactures of India and secured the market for her own goods. India would have protected herself if she had been able, by enacting tariff laws favorable to Indian interests, but she had no power, she was at the mercy of her conqueror.

A third cause of India’s impoverishment is the enormous and wholly unnecessary cost of her government. Writers in discussing the financial situation in India have often pointed out the fact that her government is the most expensive in the world. Of course the reason why is plain: it is because it is a government carried on not by the people of the soil, but by men from a distant country. These foreigners, having all power in their own hands, including power to create such offices as they choose and to attach to them such salaries and pensions as they see fit, naturally do not err on the side of making the offices too few or the salaries and pensions too small. Nearly all the higher officials throughout India are British. To be sure, the Civil Service is nominally open to Indians. But it is hedged about with so many restrictions (among others, Indian young men being required to make the journey of seven thousand miles from India to London to take their examinations) that they are able for the most part to secure only the lowest and poorest places. The amount of money which the Indian people are required to pay as salaries to this great army of foreign civil servants and appointed higher officials, and then, later, as pensions for the same, after they have served a given number of years in India, is very large. That in three-fourths if not nine-tenths of the positions quite as good service could be obtained for the government at a fraction of the present cost, by employing educated and competent Indians, who much better understand the wants of the country, is quite true. But that would not serve the purpose of England, who wants these lucrative offices for her sons. Hence poor Indian ryots must sweat and go hungry, and if need be starve, that an ever-growing army of foreign officials may have large salaries and fat pensions. And of course much of the money paid for these salaries, and practically all paid for the pensions, goes permanently out of India.

Another burden upon the people of India which they ought not to be compelled to bear, and which does much to increase their poverty, is the enormously heavy military expenses of the government. I am not complaining of the maintenance of such an army as may be necessary for the defense of the country. But the Indian army is kept at a strength much beyond what the defense of the country requires. India is made a sort of general rendezvous and training camp for the Empire, from which soldiers may at any time be drawn for service in distant lands. If such an imperial training camp and rendezvous is needed, a part at least of the heavy expense of it ought to come out of the Imperial Treasury. But no, India is helpless, she can be compelled to pay it, she is compelled to pay it. Many English statesmen recognize this as wrong, and condemn it; yet it goes right on. Said the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman: “Justice demands that England should pay a portion of the cost of the great Indian army maintained in India for Imperial rather than Indian purposes. This has not yet been done, and famine-stricken India is being bled for the maintenance of England’s worldwide empire.” But there is still worse than this. Numerous wars and campaigns are carried on outside of India, the expenses of which, wholly or in part, India is compelled to bear. For such foreign wars and campaigns—campaigns and wars in which the Indian people had no concern, and for which they received no benefit, the aim of which was solely conquest and the extension of British power—India was required to pay during the last century the enormous total of more than $460,000,000. How many such burdens as these can the millions of India, who live on the average income of $6 a year, bear without being crushed?

Perhaps the greatest of all the causes of the impoverishment of the Indian people is the steady and enormous drain of wealth from India to England, which has been going on ever since the East India Company first set foot in the land, three hundred years ago, and is going on still with steadily increasing volume. England claims that India pays her no “tribute.” Technically, this is true; but, really, it is very far from true. In the form of salaries spent in England, pensions sent to England, interest drawn in England on investments made in India, business profits made in India and sent to England, and various kinds of exploitation carried on in India for England’s benefit, a vast stream of wealth (“tribute” in effect) is constantly pouring into England from India. Says Mr. R. C. Dutt, author of the Economic History of India (and there is no higher authority), “A sum reckoned at twenty millions of English money, or a hundred millions of American money [some other authorities put it much higher], which it should be borne in mind is equal to half the net revenues of India, is remitted annually from this country [India] to England, without a direct equivalent. Think of it! One-half of what we [in India] pay as taxes goes out of the country, and does not come back to the people. No other country on earth suffers like this at the present day; and no country on earth could bear such an annual drain without increasing impoverishment and repeated famines. We denounce ancient Rome for impoverishing Gaul and Egypt, Sicily and Palestine, to enrich herself. We denounce Spain for robbing the New World and the Netherlands to amass wealth. England is following exactly the same practice in India. Is it strange that she is converting India into a land of poverty and famine?”

*** End of Excerpts ***

And if you think Mr Sutherland is exaggerating, think again and take a brief tour of the points made in these posts: A Restorative Historical Account of Victorian Holocausts...  Also look at The Myth of a Benevolent “Raj”, The “truth” about a “benevolent Empire”

Loot – in search of East India Co. (excerpts) and Economic Exploitation and the Drain of Wealth during British “Raj” (recommended)

Sadly, most Indians still retain a very rose-tinted image of the “Raj” and such talk is heresy in most “educated” circles in India. Yet this is recorded history – and cannot be denied (indeed has not been denied). How long can the truth be hidden? Read the article in full here (its long but worth it) and please share this with friends and family – especially the younger ones. They remain our hope.

“I once more appeal to you to forget the past…You have got what you wanted.

You have got a separate state and, remember, you are the people who were responsible for it, and not those who remain in Pakistan

What is it that you want now?

…Now again you tell me and ask me to say for the purpose of securing the affection of the younger brother I must agree to the same thing again, to divide the country again in the divided part.

For God’s sake understand that we have also got some sense…

Full context and source: Meddling with nationhood by Swapan Dasgupta published 15 Jan ’12

The extent to which the discourse on the vexed issue of reservations has changed over the years is quite remarkable. When the Constitution was being framed, the remnants of the Muslim League argued that independent India should persist with the reservation of seats in legislatures for Muslims and other religious minorities. Predictably, in the aftermath of a Partition that many attributed to the system of separate electorates and the notorious Communal Award, the demand drew a sharp response from the Congress benches.

Intervening in the debate on August 28, 1947, the then home minister Sardar Patel had some harsh words for the proponents of minority reservation: “I once more appeal to you to forget the past…You have got what you wanted. You have got a separate state and, remember, you are the people who were responsible for it, and not those who remain in Pakistan…What is it that you want now? In the majority Hindu provinces you, the minorities, you led the agitation…Now again you tell me and ask me to say for the purpose of securing the affection of the younger brother I must agree to the same thing again, to divide the country again in the divided part. For God’s sake understand that we have also got some sense…”

Had a politician of standing delivered a similar speech today, it is certain that the liberal media and the assembled army of secularists would have construed it as a textbook example of ahate speech.

Related Posts: Communal Reservations via the back door?

Dividing India: One bit at a Time

More on Sachar, OBCs, reservations etc…

Literacy rates and “first claims”…

Reservation for Muslims by Zoya Hassan and finally, A rethink on majority and minorities…

Those who felt offended and let down by Rushdie’s absence from Jaipur were regarded as inconsequential members of the non-voting classes.

Their protests could safely be disregarded.

It struck me that this was also the reason why the government did the shameless “dance” on Lokpal Bill.. and capitulated in the case of Rushdie.

And then I came across this remarkable essay by Arun Shourie on Vote Banks (do read, if you have not already) in which he concluded (emphasis added):

Is the Party again counting on amenable judges? Or is cynicism in command again? Who cares if the courts strike down the promise later?

By that time those who have to be fooled, would have been fooled; what is to be won, would have been won.

Isn’t it time to say enough? Time to make sure your voice is not disregarded? To make sure your protest is not un-heard? To make sure that you are not being fooled?

Make this year, the year of change ..Make 2012 the year in which we said, “Enough!” Do this by equipping yourself with information…Do this by discussing, debating and commenting in public…Make use of social media and online platforms to the hilt..One place to start is right here on this blog…especially the posts related to “Politics and Governance in India“.

Get involved in a citizen activity, a community initiative, teach kids, educate …do something for your neighbourhood..but keep your eye on the big goal..to change the system, you will have to get involved yourself..make sure you prepare for it…So when the perfect storm comes, you are ready.

Somewhat Related: Checking out of India – psychologically