A Notification was issued by the Prime Minister’s Office on March 9, 2005, whereby a seven-member High Level Committee, chaired by Justice Rajindar Sachar, was constituted to prepare a report on the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community of India. In a country teeming with the poor and the indigent, the reasons for appointing a Committee solely to assess the socio-economic conditions of only one community, namely the Muslims, while ignoring the deprived segments of other communities, appeared quite mysterious.

The terms of reference of the Committee included a specific provision, requiring it to conduct “an intensive literature survey to identify the published data, articles and research on relative social, economic and educational status of Muslims in India”, as reiterated in para 2 (a) of the aforesaid notification.

At the same time, para 5 of the Notification authorised the High Level Committee to co-opt or invite such person(s) at it deems appropriate, to participate in any of its meetings as special invitee(s). Prima facie the aforesaid two provisions were intended to empower the Committee for arriving at the truth after considering the views of all those who wanted to submit facts and figures. This was also clear from the fact that the Committee had issued advertisements in a number of newspapers inviting representations from all those who wanted to make both written and oral submissions.

Our study group (known at that time as Concerned Patriots Thinktank) wrote two letters on 20-09-2005 and 03-10-2005 respectively requesting the Chairperson of the Committee, seeking an opportunity to meet him personally for presenting our viewpoint on the subject along with a written submission.

We were advised by Dr. S. Zafar Mahmood, Joint Secretary to Govt. of India and Officer on Special Duty, vide his letter dated October 6, 2005, to fax or send by post our representation “which the Committee will be happy to consider”—a commitment which was never honoured. A facts-and-data packed Memorandum dated 26th October 2005 was submitted to the High Level Committee by Speedpost Acknowledgement Due on October 31, 2005, because our effort to deliver the document by hand in the Committee’s Secretariat, against a proper receipt, did not succeed. It was received in the office of the Committee on November 10, 2005, as is evident from the signatures on the Speedpost Acknowledgment Due Receipt.

Another request seeking a personal audience was made vide our letter dated 7th Nov., 2005, while forwarding a copy of the inadvertently left behind Annexure 5 of our Memorandum (i.e., Statement 7 of Census 2001 Religion Data Report).

After waiting for Committee’s response for nearly 24 weeks, a d.o. reminder was sent to Justice Sachar on April 18, 2006, drawing attention to our long pending Memorandum and seeking a personal hearing. On 17-05-2006, we received a communication from Shri Atam Prakash, Administrative Officer of the High Level Committee, advising us to send another copy of our Memorandum dated 26-10-2005 submitted to the HLC. Apparently, our Memorandum had been lost or misplaced in Committee’s office.

We, therefore, submitted another Memorandum, a revised one, on May 18, 2006, to the Committee. It was sent by Speedpost on 19th May, 2006 and contained yet another prayer seeking a personal hearing.

Subsequently, 3 more reminders were sent to the High Level Committee on 12-07-2006, 23-10-2006 and 09-11-2006, fervently seeking a personal hearing. In the last two reminders dated 23-10-2006 and 07-11-2006 some additional inputs were sent to the High Level Committee in support of the facts stated in our Memorandum dated 18-05-2006.

Briefly, our aforesaid Memorandum highlighted the following important facts, duly supported by statistical data and critical analysis (including the sources of inputs) : 1. The incidence of infant and child mortality per 1000 births is substantially higher among the Hindus than the Muslims, the overall differential being of the order of 29 to 30 percent. It is a universally recognized fact that higher incidence of infant and child mortality is a direct consequence of poor nutritional intake resulting from acute poverty. In addition, between 1991 and 1999, there was a steep increase in this differential in Infant and Child Mortality of the two communities (as pointed out in our ignored Memorandum) which indicated a sharp decline in the economic status of Hindus. The following data compiled by S. Irudaya Rajan gives the overall picture of incidence of Infant and Child Mortality for the Hindus and Muslims of India :

Estimates of Infant and Child Mortality for Hindus and Muslims

Source: S. Irudaya Rajan, District Fertility Estimates for Hindus and Muslims, Economic and Political Weekly, January 29, 2005, p. 440.

Note 1: NFHS stands for National Family Health Survey. Two such surveys have been held in the past, one in 1992-93 and another in 1998-99. The third survey has completed recently. But its final results are yet to be released.

Note 2: The term Infant Mortality relates to death of children below one year age per 1000 births, while Child Mortality relates to death of children below 5 years, but above the age of 1 year per 1000 births.

A mere glance at the above data shows that in 1998-99 for the country as a whole, there were 77 cases of Infant Mortality (per 1000) among Hindus as against only 59 such cases among Muslims, thereby revealing more than 30 percent higher incidence of Infant Mortality among Hindus vis-a-vis Muslims. As regards the incidence of Child Mortality, according to NFHS-2, there were 107 cases of child mortality per 1000 births amongst Hindus compared to a meagre 83 such cases among the Muslims. In other words, the incidence of child mortality, too, is nearly 29 percent—higher among Hindus as compared to Muslims. It is simple commonsense and a universally recognized principle that higher incidence of infant and child mortality is a direct consequence of poor nutritional intake, resulting from acute poverty. It clearly establishes a great percentage of Hindus (mostly living in rural areas) are more disadvantaged than Muslims. Thus, in terms of these 2 important human development indicators, the Hindus are definitely worse off than the Muslims.

It was further highlighted in our Memorandum through proper analysis that the manifest difference in incidence of child mortality between the Hindus and the Muslims further widened between 1991 and 1999 because of a sharp decline in incomes in the agricultural sector resulting in further deterioration in the economic condition of Hindus. It is well known that during the last two decades, there has been a massive decline in productivity in the agricultural sector, where GDP growth remained very low—far below the high growth recorded in the urban sector. In recent years, there have been more than 15,000 suicides by impoverished peasantry (now the number has exceeded 25,000), most of whom were Hindus. The rightful claim of farmers and rural poor for “affirmative action” to ameliorate their lot has been denied by the government because they happen to be too poor and disorganized to act as a solid “vote bank” and have not learnt the devious art of practising “grievance politics”.

2. Degree of urbanization, or the relative proportion of a community’s population living in urban areas is the third important globally accepted human development indicator. According to Census 2001, as many as 74 percent Hindus live in rural areas whereas the proportion of Muslims living in rural areas was only 64 percent. Thus barely 26 percent Hindus are urbanized, while the percentage of urbanized Muslims is much higher at 36 percent. According to this human development indicator, too, Muslim community is far ahead of Hindus. The following table shows the degree of urbanization among members of the two communities, as per Census 2001 :

Source: Census 2001, Religion Data Report

3. The average life expectancy at birth is yet another globally recognized indicator of socio-economic status of a community. As calculated by two well known professional demographers, P.N. Mari Bhat and A.J. Francis Zavier in their research study published in Economic & Political Weekly, January 29, 2005 (page 390), the average life expectancy at birth for Muslims was 1.2 years higher than the Hindus—the respective averages being 62.6 years for the Muslims as against 61.4 years for the Hindus.

4. There is not much difference in the literacy average of the two communities, the average literacy among Hindus being 65.1 percent (barely 0.3 percent higher than the national average of 64.8), as against 59.1 percent among Muslims. There were substantial variations in the percentage of literacy from State to State, as revealed by Census 2001. According to Statement 8 of Census 2001 (Religion Data Report), there are at least 13 States and Union Territories, including several big states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Gujarat, where the Muslims are ahead of the Hindus in the matter of literacy. Even female literacy among Muslims is higher than among Hindus in 13 States and U.T.s, namely Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Pondicherry, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Interestingly in Andhra Pradesh, a State notoriously hellbent on providing 5 percent reservations to Muslims, the percentage of literacy among Muslims is higher than the Hindus to the extent of 7 percent, while in the matter of female literacy, the Muslims have an advantage of 10 percent over Hindu women.

5. It has been highlighted by Mari Bhat and Francis Zavier, two reputed demographers, in their above cited research study, some analysts try to juggle with statistics in a bid to show that the Muslims form only three percent of those employed in administrative services, police, railways, etc. by deviously suggesting that there was discrimination against the community. But the figures quoted fail to show any high degree of discrimination if one takes into account the fact that the Muslims form only 5 percent of the persons graduating from colleges and further that there might be some difference in the quality of education acquired. The two demographers also drew attention to the fact that if the government alone could upgrade the educational attainments of Muslims, then the community should have at least fared much better in two left-oriented and self-proclaimed Muslim-friendly States of Kerala and West Bengal. But the educational performance of Muslims, especially their womenfolk, is much worse in these two States.

6. In our Memorandum, we conceded that according to NSS surveys, the per capita income of Muslims is lower than that of Hindus. But we pointed out that there were two critical differences between the economic parameters of the two communities. One crucial factor is the comparatively larger size of Muslim households when compared to Hindus which increased the dependency burden on the breadwinner. On an average, every Muslim family has one additional member to feed than the comparable Hindu household due to poor acceptance of small family norm. According to National Family Health Survey-2, on an average every Muslim woman was giving birth to 1.1 more child than her Hindu counterpart. The second important reason was the abysmally low work participation of Muslim women which was nearly 50 percent lower than the Hindus, the respective percentages according to Census 2001 being 14.1 percent for Muslim women as against 27.5 percent for Hindu women. The reason for this poor work participation was the obscurantist custom of veil and the Shariah-dictated taboo forbidding women to go out for work. The Committee, despite harping repetitively on its pet theme of Muslim poverty, dare not delve deep into the true reasons for this globally prevalent malaise, namely the high birth rate and poor female work participation, as established by our research. The intention obviously is to hide from the gullible public the knowledge about the politically inconvenient truth of abnormally high birth rate and poor female work participation.

7. The scriptural disapproval of women going out to work has 3 adverse side-effects. First, it results in lower household earnings, causing lower per capita income. Second, it pulls down the percentage of overall employment in the community because the average of employment is the statistical average of the total work participation by both the men and the women in a community. Third, it tends to show a higher level of unemployment in the community due to large number of non-working women. Rationally speaking, due to adverse impact of these factors, the statistical data of unemployment and lower per capita income of Muslims cannot be compared with similar indices pertaining to Hindus, Christians and other communities whose womenfolk don’t suffer from such religious disabilities restricting female education, or curbing women empowerment and work participation.

8. Lastly it was pointed out in our Memorandum that the Hindu society has a thick creamy layer, mostly city-based, whose huge income gets distributed over the vast Hindu population, mostly poor, spread out in rural areas, thereby giving an impression that as a community, the Hindus are more prosperous than the Muslims. Attention was drawn to the fact that out of 311 Rupee Billionaires in the country, nearly 300 happen to be Hindus, though the richest billionaire happens to be a forward-looking Muslim entrepreneur, Azim Premji.

9. In our subsequent reminders, attention was drawn to the fact that the socio-economic backwardness of the Muslim community was an outcome of rampant gender discrimination and regressive social practices imposed by powerful clerics and religious scholars. As a rule, the social status of a community is a direct function of its socio-religious mores, especially the treatment meted out to women in the matter of gender equality and social emancipation through socio-economic empower-ment. We made a submission that an important step towards modernizing the community would be to enact a common civil code, which alone could empower the Muslim women.

10. It was further pointed out in our 4th Reminder that the socio-economic backwardness of Muslims is not an India-specific problem. It was a global phenomenon, as highlighted by a Pakistan-based journalist, Dr. Farrukh Saleem, in a soul-searching article. Among other things, he pointed out that though Muslims constituted 22 percent of world population, they produce less than 5 percent of the global GDP. Similarly, half of the Arab women cannot read (though most Arab nations are flush with petro-dollar riches). Only one percent of Arab population has a personal computer and barely half percent use Internet facility.

Globally, six of the poorest of the poor countries have a Muslim majority. And 57 Muslim majority countries together have only 600 unversities which translates into an average of 10 universities per country, while India alone has 8,407 universities. The USA has 5,758 universities. Our submission, made to the Committee, is that for arriving at a rational and correct diagnosis of the malaise of social backwardness of Indian Muslims, the above mentioned global facts should also be taken into account along with the “drag-effect” of gender discrimination, triple talaq and the custom of veil, which prevents the Muslim women from accessing adequate, education, denies them empowerment and a fair share in work participation. Thus, it is totally wrong to blame the majority community, or even the government, for backwardness of the Muslim community, as has been done by the High Level Committee in numerous places.

A summary of Dr. Farrukh Salem’s research (duly sent to Sachar Committee) is enclosed as Annexure ‘A’.

On December 1, 2006, we learnt from media reports that the Committee’s report had been tabled in the Parliament. It transpired that the report had been submitted to the Prime Minister on 17th November, 2006.

After going through the voluminous report, we discovered that due to some inexplicable reasons, our Memorandum does not appear to have been considered at all by the Committee despite a written assurance given to our Forum in Dr. Zafar Mahmood’s letter dated 6th October, 2005 that the Committee “will be happy to consider” our representation. Due to some mysterious reasons, we were not given any opportunity either to meet the Committee, though many other groups, individuals and NGOs were given an opportunity to meet and interact with the Committee members – a fact admitted in the report on page XV (Acknowledgement). This denial of opportunity to our Forum was a clear violation of the mandate assigned to the Committee in terms of para 2(a) of the Notification and the implied promise to consider every viewpoint, as announced through advertisements in dozens of newspapers. In the circumstances, an impression has grown among members of our Forum that the High Level Committee did not want to hear the politically taboo truth that in terms of four important human development indicators, namely Infant Mortality, Child Mortality, Urbanisation and Life Expectancy at Birth, the Hindus are more disadvantaged than the Muslims and that the real cause of social backwardness of the community, prevalent all over the world, lies in their regressive social system and stranglehold of obscurantist clergy and religious scholars. Astonishingly, these well known facts about gender discrimination, insistence on veil and enforcement of other regressive practices, voiced by the well known film celebrity, Shabana Azmi and several others, from time to time, have been totally ignored by the Committee headed by an eminent High Court Judge of the stature of Justice Sachar. That looks strange and somewhat extraordinary. Instead of reaching the truth through objective inquiries and proper analysis, the Committee started by recording a pre-conceived value judgement in the beginning of the report in para 4 of Chapter 1 by stating ………. “Among these, the Muslims, the largest minority community in the country, constituting 13.4 per cent of the population, are seriously lagging behind in terms of most of the human development indicators.” It made no attempt to delve into several glaring causes of backwardness of the community the most important of which are the exceptionally high fertility of the community leading to higher dependency burden on the breadwinners, low acceptability of small family norm and abysmally low work participation of Muslim women.

A detailed study of the Sachar Committee’s report has revealed that it has extensively tried to fudge the facts and taken recourse to blatant obfuscation and misinterpretation of statistical data. A few instances are listed below:

i) There is a lop-sided over-emphasis on the so-called fear of lack of security which has been cited in more than one place as the cause of lack of education and social backwardness of Muslims. The Committee has avoided an analysis of the reasons, due to which even in those countries where Muslims are in total majority and have no fear or so-called ‘insecurity-complex’, the community has remained woefully backward.

ii) In Chapter 2, it has been asserted that the “popular perception that religious conservatism among Muslims is a major factor for not accessing education is incorrect”. But neither any data nor any logical argument has been presented by the Committee in support of their thesis. All kinds of imaginary grievances have been listed in this chapter to explain poor enrolment of Muslim girls into schools. The Committee showed no moral courage to accept the truth that after a certain age, many Muslim parents do not want to send their girls to schools primarily because of the diktats of clerics and religious scholars who always insist that Muslim women and girls must wear veil and stay at home.

iii) In Chapter 3 dealing with demographics, recourse has been taken to a crude lie by stating that in last intercensal decade the growth in Muslim population had recorded a larger fall than Hindus, from “32.9% to 29.5% or 3.4 percentage points”, while the Hindu growth “declined from 22.7% to 19.9% or 2.8 percentage points”. This deceptive argument has been rubbished by Mari Bhat and Francis Zavier in their research study (published in Economic & Political Weekly dated January 29, 2005) by pointing out that in defence of Muslims, it is argued that the 2001 census registered a larger reduction in their growth rate than that of Hindus. But even this evidence does not indicate faster reduction in Muslim fertility “because the speed of decline is measured not in absolutes but in proportionate terms”. Mari Bhat and Francis Zavier correctly pointed out that “although the absolute decline in percentage growth was marginally higher among Muslims (2.8 per cent), in relative terms the decline was greater among Hindus (12.2 per cent) than Muslims (10.3 per cent)”. Knowing as we do that an NCAER demographer, Shri Abu Saleh Sharrif, happened to be the Member Secretary of the Committee and had read this research paper, why such a false assertion has been made, remains a mystery. There are several references to this research study in the Report itself, indicating that the Member Secretary has been fully aware of this particular research study which also finds mention in the list of ‘References’ on page 257 of the Report. This deliberate misrepresentation appears to be a typical instance of suppressio veri, suggestio falsi.

iv) Yet another instance of suppressio veri suggestio falsi is the unfounded assertion made in Chapter 2 on page 3 that “the poor rate of success of the polio vaccination drive in Muslim majority areas is one such response arising out of the fear of an alleged plot to reduce the Muslim birth rate”. This illogical reason, often advanced by the community leaders, has been accepted as gospel truth by the High Level Committee without examining the role of Muslim ulemma in spreading this canard. In this context, three important facts need to be considered. First, the incidence of polio in India is the highest among Muslims and nearly 60 to 70 percent polio-afflicted children are Muslims. Second, there is a similar resistance to polio vaccination among Muslims of the far away Nigeria and a few more Muslim-dominated countries of Africa. Third, the Committee has not answered the issue in an honest and straightforward manner by explaining why is it necessary for a self-proclaimed poor community like Muslims to have more children than other communities. Is this obsessive preoccupation with having more children in some way connected with the dominant intent of militant Islamists to overrun the entire world through a demographic jihad – as suggested in recent years by quite a few western writers like Niall Fergusson, late Oriana Fallaci, Bruce Bawer and Mark Steyn?

v) Another instance of suppressio veri suggestio falsi is the attempt made in Chapter 3 on page 45 to mislead the gullible Indians by concealing the sharp growth in Muslim population by saying that “the growth of the Muslim population has been above average, and is likely to remain so for some more time”. This statement is misleading on two counts. First, it has been admitted in the report that the fast-paced growth in Muslim population is destined to continue for the entire 21st century (i.e., the present century) and not merely for “some more time”. How can a long period of 95 years be labelled as “some more time”? This attempt to mislead the casual readers of the report is evident from the projections made by the Committee itself on page 47 of the same Chapter which admit that Muslim population will grow by the end of the century to anything between 32 and 34 crores showing a whopping increase in their percentage share to nearabout 19 percent as against 13.4 in the year 2001 and around 10 percent at the time of partition. Second, the growth rate of Muslim population is not merely above average, but substantially higher than the Hindus. It is now in “fast forward mode”, as highlighted by P.N. Mari Bhat and A.J. Francis Zavier in the beginning of their seminal research study (cited above, duly read by the Member Secretary and included in the list of ‘References’) that the “fertility of Muslims, which was about 10 per cent higher than that of the Hindus before independence, is now 25 to 30 percent higher than the Hindu rate and the difference according to religion is larger than the difference between the forward and depressed Hindu castes and tribes”.

vi) Further, despite citing this research of Mari Bhat and Francis Zavier in quite a few places and including it in the list of ‘References’, the important fact of momentous growth in Muslim population has been deliberately downplayed in the Report by saying that “now that the fertility decline has been established among all communities, the fertility gap is seen as a transitory phase”. This obfuscatory explanation is yet another instance of suggestio falsi. After admitting that the rapid growth in Muslim population will continue unabated for nearly another hundred years, rising from the present level of 13-14 crores to 32-34 crores by the year 2101, how can the phenomenon be explained away as a “transitory phase”, or for “some more time”? The terms like ‘transitory phase’ and ‘some more time’ will at the most denote a timespan of say, 5 to 10 years, but certainly not an entire century!

vii) There are many more instances of suppressio veri suggestio falsi in the Report all of which need not be elaborated here, e.g., the obfuscatory explanation given for the causes of lower infant and child mortality among the Muslims vis-a-vis the Hindus by calling it as an “enigma” rather than admitting that the indices showed better nutritional intake by the children of Muslim community than the Hindu children. If the reason for higher infant and child mortality in Bolivia, Botswana and many sub-Saharan countries could be ascribed by the international community and the WHO to poor nutritional intake, why should the Committee try to obfuscate the truth? Similarly, while admitting the fact of higher urbanization of Muslims, the Committee tries to recount its causes. No one is searching for the causes of higher degree of urbanization of Muslim population. The basic questions are only two. First, is it a fact that a substantially higher percentage of Muslims are urbanized as compared to the Hindus ? Second, is it not a fact that higher degree of urbanisation is globally recognized as an important indicator of human development ? Why take recourse to the diversionary tactics by bringing in the causes of higher urbanization of Muslims ? What is its relevance?

viii) For sheer obfuscation, some observations in Chapter 5 dealing with Economy and Employment take the cake. Instead of truthfully diagnosing the rampant gender discrimination, the custom of mandatory veil and the scriptural orthodoxy as 3 basic reasons for low work participation by Muslim women (which factor also keeps the household incomes substantially lower), the Committee invents a long-winding frivolous argument. Just sample the following words of profound wisdom:
“One of the reasons for lower participation rates of Muslim women may be higher dependency rates due to relatively higher share of younger population in the community, resulting in women staying at home.”
This could indeed be the most ludicrous argument ever invented to hide the truth. The Committee has deliberately ignored the globally known fact that the low work participation by Muslim women is a widespread phenomenon, glaringly noticeable in every Muslim and non-Muslim country, and the real culprits are the mandatory veil and scriptural diktats of clerics. After all, every married woman, every family, Muslim or non-Muslim, has to look after young children at a certain stage in life. This is one more instance of suggestio falsi.

ix) In Chapter 4, while pleading the cause of Urdu for being considered as an elective subject in schools, the Committee trains its gurus on the teaching of Sanskrit for reasons best known to its members. Going off at a tangent, it finds fault with the “importance attached to say, Sanskrit, which is offered in a majority of schools”. It pontificates on page 83 that “the importance given to Sanskrit in the educational framework in Delhi and many north Indian States has tended to sideline minority languages. Students have to opt for the Sanskrit as there is no provision to teach Urdu (or say other regional languages) in many schools. This, in effect, makes Sanskrit a compulsory subject”. God alone knows what has made the High Level Committee so hostile to the teaching of Sanskrit in schools. Sanskrit and Urdu are by no means comparable languages, nor are they mutually competitive. Sanskrit is by far the world’s most ancient language and repository India’s glorious heritage and sacred texts, while Urdu is a hybrid born out of the accident of history. We hope and pray that this irrelevant and grossly irreverent observation by Sachar Committee is not used as a subterfuge to substitute Urdu in the place of Sanskrit. It may be recalled that recently the Minister for Minority Affairs, Shri Antulay, has publicly announced that even observations of Sachar Committee will be taken up for implementation.

To sum up, a prominent streak of obfuscation, bias and evasive intent to conceal the truth runs throughout the Report. The unwarranted diatribe against Sanskrit is really a matter of regret and concern.

It is astounding that the so-called High Level Committee took no notice of the countrywide angst, and even visible turmoil among educated and enlightened womenfolk of the community, about rampant gender discrimination. While the Committee was busy writing an obfuscatory and illogical report, many distressed Imranas kept on popping out of the dark recesses of ugly gender discrimination. Unfortunately, even that inelegant spectacle did not make the Committee any wiser, nor did it make them wide awake!

Here it is pertinent to point out that in an interesting Seminar Paper presented by Shri Sanjay Kumar (Fellow, Centre for Study of Developing Societies), in a Workshop-cum-Seminar organized by the Indian Institute of Public Administration on Sept. 2, 2006, it was pointed out that according to the findings of the National Election Study (conducted by the CSDS after interviewing 27,000 respondents, post 2004 general elections), “there is hardly any difference among the level of educational attainments among Hindus and Muslims”. At the national level, both among Hindus and Muslims, 36 percent are illiterates. There is a slight difference in the proportion of those who have completed college education. While among Hindus 17 percent, had passed college education, among Muslims, the percentage was slightly less, i.e., only 15 percent. In the realm of higher education, the other minorities like the Sikhs and the Christians are much better placed. His research showed that the story is not very different when we look at the level of economic prosperity among the Hindus and Muslims. The research scholar categorically stated that “contrary to the common belief that Muslims are poorer compared to the Hindus, the findings of NES revealed hardly any difference in the level, of economic prosperity”. But at the national level the proportion of those who would fall in the ‘very poor’ class is more among the Hindus compared to the Muslims, concluded Shri Sanjay Kumar. He also concluded that the urban Hindus have a thick creamy layer (which has been our contention, too). He pointed out that among those who have managed to become rich, the urban Hindus outnumber the urban Muslims “in significant numbers”.

Incidentally, the well known Psephologist and Statistical Analyst, Prof. Yogendra Yadav, happens to be the head of the Centre for Studies of Developing Studies.

It is interesting to note that the findings of Shri Sanjay Kumar are more or less similar to those established by the research of our Forum, though the two studies are based on different inputs and data. A summary of Shri Sanjay Kumar’s major findings is enclosed as Annexure ‘B’.

The recent report of National Sample Survey Organisation has fully vindicated our submission that a disproportionately large percentage of Hindus, trapped in rural areas, happen to be very poor (which is also the conclusion arrived at by Shri Sanjay Kumar in his research study). The latest data released by the NSSO further confirms that 10 percent of India’s rural population lives on Rs. 9 per day which comes to an MPCE (Monthly Per Capita Expenditure) of Rs. 270. In our view, these are the people at the lowest rung, subsisting on one-fifth dollar per day, who should be categorized as very poor. These 7.5 crore les miserables, irrespective of their religious denomination, should have the first claim on the resources of the country, in terms of the now politically famous dictum invented by the powers-that-be! As per last Census data, 74 percent Hindus live in rural areas, while the proportion of Muslims living in rural areas is only 64 percent of their total population—the latter being far more urbanized than Hindus. Thus, in statistical terms, out of 61,12,63,295 Hindus domiciled in rural areas, on a pro-rata basis approximately 6,11,26,000 are likely to be living on Rs 9 per day, while out of 8,87,94,744 Muslims living in rural areas only 88,79,500 should be living on the subsistence level of Rs. 9 per day. Thus, on the basis of the latest NSSO data, it stands established that in terms of overall population of Hindus in the country, nearly 13.5 percent (out of nearly 83 crores) would fall in the category of “very poor”, whereas among Muslims, the corresponding percentage of “very poor” will come to 10.6 percent (out of a total of 14 crores). That is also the broadly established truth by Shri Sanjay Kumar’s seminal research which now stands duly supported by the latest NSSO data. And that, too, was the humble submission made by Patriots’ Forum to the Sachar Committee.

Before concluding, we should like to draw attention to the recommendation of the High Level Committee to further fracture the Indian society by providing reservations for the so-called Dalit and backward Muslims. That will be a gross violation of the Preamble of the Constitution. The Preamble, which encapsulates the basic structure of the Constitution and the wisdom and vision of the founding fathers clearly lays down that the government must strictly adhere to the principle of ensuring “unity of the nation”, even while trying to ensure social justice. It lays down that the State shall secure for all citizens of the Republic :

i) Justice, social, economic and political;
ii) Equality of status and of opportunity, and to promote among them all;
iii) Fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and unity of the Nation.

Thus, while implementing the goal of social and economic justice the following major constitutional requirements, enunciated in the Preamble, must be adhered to :

• First, while securing social justice for any deprived class or group, it is incumbent on the government to ensure that the proposed measures promote fraternal feelings among the citizens.
• Second, in doing so, the government must act in a manner which assures the dignity of the individual and simultaneously ensures the unity of the Nation.

In our view, the recommendations of the Committee singularly fail to meet the litmus test of ensuring the unity of the Indian nation enshrined in the Preamble. Apart from suffering from manifest fudging of facts and several subjective considerations writ large all over the document, the report of Justice Sachar Committee is violative of the spirit of Indian Constitution. It aims at destroying the unity of the nation and will encourage divisive forces. The seriously flawed report of Sachar Committee has the potential to tear asunder the fragile fabric of India’s national unity.

Lies About Madarsa Education
Another example of the obfuscatory intent of the writer of Sachar Committee Report is the clever methodology invented to cover up the truth about Madarasa education. On page 76 of the report it has been stated that barely 4 percent Muslim Children attend madarsas - yet another lie. A look at the graph from which this deduction has been made shows that this figure relates to Muslim children enrolled in madarsas in the age group 7 years to 19 years. This political googly leaves two questions unanswered. First, what happens to Muslim children between 4 years to 7 years age and what are their numbers and percentage? This vital question has not been answered. Second, on the very next page (i.e., page 77) the report admits that these figures relate only to madarsas which are not attached to mosques. It is claimed that there is a misconception in the public mind because people don’t distinguish between the ‘Madarsas’ and the ‘Maktabs’. But there is a difference between Madrasas and Maktabs. “Maktabs are neighbourhood schools, often attached to mosques that provide religious education to children who attend other schools to get mainstream education”. By emphasizing that “Maktabs provide part-time religious education and are complementary to the formal educational institutions”, the Committee tries once again to suppress the truth. There is a refreshingly frank article by Dr. Arjmand Ara in a book, Redefining Urdu Politics in India, edited by Ather Farouqui (published by Oxford University Press), which gives a direct lie to Sachar Committee’s bluster about madarsas. The article, titled ‘Madarsas and the Making of Muslim Identity’, dubs the ‘Dini Madaris’ (plural of Dini Madrasas) as “feudal remnants” which are responsible for keeping the community educationally backward. The Committee took no notice of the vital information contained in that well researched article, though it was duty bound to survey all available literature having a bearing on the socio-economic and educational status of Indian Muslims. Dr. Arjmand Ara questions the very basis of madarsa education when she asks: “Why do madarsas exist” ? “What is the reality behind them? How is it that these medieval institutions still flourish in an otherwise well developed world.” Equipped with governmental data and cold logic she points out that “within India, according to Government statistics, half a million madarasas are active, in which about 50 million (five crores out of 15 to 17 crores Muslim population) students are enrolled. Part time and evening madarsas (and their students) are not included in this list”. The enlightened academician points out that “The Congress incumbent is planning to organize dini madaris under the canon of a board like the CBSE. Needless to say these madaris are not equipped to compete with schools, nor are they willing to do so. With this kind of wisdom one is surely living in fools’ paradise …… that only giving degrees to the alumni of dini madaris from a recognized board will serve the purpose to modernize the madarsas. One can speculate the fate of five crore students in the years to come; nobody knows how many millions of them will find jobs as religious preachers?”

Is this is not another inelegant attempt to take recourse to suppressio veri, suggestio falsi” for bluffing the gullible Indian masses, Muslims included?