BBC NEWS | South Asia | India Muslims 'have lowest rank'
India Muslims 'have lowest rank' "BBC"
Muslims in India are even more disadvantaged than low-caste Hindus, a report commissioned by the government in Delhi suggests.
The report says India's 138m Muslims are poorer and less educated and suffer from higher unemployment and greater mortality than other religious groups.
Details of the report - yet to be published - have been leaked to the local media.
Some ministers are already calling for affirmative action for Muslims.
The Hindu-nationalist BJP party has said it will oppose any system of quotas for Muslims.
Religious riots
BJP General Secretary Arun Jaitley said the Indian constitution does not allow for reservation on the basis of religion and the government should not use the report as a launch pad for religion-based reservation.
India currently implements reservations for disadvantaged castes, but not for religious groups.
Correspondents say India prides itself on being a pluralistic secular democracy. It is often pointed out that India is home to the world's biggest minority, and that there are more Muslims in India than in all of Pakistan, the BBC's Anu Anand in Delhi reports.
But our correspondent says it is unclear how far the government can go to improve Muslims' status in a country that has been torn apart by Hindu-Muslim riots, and has witnessed acts of terror widely blamed on Muslims.
This is an old news....look at something Recent...
NEW DELHI (PPI) - Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) unveiled a path-breaking action plan to create educational,
health and housing facilities to improve lot of millions of poor Muslims in India.
Alarmed by the findings of Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee, which painted a dismal picture of
socio-economic conditions of Indias 140 million Muslims, Human Welfare Foundations Vision-2016 intends to
build a student hostel in each state as well as 10 centres of higher learning has been pegged.
Human Welfare Foundations Vision-2016 aimed at providing free quality education and health services to the
poorest among Indias 140 million Muslims. We are committed to achieve objectives of Vision-2016 within the
stipulated period of time. Funds will be generated through donations, said KA Siddiq Hassan, a retired
university professor and vice-president of JIH, which is headquartered in New Delhi.
Although the government has plans to improve conditions of minorities, it is increasingly felt that the communitys
lot will change for the better only when Muslims activists and groups contribute their bit.
The Foundations health agenda includes setting up a super speciality hospital and 10 speciality hospitals. The
process and planning for all projects are going on smoothly. Hopefully targets will be achieved, Hassan said.
It decided to construct 10,000 dwelling units in urban India while 100 model Islamic villages will also be
developed by 2016. Each model village will have 100 houses, a primary and higher secondary school, a
clinic-cum-diagnostic centre, a community hall, a shopping complex and a mosque.
Foundations Vision-2016 talks of total emancipation of poor Muslims. It aims at imparting quality primary and
secondary education to the poorest among Muslims. We also intend to provide them health facilities and
financial assistance for economic empowerment, said Hassan.
JI Hind unveils vision 2016 for Indian Muslims | Pakistan | News | Newspaper | Daily | English | Online
if only Muslim rule was the basis for a separate land then entire subcontinent should have been for Muslims.
