How have Muslims fared in Gujarat? The constant refrain of the BJP and Narendra Modi has been that Muslims have equally shared in the “development achievements” in Gujarat and that it is to Modi's credit that there have not been any incidents of communal violence in Gujarat after 2002. Data and a host of writings actually show that these claims are totally misplaced.
Let us take the estimates of poverty for 2009-10, put out by Arvind Panagariya and Vishal More in 2013.[1] According to their data, in 2009-10, if the share of income-poor among urban Hindus in Gujarat was 13.8 per cent, the share of income-poor among urban Muslims was 42.2 per cent. In other words, the share of income-poor among urban Muslims in Gujarat was more than three times that of urban Hindus. Even if we considered rural and urban areas together, the share of poor among Hindus in 2009-10 was 21.9 per cent as against 37.6 per cent among Muslims. In other words, share of income-poor among Muslims was 71 per cent higher than the share of income-poor among Hindus in Gujarat in 2009-10.
There is more. Even when compared with national averages, the record of Gujarat was poor with respect to poverty among Muslims. Considering rural and urban areas together, if 35.4 per cent of all Muslims were poor in India, 37.6 per cent of Muslims in Gujarat were poor. If we take only urban areas, 42.4 per cent of Muslims were poor in India as against 33.9 per cent in India as a whole.
Another paper titled “Gujarat Shining! Relative Development of Gujarat and Socio-Religious Differentials”) authored by the economist Abusaleh Shariff and published by US-India Policy Institute in 2012 (available at http://www.usindiapolicy.org/documents/publications/USIPI-Publication-02-Gujarat-Web.pdf) throws up revealing facts about the conditions of Muslims in Gujarat and challenges the false claims of the BJP and Modi. Some of his conclusions are given below:
Gujarat, unlike some other large states, had not provided any specified quota in employment and higher education for Muslims. While Muslims had bank accounts proportionate to the size of population, their share in bank credit outstanding, which is an indicator of financial inclusion, was only 2.6 per cent.
In terms of education, Muslims were the most deprived community in Gujarat. Despite 75 per cent net enrolment, the Muslims were deprived at the level of matriculation and higher levels. Just 26 per cent of Muslim students reached matriculation, whereas this proportion for others, except SCs/ STs, was 41 per cent. Amongst the Muslims, a large extent of dropout took place at about the 5th standard. In higher education too, Muslims were found to be lagging behind the SC/STs and other social groups. The percentage of Muslims who completed at least graduation in Gujarat till 2001 was only about 4 per cent as compared to about 5 per cent for SC/STs and about 11 per cent for other social groups. This clearly was an evidence of discrimination in provisioning of higher education access, infrastructure and related services.
To overcome the Muslim deficit in different levels of education, the Central government had launched a nationwide scholarship scheme with effect from April 1, 2008. Gujarat was the only state that did not implement even the pre-matric scholarships for minorities. There were 55,000 scholarships allocated to Gujarat of which about 53,000 were to be given to the deserving Muslims, but Gujarat government did not even care to implement this scheme. What was more, Gujarat government fiercely contested the scholarship in the High court and Supreme Court claiming that it was “discriminatory and unconstitutional”. However, the Gujarat High Court rejected Modi government’s contention that Centre’s pre-matric scholarship scheme for students of minority community was discriminatory and directed the Gujarat Government to distribute these scholarships. Modi Government then challenged this decision in the Supreme Court, which declined to stay the Gujarat High Court’s order.
Regarding employment, Shariff’s paper uses data from the Sachar Committee Report of 2006 and argues that the work participation rate in Gujarat was 61 per cent for Muslims compared to 71 per cent for Hindus. In most states, Muslims formed a higher percentage of the workforce in manufacturing and the organised sector compared to Hindus. It was only in Gujarat that the reverse was true. While at an all-India level, the share of Muslims in this sector was 21 per cent, in Gujarat it was just 13 per cent, way below Maharashtra and West Bengal, where it stood at 25 per cent and 21 per cent respectively. There was a gradual decline in the share of Muslims in the manufacturing and organized sector in Gujarat.
Across India, Muslims generally have better employment amongst the state level public sector enterprises. It was only in Gujarat that Muslims did not have access to organized and public sector (including PSUs) employment, when compared to other communities and other States of India.
Shariff's paper also highlighted that the aspect of safety and security was also a major concern for Muslims in Gujarat. Muslim households in rural Gujarat reported a very high share (35 per cent) in incidents of theft/burglary, while their share of households was only 5 per cent. The paper concluded that within the state of Gujarat, Muslims fared poorly on parameters of poverty, education and security compared to other social groups.
Ghettoisation
It has also been reported by scholars like J. S. Bandukwala that ghettoisation plagues all Muslim localities in Gujarat. The fear of riots, as well as the refusal of non-Muslims to sell real estate to Muslims, forced the Muslims into limited areas in every city. To make matters ugly, the Modi government deliberately divided Muslim areas into different municipal constituencies, so that a city like Vadodara does not have the possibility of a corporator being elected from the Muslim community. This resulted in the absence of a voice in the civic bodies that could articulate important issues related to supply of water, road maintenance, garbage removal and street lighting in Muslim-dominated areas. Such a situation is also true for a city like Ahmedabad where Muslims are now increasingly flocking to the city’s fringes lacking in basic civic amenities. This is visible in areas like Juhapura in western part of the city and Maqdoomnagar and Alifnagar in the eastern part of the city.
The False-hood of “No Riots”
It has been claimed by Modi that Gujarat has been “riot free” after 2002. However, in 2013, Gujarat was among the top 5 States in terms of number of communal riots. In Gujarat, 66 incidents of communal violence had been reported in that year. However, 2013 was not an exceptional year in terms of incidents of communal violence in Gujarat. In fact, the graph of incidents of communal violence has been on the rise in Gujarat over the 2000s. In 2012, Gujarat had 57 such incidents in which five people lost their lives. Contrary to the NaMo propaganda of the Sangh Parivar and the media, the truth is that after 2002 as well, Gujarat remained among the top four to six States in respect of intensity of communal violence. According to the data provided in Lok Sabha in 2012, from 2009 to March 2012, there had been 344 deaths in communal violence in India as a whole. Of these, 32 deaths (almost 10 per cent) had taken place in Gujarat. During this period, out of a total of 2300 incidents of communal violence, 181 incidents (about 8 per cent) had taken place in Gujarat alone.
Encounter Killings
Under the Modi government, there have been at least three fake encounter killings in which victims were Muslims, namely the cases pertaining to Sadiq Jamal, Ishrat Jahan and Sohrabuddin. Top police officers of the state and aides of the Chief Minister including Amit Shah - a former Home Minister in his Government - are the main accused in these cases.
Political marginalization
The extent of political marginalization of Muslims in Gujarat can be seen from the fact that Modi did not have a single Muslim Minister during his 13 year old term in office (from 2001 till date). The BJP has not fielded a single Muslim candidate in the last three elections in 2002, 2007 and 2012 in Gujarat fought under his leadership. After the 2012 Assembly election, the number of Muslims MLAs came down to 2 (both Congress) from 5 in 2007. Thus, though Muslims constitute 9.1 per cent of the Gujarat population, they play no part in Modi’s government or even the state legislature. For the 2014 Lok Sabha elections too, the BJP has not fielded a single Muslim candidate for the 26 seats in Gujarat.
[1] Panagariya, Arvind and More, Vishal (2013), “Poverty by Social, Religious and Economic Groups in India and its Largest States: 1993-94 to 2011-12”, Working Paper No. 2013-02, Programme on Indian Economic Policies, Columbia University, Columbia.