Muslim

The Muslims in India face several conditions considered to be risk factors for rebellion, including persistent past protest, especially during the past decade, a history of lost autonomy, and political and economic discrimination. Factors that may inhibit future rebellion include India’s tradition of democratic rule and its past efforts to reach negotiated agreements with disgruntled minorities. The 2004 national elections turned out favorably as far as the Muslim minority is concerned, because the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party struggled to win votes. The BJP has reached out for Muslim support since its 2004 election defeat, and BJP relations with Muslim groups will be crucial for peaceful coexistence in the future. While the BJP has moderated its stance in recent years, the national government has not yet adequately addressed major issues such as the future of the Ayodhya site and economic disadvantages. The Muslims are widely dispersed across India but there are significant concentrations in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Kerala (GROUPCON = 0). The only Muslim-majority state in the country is Jammu and Kashmir (the MAR project lists the Kashmiri Muslims as separate group). There has been significant group migration across India due to voluntary movements, hardship, and the threat of or actual attacks by other communal groups. The Muslims speak a common language, Urdu, but they also speak a variety of regional languages depending on the area in which they reside (LANG = 1). Their belief in Islam is the primary difference between the Muslims and the majority Hindu population (BELIEF = 2). Beginning in the 11th century, Islam entered the Indian subcontinent and its influence expanded under the rule of the Muslim Mughal Empire. Although Mughal leaders did not traditionally impose their beliefs on the Hindu population, Hindu fundamentalists resented Muslim domination of India. During this period, many low-caste Hindus, Dalits, converted to Islam in order to escape cultural, political and economic discrimination by high-caste Hindus. The notion of a Muslim nation arose in the 1930s when Muslims began to politically mobilize to promote group interests. The Muslim League, led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, was concerned that Muslims would be dominated by Hindus in an independent India. The leadership of the Indian Congress, the major nationalist movement, primarily consisted of high-caste Hindus. The partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947 led to one of the largest ever transfers of populations as Hindus and Sikhs migrated east to India and Muslims west to Pakistan. An estimated 600,000 people died in the violence that surrounded the partition and 15 million refugees were created. The Muslims that chose to stay in India remain in a precarious position. Many Hindus view them with suspicion and consider them to be "pro-Pakistan". These suspicions of the Muslim community continue despite the fact that Muslims have resided in the area for centuries. The Indian Constitution does not provide any specific reservations for Muslims with regard to seats in the parliament, civil service jobs, or positions in educational institutions. Such provisions are available to the country's Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. A recent bill passed by a regional government aimed at providing a 5 percent quota for Muslims in government posts is a small step towards equality, but such laws may prove difficult to implement. Muslims form just around 13 percent of the country’s population but by the mid-1990s, the minority held only about 3 percent of government and public sector jobs and represented less than 3 percent of police and paramilitary forces. Muslims remain concentrated in lower-level positions such as fishing, artisanship, and unskilled labor. Political and economic discrimination is due to prevailing social practices by the dominant Hindu community (POLDIS06 = 3; ECDIS06 = 3). The major griev