Facts & Figures- Exposing the Myth of Islamic Poverty in India

(Excerpts from the memorandum submitted to Justice Sachar Committee on behalf of “Patriots’ Forum”. The facts-and-data packed representation to Justice Sachar rips off the sham-secular and leftist mask / propaganda that Muslims are backward. The truth is that in terms of 3 major human development indices, e.g., infant and child mortality, degree of urbanization and life expectancy at birth Muslims are way ahead of Hindus)

On August 25, 2005, a delegation of 26 Muslim M.Ps. and 3 Muslim Ministers of the UPA government had met the Prime Minister in an inelegant bid to mount pressure for getting a quota of communal reservations sanctioned for their community. Responding to the growing demands of the fundamentalist lobby, the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, constituted a High Level Committee, under Justice (Retd) Shri Rajindar Sachar’s chairmanship.

The sudden appointment of the Committee by the Prime Minister succumbing to the political pressure, awakened our study group to undertake an in-depth research for assessing the comparative socio-economic status of the two communities in a scientific manner. The result of the research, which was entrusted to me by our study group, startled even us. It revealed that in respect of several major globally accepted determinants of socio-economic status, namely infant and child mortality, degree of urbanization and average life expectancy at birth, the Hindus are more backward than the Muslims, as analysed in the following pages.

For decades a myth, or an unsubstantiated belief, has been propagated across by partisan politicians that as a community the Muslims are more backward than the Hindus. In recent years this impression has gained considerable credence thanks to the sustained efforts of vote-bank besotted politicians and ignorant opinion-makers, including to some extent, the ill-informed mainstream English media. Interestingly no one has ever cared to scientifically analyze and compare the standard human development indices of the two communities.

	Incidence of Infant & Child Mortality
	Degree of Urbanisation
	The Average Life Expectancy at Birth
	Comparative Literacy Average
	Poverty Level and Per Capita Income
	Concluding Questio
	Resurrection of Convoluted Grievance Politics
	References / End Notes

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