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Counting heads, missing the picture

Counting heads, missing the picture

Author: Jaya Jaitly
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: June 2, 2007
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/32470.html

Introduction: If the Sachar Committee had studied the preferred occupations of Muslims, it'd have come to different conclusion

The Sachar Committee report sadly looks as if it formulated a premise and then created instruments to find empirical data suiting a pre-ordained picture. This only adds to the unfortunate set of faulty premises that fuel needless disaffection between communities. The Sachar report also makes its assessments through a 'class' measure of achievement. By presenting data through its refracted glasses, it plays into the hands of elements with divisive versions of secular/communal politics. To address the report of the Committee, and to create an integrated society, what was sorely needed was the statesmanship of the confident. What we have instead is the politicking of the insecure. Thankfully, the National Sample Survey Organisation findings have put things on a slightly more even keel by finding Christians worse off than Muslims in certain areas, and unemployment among Hindus and Muslims differing by only 0.5 per cent.

In its search for material to bolster its politics, the Sachar Committee misses some important facts that could present a more accurate, and in some ways, happier picture. Did the Sachar Committee study the preferred occupations of Muslims and how they were performing in their jobs of preference? Was there a comparison made with Hindus in the same occupations to observe whether general economic conditions applied to both or whether religion played a part? Did they ask the respondents whether they rigorously attempted to qualify and apply for jobs in which they are today found under-represented by the Sachar Committee? If so, were they subjected to neglect, discrimination or unjust rejection? Most importantly, did a large number of Muslims actually wish to be in the Armed Forces, the bureaucracy, or other such establishment-oriented professions or did they have a different set of skills and preferences?

Look at some ground realities. Mughal rule brought an influx of highly skilled artisans and craftsmen who fused their talents with their Hindu counterparts. Since those times, Muslim communities like the Chipas, Ansaris, and Khatris have associated themselves at all levels of textile production, from dyeing to handblock printing, embroidering and weaving. There would be no fabulous Varanasi brocades or the famed Ajrakh prints of Kutch today without Muslim master craftsmen who have continued to work and build upon their ancestral skills. Maqboolbhai of Resham Silks has not just nurtured on age-old traditions but has developed fine pashmina weaving and silk-wool brocades in Varanasi. He has also established a school for 1,500 girls. Spectacular fabric woven out of peacock feathers is sold at Rs 1,500 per metre and goes to Saudi Arabia. Master weavers supply all the Tibetan monasteries with their shimmering gyaser cloth. Of course, at the low end, both Hindu and Muslim weavers are equally miserable with market changes, power cuts and fluctuating yarn prices.

In Bhadohi, UP, a majority of carpet exporters belong to the Muslim gentry who live in palatial houses. Their carpets are woven by extreme backward caste Hindus and Muslims alike. Both suffer from exploitation because of low or delayed wages. The anti-child labour campaign crippled this industry across the board. In Ujjain, a Hindu temple town, Majid of Sajida Batik Arts is one of four enterprising brothers whose batik textile workplace is a flourishing business employing over 40 lower-caste Hindus, each paid Rs 3,000-4,000 a month.

In Kutch, the legacy of Mohamadbhai Siddiquebhai, the eminent ajrakh block printer, is continued by his three sons, all national awardees like their late father. One of the brothers, Ismailbhai, has a doctorate for his superior knowledge of vegetable dyeing from a British university. After the 2001 earthquake, they have rebuilt their lives and international clientele with better facilities from the Gujarat government and Jamait-e-Hind in a new village they named Ajrakhpur. Shamshad Hussain, a master wood carver of Pilakhuwa in UP, has passed on his skills to his sons who too have won national awards. They are invited all over the world for exhibitions. Did the Sachar Committee think of checking the national awards roster to see how many Muslim craftsmen and women have been honoured?

I labour on to make a point that goes beyond craftsmanship. The Sachar Committee should visit the Capital Nursery under the Safdarjang flyover in Delhi. The proprietors have been in the nursery business for over 27 years. Apart from their beautiful plants they love to show a photo album of their home in western UP with its mango groves, cultivated lawns, artificial streams and duck ponds. They are wealthy, proud, hard-working and self-made, like any Indian should strive to be. Would the Sachar Committee ask why they did not join the army? But alas, all these talented and enterprising Muslims would be among the Sachar Committee's statistics of those who did not make it to the 'mainstream' world.

The writer is former president, Samata Party


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