Are Muslims in India excluded by the rest?

"India is home to 150 million Muslims, the vast majority of whom have been excluded". This was a claim made in the editorial of UK's Sunday Observer recently after the Mumbai attack in an attempt to explain how home-grown terrorists could be behind the attacks as much as the help from Pakistan -based terrorists. The broader point is the link being made to poverty, social exclusion and marginalisation that are bredding grounds for evolution of terrorist mindsets and endeavours. Its important to analyse this statement for accuracy which may allow formulation of strategies to manage the 'cause' of terrorism, if there ever could be a cause for killing and maiming others. No religious group, including Muslims, is not a socio-economically homogeneous group in India. It is howevere true that government statistics on poverty, education and access to public employment, etc. for Muslims are poor compared to Hindus or other religious groups. Its also true that whilst the less 'pure' in Brahmanical terms of Indian caste system are now aided through reservations in goverment education (and increasingly private) systems as well as employment oppurtunities, this largesse to rectify historical inequalities has not been extended to Muslims. Muslims in India have as much of an unwritten caste sytem as Hindus do for whilst they were the product of proselytizing by the Mughals, they did not abandon their cultural moorings from Hinduism. Thus, even today, a son of a Siddiqui (said to be converted Thakurs/Kshatriyas and considered to have a high social status rather than caste)will not be easily married off to the daughter of an Ansari. The latter are converted weavers and thus belong to scheduled caste if they were Hindus today. Whilst such socio-cultural practices abound in populous states with high Muslim numbers such as UP, Bihar, West-Bengal, the government does not aid the socio-economic aspects of this stratification. Whilst poor Hindus and increasingly poor Sikhs are benefitting from reservations, Muslims are not. Its not a surprise that these states have also stagnated economically. However, we cannot study these figures without appreciating that the vast majority of Muslim Middle Class (particularly in the Northern States)migrated to Pakistan in 1947. In Southern States like Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh (where migration of Muslim middle class was comparatively minimal), the socio-economic status of Muslim population is comparable, if not as good as, the national average. What adds to the downward spiral of illiteracy, poverty and lack of employment oppurtunities is a mindset that is ruled by survival instincts, Muslim or not. When you cannot guarantee where and when the next meal is going to come from, you stop worrying about higher moral and ethical causes. One must survive to consider what to a starving person must feel like esoteric concepts. He experiences the moral, ethical, social and legal blindness of the Indian society everyday. This lack of compassion or consideration is tapped by those in criminal underworld, and the ideologues who are now engaging with local grivances (in Kashmir, Chechnya, Palestine, elsewhere) a pan-Islamic cause promoted by Al Qaeda. The latter's aspirations stop nothing short of a return to a 16th century-Caliphate, the last known pinnacle of global Islamic power, whose boundaries extended as far west as Spain and eastwards into south-east Asia. Whilst the Dawood Ibrahims use the poor Muslim youth for economic and power gains, the ideologues use them as foot soldiers. One will not hear of the Indian 'masterminds' - the engineers, IT techies -becoming suicide bombers ever. One must be cautious in giving credence to the 'grievance' cause behind terror. Khalistan, Gorkhaland and other agitations in north-east of coutnry have been and are being propelled by such arguments. And whilst armed suppression of such movements is one aspect of its management, the other aspect is proper intellectual engagement with the problems. Sociologists can provide good accounts of the reasons for a sense of disillusionment and disenfranchisement of those behind the ideologies of separation. This should lead to oppurtunies and forums for the moderate and those who are gainfully employed and settled to express their grievances appropriately. The underclass - the foot soldiers - need to be diverted away from a life of constant stress for if they had a gainful employment that would feed his family, no one would consider becoming a terrorist with the oppurtunity to be killed any time. Its the leaders behind the scences - those that live in India's Deobandi heartlands, Pakistan and elsewhere and fan flames of hatred, who should be targetted and rather than being killed - a strange indian obsession with revenge - kept alive and made to sing. A three-pronged approach therefore of engagement with moderates, diversion of foot soldiers and incarceration of targetted assasination of the think-tank should be the way to go. But it is the average Indian who needs to take greater interest in happenings in various parts of his coutnry rather than his own 'nukkad', caste, creed, family, friends and community. This unfortunately does not happen in India, and its pointless to blame politicians for we have selected them. 'A country deserves its politicians' is an old adage, and especially true in democracies. For far too long we've looked at our politicians as children with abusive and assaultative parents do. They provide succour and sustenance and thus they have the right to abuse and traumatise. Until we beging to teach ourselves and our children that dependence fosters inaction and passivity and the way to go is forward, onward and independence of our own souls and spirits, we'll forever remain a country of moaners, whingers and silent sufferers. Iqbal , the poet called this mindset 'zehni gulami' or enslavement of the soul.