Syed Khalique Ahmed
NEW DELHI—Union Minister of Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has claimed that the initiatives taken by the Narendra Modi government have reduced the dropout rate of Muslim girls from 70 percent to 30 percent as of now.
But the minister did not mention the specific initiatives that the Modi government has taken, reducing the dropout rate.
However, the minister is correct that the dropout rate of Muslim girls has come down.
What the minister has said is nothing new. He has simply borrowed from the speech of PM Modi.
Modi talked about a dip in the dropout rate of Muslim girls while addressing the centenary celebration of Aligarh Muslim University on December 22, 2020.
The PM offered the building of toilets for school-going girls under the Swachh Bharat Mission as the reason to reduce the dropout rate.
But anyone aware of the Muslim community would not be convinced by his logic.
Muslim education got a boost due to the efforts of Muslim social workers
If the experts working in the field of education among Muslims are to be believed, the spectacular increase in enrolment of Muslims in schools and colleges in recent years has happened due to the efforts of Muslim social workers, NGOs, and religious institutions.
And this change in the attitude of Muslims towards education, including its females, did not happen in just a couple of years. It has been visible and perceptible, at least, for the last more than a decade. And much of the credit for it goes to the social leaders, student organizations, and religious bodies of the Muslim community throughout the length and breadth of the country. It is the encouragement from the community leaders that even `burqa’-clad Muslim women can be seen now in university and college campuses, including the most advanced cities like Pune, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Delhi. ‘Burqa’-clad Muslim women are also working as professors in many top institutes like IITs, indicating that Muslim women have the potential to achieve the best if they are given proper education and opportunities. There are many schools and colleges, particularly in Muslim-concentrated districts of Kerala, where the strength of girl students is about 80 percent and boys account for only 20 percent of the total enrolment. Though this is a matter of satisfaction and joy, reports coming from such areas speak about social problems due to disproportional education among boys and girls. The educated girls, reports say, are not getting proper matches for their marriages and it will complicate the social situation further.
However, some credit for growth in Muslim education can certainly be given to the Congress-led UPA government that instituted scholarship programmes for minority community students after the Sachar Committee report in 2005.
The Sachar report revealed that the status of Muslims had educationally and financially gone down even below the Scheduled Castes, so far considered to be the most backward not only socially but also from the educational and economic point of view.
The report’s finding was a slap on the face of those political parties, their leaders, and workers that propagated the “Muslim appeasement” theory. BJP and its leaders, including Naqvi, are at the forefront of such a defamatory campaign aimed at dividing society into communal and religious lines for political benefits.
The Sachar report offered evidence that the governments of the Congress and non-BJP parties had not indulged in “Muslim appeasement” but had, instead, neglected the interests of Muslims. As a result, they did not give even due share of the Muslim community. The negligence of Congress and other non-BJP governments, who ruled the country for most of the period since 1947 with the support of Muslim votes, brought the Muslim community to such a pass now.
Government must take affirmative action to uplift Muslims
The UPA government, headed by Manmohan Singh, should have initiated affirmative action to improve the conditions of Muslims by providing them reservations in government jobs and fixing their quota for admission in higher educational institutions, including technical and professional institutions. However, it badly failed on this front and greatly disappointed the Muslims.
It, however, instituted scholarship as a prescription to treat the ailment of the Muslim community but shared it with other minorities who are not at all backward but either at par or even above the creamy layer of the mainstream society.
Had the Congress government been sincere about uplifting the Muslim community after the Sachar report, it should have fixed a separate quota of reservations for Muslims. Extending reservation benefits to Muslims as a different group would have been quite logical because the Scheduled Caste or other categories are getting reservations because of their economic and social backwardness, not because they belong to some particular religious group. So, if SCs, STs, OBCs can be given reservations simply due to their educational and social backwardness, in the same way, Muslims can also be given reservations to solve their problems of economic, educational, and social backwardness. However, they should not be linked with the forward groups among the backward communities because, in such a situation, the reservation benefits will be pocketed by the forward groups, not Muslims. But it certainly requires a political will which Congress lacked. However, urgent affirmative action is needed to take the Muslims out of the impasse they have fallen into.
If Congress failed to take measures to uplift the condition of the Muslim community, the Modi government that claims “sabka sath, sabka vikas” (with all, development for all) continued the same Congress policy of neglecting the Muslims in every sector. If the BJP and Modi are sincere in their claim of “development for all,” the best thing for them is to extend reservation in jobs and admission in higher and professional educational institutions to Muslims as well on the pattern of that being given to SCs, STs, OBCs. But claims of the BJP and Modi are restricted merely to slogans as far as Muslims are concerned.
BJP government reduces minority scholarships
The BJP has gone a step further than the Congress in overlooking the Muslim interest. The available data with the government show that the number of beneficiaries under the scheme for minority scholarship and the amount spent on it has dwindled since BJP came to power at the Centre. Moreover, a few lakh scholarships given to students of a community numbering over 25 crores are like a drop in the ocean and too inadequate to bring any big substantial change in the status of the community.
The information uploaded on the Ministry of Minorities Affairs website itself contradicts the claims of the Minorities Affairs Minister as well as the PM.
Pre-matric scholarship
If we go through the figures on the website about the pre-matric scholarship, we find that the number of beneficiaries and the amount of money disbursed has decreased since Modi took over as the PM in May 2014. So this is really a matter of concern for the minority communities, particularly the Muslim community. However, the girl students account for more than 50 percent of all scholarships.
The number of pre-matric scholarships awarded to Muslim students (boys and girls) was 37,44,117, out of a total of 50,46,292 in 2020-21 against a total of 74,96,593 lakh pre-matric scholarship given to minority community students in 2014-15 when Congress was in power. The scholarship given to Muslim students in 2014-15 was 58,69,697.
The amount of scholarship came down heavily in subsequent years. The total number of scholarship beneficiaries for 2015-16 was 51,78,779, out of which Muslim beneficiaries were 39,47,260. And the amount released (not spent) was Rs. 906.22 crores. Similarly, the total number of minority scholarships disbursed in 2016-17 was 44,53,524, out of which Muslim candidates were 30,72462. The amount released (not spent) was Rs. 746 crores. If the amount of scholarship actually disbursed is made available, it will speak volumes about the Modi government’s lackadaisical attitude towards a scholarship for minorities which primarily means Muslims in the Indian context. And this will expose the claims of the minorities affairs minister.
The total scholarship came down to 53 lakhs in 2017-18. The number of Muslims having applied for the scholarship was 41.68 lakhs out of a total population of Muslims that stood at 17.2 crores, or 14.2 percent of the country’s total population. The amount disbursed for the full scholarship was Rs. 1078 crores. However, the website does not say how much the allocated amount was spent. This indicates a lack of transparency on the part of the Modi government.
In 2018-19, however, the number of scholarships and the amount released went up slightly. The total number of scholarships was 56 lakhs. Out of them, 44.18 lakh scholarship applicants were Muslims. The total amount released for the scholarship was Rs. 1264 crore. But, again, the crucial missing aspect is the amount spent on them. Shall we assume that the government is hiding the truth by not revealing the amount disbursed?
According to the website, the total number of applicants from all minority communities was 55.5 lakh in 2019-20. However, the number of Muslim applicants was 41.56 lakh, dropping the previous year’s figures. The website says the amount sent (not spent) for the scholarship was Rs. 1424 crore.
The total scholarships dropped further to 50,44681 lakhs in 2020-21 out of which 37.44 lakh happened to be Muslim candidates. And the amount sent for disbursal was Rs. 1145 crore. However, the government is again silent on how much money was spent and given as scholarships to minority communities: Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains, and Buddhists.
Post-matric scholarship
A declining trend is also observed in the number of beneficiaries of post-matric scholarship for minorities after Modi assumed power at the Centre. The total number of scholarships distributed was 9.05 lakh in 2014-15 under the UPA government, and seven lakh of them were Muslims. The amount spent was Rs. 501.11 crores during the 2014-15 academic year.
In contrast, the total number of scholarships dropped to 6.66 lakh in 2015-16, and 5.07 lakh of them were Muslims. The amount spent was Rs. 385.72 crore, a significant drop from the previous academic year.
The same was the case in the 2016-17 academic year. Out of a total scholarship of 6.24 lakh, Muslim candidates were 4.67
lakh and the amount spent was Rs. 361.43 crores, a considerable drop from 2015-16.
The number of scholarships distributed in 2017-18 went up slightly to 6.97 lakh, out of which Muslim candidates happened to be 5.18 lakh. The amount spent was Rs. 413 crores.
The strength of beneficiary candidates again dropped to 6.84 lakh in 2018-19. The number of Muslim candidates was 5.14 lakh, a drop from 2017-18. The amount spent on them was Rs. 423.18 crores.
In the academic year 2019-20, the amount spent was Rs. 482.65 crores on a total of 7.43 lakh scholarships, with 5.72 lakhs of the beneficiaries being Muslims.
The number of Muslim beneficiaries in 2020-21 was 4.87 lakh against total beneficiaries of 6.47 lakh. The government spent an amount of Rs. 392 crores only on them.
Merit-cum means scholarship
An analysis of the merit-cum-means scholarship programme indicates a significant drop in the amount spent on this head during the Modi government.
According to figures on the Ministry of Minority Affairs website, the total number of beneficiaries was 1,38,770 (Muslims 97729) and the amount spent was Rs. 381.27 crores in 2014-15.
The amount spent dropped to Rs. 357.98 crores in 2015-16 when the number of scholarships came down to 1,33,582 (Muslims 97,077).
In 2016-17, candidates who received scholarships were 121,920 (Muslims 90,628) and the amount spent was Rs. 323.79 crores.
The number of beneficiaries further came down to 1,19,450 in 2017-18 and the amount spent was Rs. 324.86 crores. In 2018-19, the total strength of beneficiaries was 1,17,740 (Muslims 90,731), and the total amount disbursed was Rs. 315.93 crores.
The total number of candidates having received scholarships was 1,18,333 (Muslim 90,477) in 2019-20 and the amount spent was Rs. 315 crores.
The number of scholarships again dropped to 1,17,594 (Muslims 90,877) in 2020-21 and the amount spent came to Rs. 309 crores, a significant drop.
