A report on the status of Muslims in West Bengal released on Saturday gives startling information on the socio-economic status of the community. The report suggests that only 17 per cent of Muslims in the State live in urban settlements as against the national average of 28 per cent.
The report underscores the fact that the condition of Muslims has not improved much in the State over the decades. Releasing the report, poet Sankha Ghosh said such comprehensive research was rarely conducted on Muslims in the State, and highlighted the need to “act” on such reports. .
It is perhaps the most comprehensive field-level survey on the Muslims of West Bengal. More than 250 field-level researchers, activists and scholars came together to survey nearly one-lakh households to produce the 77-page interim document. Several members of the civil society played a significant role in getting the project off the ground.
Members of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen’s Pratichi trust and academics with the Centre for Studies in Social Science joined hands with non-governmental organisations working among the minorities such as the Social Network for Assistance to People (SNAP) and Guidance Guild, to publish the report. A survey was conducted on 97,017 households in 325 villages and 75 urban wards in 81 developmental blocks and 30 municipal bodies across the State.The report questions certain accepted myths about the minorities. For example, the minority politics of West Bengal practised by all mainstream political parties is largely driven by the idea that Urdu-speaking and Bengali-speaking Muslims are equal in number in West Bengal. The report dispels the myth.
“More than 90 per cent of rural Muslims are Bengali-speaking, and only a tiny section reported Urdu to be their mother tongue,” the report said. As 83 per cent of West Bengal’s nearly 2.5-crore Muslims live in non-urban areas, the report concluded that an overwhelming majority of Muslims are Bengali-speaking in the State.
. The report establishes the nature of socio-economic disparities between communities. For example, only 0.4 per cent of the surveyed community can access “socially preferred professions such as medical, legal or engineering.”
Only about 10 per cent of the families surveyed were found to be in occupations that can be “described as socially coveted,” the report said. Quoting from the report, one of the key researchers and coordinators of the study, Kumar Rana, said that 52 per cent of the Muslims in Bengal “do not study beyond primary level.” “It is also important to highlight that they [Muslims] like any other community is not one homogenous whole … their problems are diverse, so also the socio-economic factors,” he added.
Explaining the methodology of the research, Sabir Ahamed, the other key researcher, said that the survey would not have been possible without the active support of “many people.” “People actually have spent out of their pocket to conduct this mammoth survey and complete this report,” Mr Ahamed said.
The final report is expected by the year-end.
