Muslims are lagging behind their contemporaries on most socio-economic parameters in Delhi. The Aam Aadmi Party’s much-talked about improvement in schools has failed to reach the Muslim majority areas of the national capital. The community suffers from one of the highest unemployment and maternal mortality rates and limited political representation.
According to the findings of the Delhi-based Institute of Policy Studies and Advocacy (IPSA) and the Indian Muslim Intellectuals Forum (IMIF), “the distribution of government educational institutions in the Muslim pockets has not improved even under the present government as noted from the fact that there are an average of four schools per ward run by the State government and the MCD in the Muslim concentration wards as compared 10 in all wards.”‘
‘No promising status’
The research report, ‘Muslims of Delhi: A Study on their Socio-Economic and Political Status’, which was released in New Delhi on Sunday, claimed “the educational performance of Delhi’s Muslims does not reveal any promising status in the midst of the hype of special achievements of the State’s educational department, though their literacy rate is somewhat better than in many other States. There is a big gender gap between Muslim males (15%) and females (30%) in terms of illiterates, contrary to the lower national average”. In other words, the percentage of illiterate Muslim women is a cause for grave concern amid all the talk of “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao”.
The study underlined that the fiscal share in the overall State budget for the development of SC/ST/OBC/Minorities’ department, that directly takes care of 83% population of the NCT of Delhi, including Muslims, has come down from 0.98% in 2013-14 to almost 0.60% since 2015, though the actual amount has partially increased over the years along with the overall State budget.
Increase in MMR
Like education, the Muslims seem to be lagging behind on health indices also. The Mother Mortality Rate (MMR) in Delhi, despite tall claims of improvement in healthcare system and proliferation of mohalla clinics, has increased from 37 in 2015 to 54 in 2020. The community’s women must be worst sufferer of the situation as Non-Institutional Delivery is the highest for them (13.7%) as compared to others at 8.2%.
In terms of living conditions, the report underlies that only 69.70% Muslims avail of piped drinking water. It is significantly lower than the 76.3% of Delhi’s overall residents.
The report revealed too that autonomous agencies such as Delhi Minorities Commission, Delhi Waqf Board, Urdu Academy, etc are not functioning at their optimal level. It attributed their community’s dismal showing to the absence of Muslim representation at various levels of government.
“The number of Muslim MLAs in Delhi remains static at around 5.5% while the Muslim population is three times the number. The representation in the MCD is even lesser,” the report stated. Most political parties seem averse to giving tickets to Muslim candidates to contest elections from seats with a non-Muslim majority.
