The report ‘Social Economic and Educational Status of Muslim Community in India’ will be tabled in Parliament. It's important that the public knows what this report is all about. The 417-page report consists of analytical 12 chapters which use most the recent databases to empirically measure and estimate the status of Muslims in a comparative perspective. The findings, therefore, are not confined to status of Muslims alone.

The Indian Constitution is clear in its objective to promote equality amongst citizens and assigns responsibility to the State to preserve, protect and assure the rights of minorities in matters of language, religion and culture. This is enshrined in the well known doctrine of 'unity in diversity' found within the Constitution. All developed countries and most developing ones give appropriate emphasis to looking after the interests of minorities. Thus, in any country, the faith and confidence of the minorities and the functioning of the State in an impartial manner is an acid test of its being a just state.

As the processes of economic development unfold, pressures are likely to build up and intensify when there is unequal development and some groups or minorities such as the Muslims, lag behind in the development process. Ideally, development processes should remove or reduce economic and social obstacles to cooperation and mutual respect among all groups in the country. If development processes are misdirected, they may unfortunately have the opposite effect. It is this aspect which is important and needs to be addressed so as to give confidence to minorities including the Muslims.

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