Muslims across India are severely under-represented in government employment, including PSUs, compared to the percentage of their population in a state. While this may not appear unusual given the overall poverty and lack of education in the community, the startling fact is that this under-representation is also evident — sometimes in more stark a fashion — in states where the political establishment has made Muslim welfare a key part of its charter.

For example, West Bengal, which has had a three-decade uninterrupted Left Front government and where almost a quarter of the population is Muslim, has one of the lowest shares of Muslims in Government employment: just 4.2%. In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, too, the numbers of Muslims employed in the Government are dismal — less than a third of their share of population.

When it comes to Public Sector Units (PSUs), often discussed by parties as the “built-in economic safety net,” the figures are equally dismal. The highest percentage of Muslims in “higher positions” in state PSUs is in Kerala with 9.5 percent and the lowest is West Bengal which has reported 0 (zero) percent of Muslims in higher positions in state PSUs.

Gujarat, which has a record of communal tension, scores far better on both indices.

These are according to figures supplied by the state governments themselves to the Prime Minister’s high-level committee, the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee, which is working on a national survey of the social, educational and economic status of Muslims in India. The panel was scheduled to submit its report this month end but has asked for an extension and is expected to file it mid-November.

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