The government and public commentators have completely trivialised the public discourse on the findings of the Sachar Committee. Such a comprehensive report on Muslims should have made everyone sit up and ask searching questions about the real reasons behind Muslim backwardness. The peripheralisation of such a socially significant issue is provided by the fact that the focus seems to have shifted to reservations for Muslims and the reform of madrassa education. But will these two steps provide the real answer to the basic anxieties of the majority of Muslims? The answer is ‘no’. Larger society has failed to assure security of life and property for the Muslim community, and an insecure minority has developed a “siege mentality”.

It is a historical fact that a hostile majority has always led to the ghettoisation of minorities. This phenomenon can be observed in every town and city of north and northwest India, where “real poor Muslims” live together for their security. Also, a socially backward and threatened minority community seeks solace from its traditional leaders, especially the clergy. It is not without reason that the so-called secular state has handed over the destiny of the poor, backward and insecure Muslim minority to the shariat courts which have emerged as a state within a state.

The Indian government informed the Supreme Court on November 2, that no fatwa issued by the shariat courts like Dar-ul-Qaza and Nizam-ul-Qaza are “an opinion not enforceable by the mufti” and it further stated that such courts are “conciliatory/or mediatory” and they are an “alternative/dispute redressal forum”. This is very disingenuous, even specious, reasoning, because in reality it means handing over Muslims to the “clergy”. The space vacated by the state has been filled by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, the All India Muslim Women’s Personal Law Boad, Darul-Uloom Deoband and various qazis, muftis, mullahs, et al. The Indian state has in effect washed its hands of the Muslim community. The Muslim Marriage Act, 1939, and the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, have become the ‘legal code’. But this has only left ordinary Muslims at the mercy of the mullahs. The Guddiyas and Imranas testify to this. Consequently, the Muslim minority finds itself sandwiched between a sham secular state which follows the policy of benign neglect towards the community and all-powerful mullahs who have a final say in all matters of faith.

... contd.