Its the season for repeats!! This one becomes relevant as elections loom around the corner...

Today let me touch upon a topic very close to my heart....the issue of integration of Muslims in India.

Ever since I was growing up in a small town in India, we have had Muslim friends and neighbours, and I have some warm memories of that time. The succulent mutton that used to come from Salim's house during Id, the great joy one used to feel when his Boodhi Nani (grandma) used to come down...the smell of onion always emanating from their kitchen....

Strangely though, I hardly got to study with any Muslim classmates. In school, engineering college or even at my IIM, Muslims made for just about 1% of the class. This is odd because India is supposed to have over 20% people of this community. If you look around, in the army, the police, and the corporate world or in the academia, the representation from Muslims is hardly noticeable. I don’t think its because of any discrimination....the most probable reason is that most Muslims (except the high or middle class urbanites) finish their schooling in some madrassa, which while providing them with good practical or spiritual knwoledge, make them unfit to join the mainstream.

Does India hate Muslims? Unlikely. Most of our highly respected musicians (Bismillah Khan, Bharat Ratna, Vilayat Khan, Amjad Ali Khan, Fahimuddin Dagar, Zakir Hussain et al), movie stars (Amir Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Tabu) and many beloved sportsmen (Azhar, Zahir, Kaif, Aslam Sher Khan, Nawab Pataudi, Md. Shahid) belong to this community......and more Hindus than Muslims stood against the carnage in Gujarat, which incidentally was a one-off tragedy in the history of India.

The only beneficiaries of the backwardness of Muslims are the Mullahs, Imams and sundry politicians who then can herd the faithful to their own ends. Sadly, the Islamic intellectuals who want to reform their community are beaten down by their own brethren who call them anti-Muslims. Rafiq Zakaria, Mushirul Hassan and Maulana Wali Mohammed come to mind. Some of the greatest minds in the world are Muslims, and most of them are tolerant, cultured and secular. Most Muslims do not marry four times, and in today's world, most of them do not just say talaq talaq talaq before throwing their wives out. They do not cheer for Pakistan in a match with India, and definitely do not nurse an ambition to go to Lahore some day. These are stereotypes created by the black sheep from the other religions, of course with help from their ilk from the folds of Islam.

No amount of political bickering will ever change the fate of Muslims in India. Their young men will have to take charge of their futures. They will need to get the very best of education, then compete for the very best of positions and then assert their voice in every domain they enter. They will need to educate their womenfolk and not restrict their passage through life. There is no dearth of talent within them....all they need to do is shed their inferiority complex.....I would love to see many more Salims (as well as beautiful Salmas!!) walking shoulder to shoulder with me!

From my old blog.