India’s Biggest Minority Grows Anxious about its Future
In line with US India Policy Institute’s own analysis, a leading editorial by The Economist presents India’s Muslim community in distress. The feature published last week contends that the community is looking for a way out of its backwardness and a change in attitude from both the government and the Indian society at large.
An Uncertain Community
For a community of 172 million, almost 15% of the population, Muslims at first glance appear oddly absent from the pages of India’s newspapers. In fact, they crop up a lot, but not by name. Instead, reporters coyly refer to “a certain community”. The clumsy circumlocution is a way of avoiding any hint of stoking sectarian unrest. The aim is understandable in a country that was born amid ferocious communal clashes and which has suffered all too many reprises. But the dainty phrase also hints at something else. Since India’s independence in 1947, the estrangement of Muslims has slowly grown.
Read the entire piece in The Economist here.