By IANS
New Delhi : Vice-President Mohammad Hamid Ansari Tuesday expressed concern over the low literacy level among Muslims, and exhorted the community to confront the evil of ignorance by focusing on “autonomous correction of social customs hampering progress”.
He said Muslims in India today number about 150 million and constitute a significant segment – 13.4 percent – of the populace. Of this, 51.9 percent is below the age of 20 and 60.6 percent below the age of 25. But there is a heartening factor: Muslims have the highest child sex ratio among any social group in the country – 986 girls per 1,000 boys.
“They are more urbanised than the general population. On the other hand, the literacy rate among Muslims is 59.1 percent, against a national average of 65.1; it is even lower in the case of female literacy,” Ansari said at the convocation ceremony of Jamia Milia Islamia here.
“The incidence of poverty among urban Muslims is even higher than among the urban Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and is almost double of the national average.
“These figures speak for themselves in terms of the imperative for correcting social imbalances resulting from social immobility,” he added.
He advised the Muslim community to undertake a structured effort “to confront the evils of ignorance and stagnation through a sustainable programme of education and social reform”.
“Such an effort would need to focus on autonomous correction of social customs hampering progress, particularly the ones with a tenuous base in religion.”
The priority areas of attention would need to be on primary and middle levels of education, on the education of girls, on vocational training, and on a wide-ranging awareness programme relating to the rights of citizens and the facilities available to them by law but “often denied in practice”, the vice-president underlined.
He asked the community to “develop a clear understanding of the modern world and the social and intellectual forces emanating from it”.