By Zaidul Haque, Twocircles.net
Kolkata: Muslims constitute a much larger proportion of the poor and the deprived in West Bengal, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen said while releasing a report on the status of Muslims in the state.
The report, titled ‘Living reality of Muslims in West Bengal’, shows that about 80% of the Muslim households in rural West Bengal report their household income as Rs 5,000 or less per month, which is close to the cut-off level of income for poverty line for a family of five. What is even more striking, according to the report, is that 38.3% Muslim households in rural West Bengal earn Rs 2,500 or less per month, which is one-half of the cut-off level of income for the population below the poverty line. More worryingly, only 3.8% households reported to earn Rs 15,000 and above per month.
Sen, who could not speak due to health conditions, said in a written statement, “The report is directly concerned with a huge proportion of the population of the West Bengal, about a quarter of which is Muslim. That, of course, is not a new finding. What is remarkable is the fact that Muslims constitute a much larger proportion of the poor and the deprived in West Bengal. The fact that Muslims in West Bengal are disproportionately poorer and more deprived in terms living condition in an empirical recognition, gives this report an inescapable immediacy and practical urgency.”
Although the Trinamool Congress has claimed that Muslims have benefited under its rule in the state, the report, released by the Social Network of Assistance to People, a West-Bengal based association, in collaboration with Pratichi Institute of Sen and Guidance Guild, proves otherwise.
The survey was carried out in 325 villages and 75 urban wards from a sample of 81 community development blocks and 30 municipal bodies, over a period of four years. The report, which focuses on six important indicators—Demography, Health, Gender Discrimination, Literacy and Education, and Amenities, Citizenship Status and Cultural Practices—shows that Muslims lag behind on almost all important markers that show social progress.
For example, at 68.3%, the literacy rate among the Muslims in rural West Bengal is about four percentage points lower than that for general population as per Census 2011. The rural urban gap in literacy is almost the same as found from the census data. Interestingly, the gender gaps in literacy among Muslims in both rural and urban areas are narrower compared to the general population. In terms of the percentages of the population that has completed certain levels of education, Muslims in West Bengal lag behind others, which were revealed by comparisons between the primary survey and the Census 2011 figures: among literate Muslims, only 2.7% hold a graduate degree or above.
The survey data show that overall enrolment ratio for Muslim children of age 6-14 is 85.5% and the girls are marginally ahead of boys (86.4 vis-a-vis 84.6). About 15% Muslim children age 6-14 years are found to be out of school. While 9.1% were never enrolled, 5.4% dropped out. Financial problems emerged as the major factor for not being able to go to school (42.5% boys and 40.4% girls).
The distance to school comes next. Some complained about the lack of infrastructural facility in school. Interestingly, around five percent of those who discontinued education admitted lack of motivation as the factor behind dropping out of school, as they did not see any future benefit from education. On an average 10.6 Secondary and Higher Secondary schools exist for one lakh population in the state. However, it is much lower in Uttar Dinajpur (6.2), Murshidabad (7.2) and Malda (8.5), the three districts where Muslims constitute very high percentage of the population, the report said.
Analysing the employment scenario, the report said that the work participation rate for rural Muslims in West Bengal, which is defined here as the percentage of population belonging to the working age group 15-65 years who are actually working, is about 45, which means that 55% of the population in the working age group are not working.
“Does it mean that they are unemployed? Not necessarily. While some of them are unemployed, some of them are not in the labour force. The latter group includes those who are attending educational institutions. this may not necessarily imply that 55% of Muslims are unemployed, “the overall low work participation rate among the Muslims is due to very low work participation among the women. Only 8.9 per cent of the Muslim women in the working age were found to be working,” the report added.
Sen added that while we have had some understanding of this lace from earlier studies, particularly the Sachar Report, but they have been based — and this applies to the Sachar Report itself— on secondary information, available from unrelated investigations, aimed at other problems and often based on routine data collection. “This report fills a major gap — at least begins meeting the gap — in poverty information related to Muslims,” he said.
Regarding the health condition of Muslims, the report added that Bengal has on average 1.8 hospitals per lakh population in the blocks. Underage marriage among Muslims in West Bengal seems to be par with the general population. Data from the present household survey shows that Muslims’ access to tap-water is nearly 40% less (15.2%) of the overall population (Census-2011, 25.4%), which in a way displays a combined community and class exclusion.
The report shows that nearly 13.2% Muslim adults do not hold voter cards. The provision of drainage system for the Muslim households (12.2 %) is nearly one-third of overall provision in the state (31.6%). The report also quoted NFHS-3 data to show that the preference for at least one son (82.1%) and at least one daughter (79%) among the Muslims, which is much higher than that for the Hindus (74.2% and 68.7%), indicates a relatively less glaring bias against girl children among the Muslims.
The report also says that the use of traditional fuels for cooking is much higher among the Muslims (85.9%) as compared to the average population of the state (68.6%). Absence of free and fair regulation process of LPG fuels may have denied legitimate access of LPG cylinders to many Muslim families and also the cost of LPG plays a debilitating role for the poor Muslims in the state.
Photo: Sandip Saha