This is the first time in Indian history since the PMO was set up in 1977 when there is no Muslim representation among its officials.
Waquar Hasan | Clarion India
NEW DELHI – Muslims in India have the worst representation in almost every socio-economic domain with no Muslims among 52 officials posted at the Prime Minister’s Office and no minister in the current cabinet, records a book that deals with data.
The book titled “Muslims in India – Ground Reality Versus Fake Narratives – Achievements & Accomplishment” written by Mohammed Abdul Mannan gathered the data with regard to the Muslim representation.
“This is history’s lowest-ever representation of Muslims in the Union governance levels,” said the author, who has penned 12 books including the latest “A Nation in Descent – India after the 1990s.”
This is the first time in history since the PMO was set up in 1977 when there is no Muslim representation among its officials. Earlier, the PMO was considered a part of the government in 1961 by the allocation of business rules. PMO was originally set up as the Prime Minister’s Secretariat (PMS) in 1947.
According to the book, there is one Muslim among 115 officials of the Ministry of External Affairs and 49 officials of the Ministry of Cooperation. “The 54 Union Ministries and 93 Departments under their jurisdictions in New Delhi have a total of 11131 officials from the secretary level downwards, of which 178 are Muslims,” noted the book.
Six ministries and 11 departments have no Muslims among the total 506 officials while only two Muslim are higher-ranked secretaries.
When it comes to the political representation, out of 60,693 elected MLAs, 3198 are Muslims, out of 9430 Lok Sabha MPs elected, only 527 were Muslims and of 2176 Rajya Sabha members, 329 were Muslims so far.
The book revealed that only 57 Muslims were appointed governors among 529, out of total 539 chief ministers, only 10 were Muslims and 80 of the total 1919 mayors across the cities were Muslims.
With regard to the Vice Chancellors in the universities, 62 VCs were Muslims among 1017 at the Central Universities while 219 were Muslims among 8633 VCs of the state universities.
721 of the total 13951 District Session Judges were Muslims.
According to the author, life for the 200 million-strong community has remained in a whirlpool of front-paged discrimination in every socio-economic domain since the 1990s. No Muslim representation has existed in the Union government since July 2022, a first in history. Muslims, according to the US-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), “face discrimination in employment and education and encounter barriers to achieving wealth and political power”.
According to the book, out of the 4123 Legislative Assembly seats across India, Muslim voters-dominated seats stand at 450. There are 65 seats across 12 states and two Union Territories that have over 25 perc ent Muslim population. As many as 65 seats have over 25 per cent of Muslims voters. Muslim votes decide the outcome in more than 100 assembly constituencies in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. In Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, 29 districts are Muslim-majority districts with 137 assembly seats. In Madhya Pradesh, the Muslim vote factor is crucial in at least 22 seats. In Gujarat, 17 assembly seats have significant Muslim voters. There are 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar out of which on 34 Muslim votes matter.
