LEFT OUT Only 41 Muslims in Cantonment Management Teams Out of 1,182 Members 

• Only four Muslim CEOs in 66 Cantonment Boards
• Seven from the community among 156 IDES officials
• No Muslim officials in the management of 37 boards 

Team Clarion

NEW DELHI – Muslim officials are in very small numbers in the cantonments management in India which is among the top 10 most powerful military nations.

India has been ranked 4^th on the Global Firepower Index-2025 which considered diverse factors to arrive at the military strength of the countries. It said the military spending of the world’s most populous country now stands at $81.3 billion. 

Throughout its chequered history, India has weathered incursions from diverse invaders, including Turks, Arabs, Persians, and the British.  Cantonments were established in various parts of India by the East India Company after the Battle of Plassey in 1757.

India has a total of 66 cantonment boards divided into four categories.  In the Category I, the population exceeds 50,000. Category II’s population exceeds 10,000 but less than 50,000. Category III’s population is between 2,500 and 10,000, according to a new book Muslims in India – Ground Realities Versus Fake Narratives – Achievements & Accomplishments. 

The Category IV’s population does not exceed 2,500. North India contains nine cantonment boards (seven in Himachal Pradesh and two in Jammu & Kashmir). The north-west part has eight cantonments (one each in Delhi and Haryana, three each in Punjab and in Rajasthan). The north-central zone has nine cantonments in Uttarakhand. The central part has 18 cantonments (five in Madhya Pradesh and 13 in Uttar Pradesh). The western part has one cantonment in Gujarat. The east has seven cantonments (Bihar, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, and Odisha each have one cantonment and West Bengal has four cantonments). Southern India contains four cantonments – one each in Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu.

The budget for the maintenance of cantonments stood at Rs476 crores in 2018. In February 2024, officials said an estimated expenditure of Rs500 crore had been incurred by the Ministry of Defence for the maintenance of cantonment boards all over the country. In May 2023, the Union government kicked off a plan to abolish 62 cantonments around the country as “archaic colonial legacies” and issued a notification for disbanding the Yol Cantonment in Himachal Pradesh.  Nasirabad Cantonment in Rajasthan is next on the list. The plan is to carve out military areas in all cantonments and convert them into “exclusive military stations” – progressively 237 military stations – with the army exercising “absolute control” over them.

The highest number of officials including the President and CEO is 81 of which one is a Muslim in Maharashtra’s Deolali, a Class-1 Cantonment established in 1869 at a plateau of 2,000 feet on the banks of the river Darna surrounded by picturesque Sahyadri ranges.  It was also a training hub for British troops during World War I. The Army Staff College was set up here in 1905 as the temperature remained moderate throughout the year. The School of Artillery is located in Deolali, offering various diploma, degree, and postgraduate courses like weapon systems. 

Deolali, as per the 2011 census, had a population of 54,000, out of which 14,000 are military personnel. One of the oldest Indian military hubs in the country, Deolali Cantonment, now part of the Nashik Municipal Corporation, has a board that consists of eight elected members, three nominated military members, and three ex-officio members.

The second-ranked is Agra Cantonment as per the number of officials in its ranks – 60. It has no Muslims among its staff. The Cantonment Board Agra came up in 1805 with an area spreading to 1,156.474 hectares including a civil area of 952.55 acres. The next on the list is the Pune Cantonment, with a history dating back to 1817, with one Muslim among its 40 officials. The Allahabad Cantonment, formed in 1857 when India’s first war of Independence against the British took place, has 16 officials including one Muslim who happened to be its CEO, Mohammed Sameer Islam. Two Muslims featured among the 18 officials in the Bareilly Cantonment that was established in 1811. 

Dehradun Cantonment, set up in 1913, has 10 officials including its CEO, Jakir Hussain. The Kanpur Cantonment, set up in 1811 on the right bank of the river Ganges, has three Muslims among its 23 officials. The Muslim officials include Brig Shabbar-ul-Hassan. Lansdowne Cantonment, one of the most visited hill stations in Uttarakhand, has 22 officials in total including the CEO, a Muslim, Mohammed Saquib Alam.

Bihar’s Danapur Cantonment, a Category II facility that came up in 1765 and has a 14-member board, has 15 officials including three Muslims while Bareilly Cantonment, established in 1811, has 18 officials including two Muslims. One of the 13 officials at Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehgarh Cantonment is a Muslim. The cantonment in Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, formed in 1826, has 12 officials including a Muslim. This Cantonment Board has a population of 72,261 as per the Census of India 2011 report. Madhya Pradesh has five cantonment areas with Jabalpur being the largest. Sagar, Mhow, Morar, and Pachmarhi also have significant cantonment history.

There is one Muslim among 33 officials at the cantonment in Nainital; one among 44 in Dalhousie; one Muslim among 35 in Secunderabad; one among 10 in Varanasi; one among 40 in Pune; one in 29 in Babina; and one in 12 at Wellington – CEO Mohammed Ali. Also, there is one Muslim official each in Dalhousie (out of 44); Jhansi (out of 29); Kirkee (out of 46), and Sagar (14).

Two Muslims each are among the rank of officials at Shahjahanpur (out of 18); Dehuroad (out of 33); Aurangabad (out of 13), and Belgaum (out of 14). Badami Bagh Cantonment, on the outskirts of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, was set up in 1954 and it also serves as the headquarters of the Indian Army’s 15 Corps. It has seven Muslims out of a total of nine officials. 

Under the Union Public Service Commission’s (UPSA) Group A, the Union government launched the Indian Defense Estates Service (IDES) in 1985. It now has on its rolls a total of 156 officers with seven Muslims, including a woman. A department to look after the affairs of the defence estates came into existence in December 1926.  It was initially known as the Military Lands and Cantonments Service, and then the Defence Lands and Cantonments Service. No Muslim figured in the nine directors that Military Lands and Cantonment had along with six chiefs of Defense Lands and Cantonments and 18 chiefs of Defense Estates. The recruitment to the IDES is 75 percent by direct hiring and the rest by promotion. 

At the field level, there are Chief Executive Officers in the 62 Cantonment Boards; Defence Estates Officers in 37 Defence Estates Circles, and four Assistant Defence Estates Officers, at the cutting edge of administration. The CEO is the executive head of the Cantonment and is responsible for the day-to-day administration. In 2015’s IDES civil list has three Muslims including a woman, Nigar Fatima Hussain, out of a total of 135 officials. The other two were Dr Saud Hassan Khan and Jakir Hussain.  

At the end of 2024, the total number of IDES officials stood at 159 including Dr Saud Hasan Khan, Principal Director of Defence Estates, South-Western Command based in Jaipur; Nigar Fatima Hussain is Additional Director-General of Directorate General Defence Estates in Delhi Cantonment; Jakir Hussain, CEO Meerut; Mohammed Sameer Islam, CEO Allahabad; Irfan Hafiz, CEO Badami Bagh; Mohammed Ali DEO Danapur Cantonment; Mohammed Nawas Sharaf Uddin, DEO Leh, and Mohammed Alam, CEO, Lansdowne Cantonment Board. Out of the 107 IDES officials who retired, only one had been a Muslim – MMH Ali.

Management teams at 37 cantonments have no Muslims on their boards

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