I wonder if Asra Q. Nomani's weekend LA Times opinion piece got whipsawed by events. She writes about Muslims as "India's new 'untouchables'" (link; apparently she is getting air time over at NPR as well [link]). It's a point worth exploring, but in her presentation, it seems to get all entangled with news of the massacre, in a way that reduces her main point to something near incoherence.
I suspect we are seeing a revised text--revised, to all appearances rather hastily and ill-advisedly. Better to have pulled back and wait a couple of weeks so she could argue, in a straightforward way and without reference to (Pakistan-based?) terrorists, that the position of Muslims in India has "deteriorated"--perhaps lately, or at any rate, since the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947.
She might be onto something here but the point needs a lot of nuance. One: I think there is general agreement that the Muslims who stayed behind in India after partition in 1947 were for the most part the poorest, the least well educated, the least likely to thrive, so they didn't have much of a start. Two: "deteriorated." Does she mean that the position of Muslims has slipped back absolutely? Or that they have been (are being) left behind in a rising economic tide that (at least until lately) been lifting a lot of boats?
In either event, there would remain the question of why. Nomani speaks of Muslims being "disenfranchised" or facing "bureaucratic, housing, job and educational discrimination." We can set aside "bureaucractic"--I assume that every Indian (and every foreigner who ever traveled in India) can froth at the mouth at the thought of the bureaucracy. As to the rest--well, not every "disparity" is a "discrimination;" assuming that Indian Muslims have slipped, it would be useful to know a lot more by way of particulars. One datum that is not open to a lot of interpretation is birth rate: is the Muslim population in India growing faster than the non-Muslim? If so, it may not be surprising to find that family or per capita incomes are also declining.
Nomani says that "India is going to explode if it doesn't take care of [the Muslim minority]." Take care how? She doesn't disclose what she has in mind, but I hope it isn't more by way of quotas, set-asides and such. India is about the worst advertisement in the world for "affirmative action"--carving out a little piece for every constituency and thereby giving every particularist political stakeholder a reason for being and a command over economic rents. There's probably nothing that has done more to drive Indian democracy into disrepute than a system of log-rolling over public resources that impels a great country towards sharper and sharper division.
I suspect we are seeing a revised text--revised, to all appearances rather hastily and ill-advisedly. Better to have pulled back and wait a couple of weeks so she could argue, in a straightforward way and without reference to (Pakistan-based?) terrorists, that the position of Muslims in India has "deteriorated"--perhaps lately, or at any rate, since the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947.
She might be onto something here but the point needs a lot of nuance. One: I think there is general agreement that the Muslims who stayed behind in India after partition in 1947 were for the most part the poorest, the least well educated, the least likely to thrive, so they didn't have much of a start. Two: "deteriorated." Does she mean that the position of Muslims has slipped back absolutely? Or that they have been (are being) left behind in a rising economic tide that (at least until lately) been lifting a lot of boats?
In either event, there would remain the question of why. Nomani speaks of Muslims being "disenfranchised" or facing "bureaucratic, housing, job and educational discrimination." We can set aside "bureaucractic"--I assume that every Indian (and every foreigner who ever traveled in India) can froth at the mouth at the thought of the bureaucracy. As to the rest--well, not every "disparity" is a "discrimination;" assuming that Indian Muslims have slipped, it would be useful to know a lot more by way of particulars. One datum that is not open to a lot of interpretation is birth rate: is the Muslim population in India growing faster than the non-Muslim? If so, it may not be surprising to find that family or per capita incomes are also declining.
Nomani says that "India is going to explode if it doesn't take care of [the Muslim minority]." Take care how? She doesn't disclose what she has in mind, but I hope it isn't more by way of quotas, set-asides and such. India is about the worst advertisement in the world for "affirmative action"--carving out a little piece for every constituency and thereby giving every particularist political stakeholder a reason for being and a command over economic rents. There's probably nothing that has done more to drive Indian democracy into disrepute than a system of log-rolling over public resources that impels a great country towards sharper and sharper division.
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