Muslim Baradaries, Occupations and Education

Indian Muslims are a National community, the largest minority and the second largest religious group, constituting 14% population of the country. Spreading over the length and breadth of the country they reside in almost every village, town and city. Nearly one fourth of them live in Uttar Pradesh. Social scientists have not paid as much attention to the community as it deserves. Hence the community hitherto remains unexplored. Nevertheless, one could find both scholars and laymen reflecting upon the community. More often than not, these reflections are emotional, motivated, pejorative and, in a nut shell, without facts. Although Prime Minister’s High Level Committee on the status of Muslims (2006), endeavored hard to collect, collate and consolidate available official statistics about the status of the Muslims, the data is not exhaustive enough. It does provide a macro-picture about the status of Indian Muslims. On the contrary, the present study attempts to explore micro-reality of Muslims. It is based on the survey of 2500 Muslim households and 89 neighborhood schools and Madaris. We do hope the study would be of immense benefits to planners, researchers and social activists.