Forward community: When Muslims lead on social indicators like gender ratio, this is ignored while talking about social progress and backwardness
Shams Ur Rehman Alavi
Gender ratio or sex ratio is one of the most important social indicators for any group and is crucial towards survival of our societies.
It also shows mindset, attitude towards girl child, because sex selection and female foeticide has adversely affected entire societies it in many parts of the world, including India.
Now, you must know that Muslim community does comparatively well on this parameter, yet, it doesn’t get credit and is not termed forward. Even it is not mentioned often.
The child sex ratio in India was just 927 in 2001, and went further down, even less than 920, as per the last Census report 2011. Either you see 2001 report or the 2011 report, the figures of overall population or in 0–6, you will find Muslims doing comparatively better on this indicator.
Earlier, in the 0–6 population, the child sex ratio was highest among Christians and Muslims followed by Buddhists. Hindus come on the fourth spot in the 2001 report.
In 2011 census that was released, four years later in 2015, in the 0–6 years age, it was again Christians and Muslims at the top — 958 for Christians, 943 for Muslims, followed by 933 for Buddhists, 913 for Hindus [a sharp dip].
It is now 828 for Sikhs, 889 for Jains [LINK]. Times of India had reported that among Hindus, the fall ‘from 925 to 913 in a decade, among all communities was the biggest decline — of 12 points — and a chilling reminder for the continuing need for much more robust action to save the girl child’.
In overall sex ratio too, Muslims are ahead of Hindus and Sikhs but behind Buddhists. Jains have shown remarkable positive change in recent years — within a decade.
Strange journalism, forgetfulness or something else!
You’d be surprised that many media reports don’t even mention this aspect or just carelessly omit figure for Muslims. Why? I don’t want to make any presumption, but it is shoddy journalism that you present figures for all communities, except, Muslims.
Oversight? Just an example is this report, [link report]. It may be an exception. But then I found yet another Scroll report that is a long one, mentions Hindus and Sikhs, but not Muslims’ figures.
I have read newspapers too, which present other communities as improving or slightly showing negative trend, but not mentioning ‘Muslims doing well or better than some communities’.
Is it because anything positive about Muslim community can’t be in a headline? Or just ‘backwardness’ sells? I am really curious about this, how can someone simple forget to present Muslims’ data when they do good.
Figures for each community is mentioned, except Muslims in report on child sex ratio. However, they do remember mentioning that ‘Muslims are far behind on another indicator’ though article was not about the other indicator.
Similarly, there are newspaper websites which make headlines ‘Religion A, B and C’ doing well. But if they give data of Muslims, perhaps, they have to mention in a sub-headline that Muslims doing better than D, E and F.
So is this the reason for not mentioning the figures! Forget again! But, they remember adding, ‘Muslims far behind on another indicator’. I just don’t get it, how it happens.
Anyway, when it comes to Hindus and Muslims, both are relatively big communities and the difference goes to figure of millions. That’s why it’s important to keep an eye on it.
Sex ratio means number of women for every 1,000 male children. So the lesser are females, the lesser is the sex ratio. The report came out more than six years ago.
But do we see any headlines about ‘Muslims, a forward community’ when it comes to attitude towards birth of a daughter or about it doing so well on this indicator!
When you mention ‘backwardness’, also tell honestly that community is ahead on these indicators and kindly don’t approach data with a biased mindset.
This is a very important parameter as discrimination towards girl child is present even in the most ‘educated societies’ in India. However, they are not termed backward’, though this label is always, very quickly available for Muslims, even without mentioning data or progress of Muslims on other social indicators.
The ‘son preference’ is such a serious social issue in India, that after ultrasound technology arrived in the 1980s, millions of female foetuses were illegally aborted. IT is estimated that at least 1,00,000 abortions are performed every year.
As in an earlier part of this series, I mentioned how data is available but if such is the conditioning of journalist that they will always look at it with with a pre-conceived notion of ‘Muslim backwardness’ and not even looking at other aspects or the positive changes in Muslim community, then the old narrative continues to be spread.
It is just believed that ‘Muslims are backward’, as it gives a sort of comfort to many others! At least, present the complete picture, compare honestly. In an earlier piece on similar biased mindset, ignoring progress of Muslim women in education, I had mentioned that social conditioning and training of many journalists is such that they just can’t see this — how Muslims can be doing well or be ahead!
Hence, always ask for data when someone makes a wild charge that any community that is so big — 20 crore or 200 million, is termed entirely backward, with a careless push of pen. Once again, I repeat that these are more crucial indicators that reveal discrimination on the basis of gender.
On other indicators, state support and affirmative action can make a community prosper or move fast and taking away support can have negative affect. So, we must know reality, be aware of statistics, neither turn pessimist and self-hating or be in , but be aware and always make efforts to move ahead. Photo courtesy: Montera, Pexels.
[This is part of a series of such stories to indicate that how data is selectively used to create a perception about Muslims. Read another part here].
