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Muslims in Indian Economy
by Omar Khalidi

What is the condition of the Indian Muslims at the dawn of the twenty first century? What is the demographic profile of the community? What is the percentage of its population in agriculture, industry and the tertiary sector? How do Muslims fare at the national level? Does the Muslim economic condition differ from state to state, given the regional imbalances in the country resulting form unequal development?

How does Muslim economic condition in the early twenty first century compare with the recent and distant past? To what extent can the political changes account for these variations? How does the economic profile of the Muslims compare with the majority Hindus, Dalits, and minorities alike Christians, Sikhs and Parsis?

Historians, politicians, journalists and other s agree that Muslims in general lag behind other communities. Does Islam, or Islam as interpreted and lived, have anything to do with it? What is the role of the State in this matter? What is the record of the post-independence central and state governments?

The author tries to answer some of these questions. He argues that understanding these issues is not only a mater of academic enquiry, but also necessary for taking appropriate corrective measures by the community leadership as well as by the state.

The 130 million Muslims in India form the second largest Muslim population in the world. Scholarship on them has however focused on a limited range of issues. There is little by way of macro studies on the economic condition of Muslims in various parts of India. Omar Khalidi’s book fills this gap.

The various chapters focus on the pre-Independence legacy, the impact on Muslims of Partition and politics on ownershipof assets, employment, access to education, public service or their role in labour, commerce and industry. It is a report on the current status of the Muslim minority in India, particularly the Urdu-speaking Muslims.


Table of Contents

PREFACE AND ACKNOLWDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

NATIONAL LEVEL
Medieval and Colonial India
Independent India

STATE LEVEL
Delhi Uttar Pradesh
Bihar
Deccan and Andhra Pradesh
Karnataka
Maharashtra

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Appendix
Central Government Service: Armed Forces, Civil
Service, Public Sector Enterprises/Companies, UPSC


About the Author
<b>
OMAR KHALIDI is an independent scholar and a staff member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He was educated in India, Britain, and the United States. His research interests are in the sociology of politics, upward and downward economic mobility of ethnic groups, nationalism and Diaspora. He is the author of Indian Muslims Since Independence, 1996, and edited Hyderabad: After the Fall, 1988, a collection of academic papers.

He is a staff member of the Agha Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, MIT Department of Architecture. He was born and raised in Hyderabad, India. Dr Khalidi was educated at Wichita State University, BA (1980). He is the author of several publications, including, approaches to Mosque Design in North America (1999); The Architecture and Campus Planning of Osmania University, 2003 and American Architecture of Islamic Inspiration.</b>

In addition to the professional interest in architecture and urban planning, Dr Khalidi has written and lectured about Muslims in India and the United States.