For all the talk of Muslim "appeasement", we all know, if we are honest and choose to look beyond our nose, that Muslims are at the bottom rungs of society whatever the measuring index -- education, health, nutrition or employment.
They face discrimination and we do not need the Justice Sachar report to tell us that. There are problems about access to housing -- they have been kept out of housing societies and the problem is getting exacerbated after the recent blasts with Muslims asked to leave rented places -- to schooling -- convent schools in Mumbai are known to be chary of admitting Muslim children -- and to employment and credit, which they find difficult to get. If there is talk of special provisions for them, it is dubbed as "appeasement".
In the cycle of reaction and counter reaction, you can understand Hindus being wary of renting their houses to Muslims lest they get involved in something unsavoury. It has become a chicken and egg situation.
The Hindu-Muslim divide is compounded by the decline of the various instrumentalities of the Indian state, and their failure to act even handedly. Police is only one instrument, political parties another. When the Shrikrishna report -- about those responsible for the Mumbai riots in early nineties -- gathers dust, Muslims naturally ask whether that is not "too much".
Image: A Muslim offers prayers at a shrine in Srinagar.
Photographs: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: 'No tangible proof of Muslims' involvement in terrorism'
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