Minority Report: How Muslim’s Fare in Modi’s India

DEMOCRACY IS BOTH ABOUT majority rule and minority rights. All minorities, no matter where in the world, and no matter what religion, at some point feel that they are being discriminated against.

It is important that minorities feel secure and have equal rights. But what happens when a society bends ‘too much’ to accommodate the rights of minorities, be it because of religion, sex, caste or sexual orientation? In the constitutional debates, there was healthy disagreement on how to tackle ‘forever discrimination’ against the Dalits. No one disagreed with the goal that some policy must be enacted. India chose the command econo­my route of quota reservations rather than the more liberal, and secular, route of affirmative action.

The demand for a caste census is just the latest manifestation of a policy gone awry. How awry? As in the Supreme Court interpretation of quotas: there is a 50 per cent cap on the quota for reservations, but the quota is very elastic. At times, it can be more than 50 per cent. Our policymakers and/or their advisers, and even our lawmakers, forever think that people are stupid; if you think that the description is extreme, substitute ‘irrational’ for stupid. Some­time back, I had stated that the anti-liberal, anti-secular, anti-merit system would end only when everyone demanded reservation. Yesterday, the Jats wanted reservations; today, it is the Marathas; tomorrow it will be the Brahmins. Just you wait!

Well, wait no longer. The Bihar census yielded the estimates in Figure 1 (never mind that the implied fertility rates of some castes may be beyond comprehension or reality).

But count you must: SCs and STs 21 per cent; EBCs 36 per cent; OBCs 27 per cent. Since all of them deserve reservations (a total of 85 per cent), we are as close to 100 per cent reservation as we will ever get.

One of the accepted beliefs about Modi’s tenure as prime minister is that he was chief minister of Gujarat at the time the Godhra riots happened, and therefore he, and his policies, are likely to be discriminatory towards Muslims.

Official consumer survey data conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) showed that the welfare of poor Muslims in Gujarat had improved at least as fast as of those who were not Muslim. And welfare of Muslims had increased faster in Gujarat than in other states. The Modi government has increased welfare spending via direct benefit transfer (DBT) schemes and provided free grain to all; it is now conventional wisdom that free food and DBT do not discriminate on the basis of caste or religion.

ECONOMICS OF DISCRIMINATION IN INDIA (MUSLIMS) AND THE US (BLACKS)

Opinions come cheap, and everyone is entitled to an opinion. George Soros has been openly critical of ‘democracy’ in India and pre­dicted its imminent decline, and former President Obama added his weight to Soros’ opinion by stating that ‘if you do not protect the rights of ethnic minorities in India, then there is a strong possibility that India at some point starts pulling apart’. That President Obama said this when the floodlights were on Modi (before his speech to a joint session of the US Congress on June 23, 2023) added fuel to the Soros fire.

Obama joins a long list of scholars and politicians predicting a Balkanisation, if not imminent demise, of the Indian state. Way back in the 1960s, Selig Harrison warned that unless a new democratic leader arose post Nehru, ‘India will face Balkaniza­tion or authoritarian control based on army force’.

Obama’s comment is a more judicious rephrasing of Harrison’s ‘forecast’ some sixty years ago. Closer to home, for­mer RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan recently stated, ‘We must confront and defeat majoritarian authoritarianism. Any at­tempt to make 2nd class citizens of our minority (read Muslim) population will not lead us anywhere.’

These assertions have a logical basis. There are more Muslims in India than in any other country in the world barring Indo­nesia. How Muslims and any other minority (lower castes and tribals and women for that matter) are treated is of immense im­portance to the stability of India, its progress and its well-being. As has been correctly asserted by many (including myself), India’s strength is in its diversity, and some of us have asserted (and em­pirically shown) that India, despite all gloom and doom forecasts, has survived in large part as a democratic nation because of elec­toral diversity, which allows for effective checks and balances.

Empirical conclusions are difficult on this sensitive, emo­tive subject because it is tough to establish that a community has been penalised by discrimination or racism. Prejudice is multifaceted. Economists, not surprisingly, have taken an empirical approach with Nobel laureate Gary Becker setting the standard, and the trend, with his 1957 study The Economics of Discrimination. Becker’s point was very simple—if measured properly, discrimination was unlikely to exist without racism (or casteism or sexism).

By Becker’s definition (now accepted by all), wage incomes are primarily a function of education, experience and inherent ability. Ability is difficult to measure, but considerable progress in measurement has occurred. The simple Becker conclu­sion: Those who practise discrimination in the marketplace will make less profits because they will be hiring less productive (white in the US context) workers at a higher wage. In other words, to measure the contribution of racism, look at the wage differential between whites and blacks after accounting for differences in human capital.

The study of wage differentials constitutes just one ap­proach to recognising discrimination. There are many meth­ods or empirical strategies to establish how well a minority is protected (or unprotected) in different countries. Hence, a di­rect evaluation of the veracity of the Obama statement (Hindu prejudice against Muslims) is not straightforward.

The extensive study on black-white wage differentials in the US provides a useful approach. It has been a prolific industry in the US since the Becker publication and, for the last 30-odd years, has also been extended to sex discrimination. American audiences are very aware of this research, and any study of dis­crimination in India or elsewhere has to compare and contrast it with the American findings.

How Muslims and any other minority are treated is of immense importance to the stability of India and its progress. India’s strength is in its diversity, and India, despite all gloom and doom forecasts, has survived in large part as a democratic nation because of electoral diversity, which allows for effective checks and balances

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If there were no discrimination, after controlling for human capital, one would expect blacks and whites to have similar earnings (wages). Analogously, if Muslims were discriminated against, then some amount of this bias would occur in their earn­ings, i.e. Muslims would have lower average earnings than Hin­dus. This is what we do—compare black and white differences in earnings, and the differences in Hindu and Muslim earnings.

WAGE DISCRIMINATION AND INEQUALITY IN INDIA AND THE US

Discrimination can take many forms. Inclusion and non-inclusion can take many forms. One less studied aspect of wage inequality is that between communities such as Hindus and Muslims. Data from NSSO/PLFS (Periodic Labour Force Survey) studies (1983 to 2022) have been assembled. Wages of all work­ers, including self- employed, are available since 2017; for years prior, only data on salaried (formal sector workers) and casual (informal sector workers) are available.

Figure 2 contains the data for the period 1983 to 2022 on wage gaps for male Hindus and Muslims, whites and blacks. For the US, the data and results are obtained from the Valerie Wilson and William Darity, Jr study (2022) for the Eco­nomic Policy Institute; for India, we use earnings data from the NSSO/PLFS studies conducted since 1983.

For the US, Wilson-Darity conclude: Another defining feature of racial inequality in the labor market is the significant pay dispari­ties between black and white workers. In 2019, the typical (median) black worker earned 24.4% less per hour than the typical white worker. This is an even larger wage gap than in 1979, when it was 16.4%. Controlling for racial differences in education, experience, and the fact that black workers are more likely to live in lower-wage Southern states leaves an unexplained gap of 14.9% in 2019 (out of a total average gap of 26.5%).

What is noteworthy about the US data is that despite consis­tent and persistent attention to the elimination of discrimina­tion, black males still earned about 25 per cent less than white males in 2022 (median wages). And that since 1983, there has not been much improvement; likely, some deterioration.

The data for the raw differences in the median earnings of Muslim and Hindus are also reported in Figure 2. In addition, for India, is the earnings gap between Hindus and Muslims after controlling for differences in human capital. No matter what index is chosen, there is no evidence of Muslims earn­ing less than Hindus, ceteris paribus. In the last year reported, 2022–23, PLFS data, the median Muslim earnings were about 18 per cent more than median Hindu earnings.

Thus, in striking contrast to the US, and against the ‘expecta­tions’ of many, Muslims have not encountered wage discrimi­nation in the labour market in India. The wage gap has moved towards equalisation—from a positive 10 per cent in 1983 to a positive 18 per cent in 2022 (in favour of Muslims).

Also offered is a more refined version of measuring discrimi­nation. Wages are a function of human capital (endowments), and one needs to adjust for differences in human capital to find out the net effect. The net result: Muslims were 10 per cent ahead in 1983 and 1 per cent ahead in 2021, after controlling for differences in human capital.

Wage discrimination is not the only form of discrimination. However, it is reassuring to know that, on one important di­mension, we are not practising what Soros or Obama thought we might be doing. Societies practise prejudice and discrimina­tion in many ways. According to Pew surveys, both Hindus and Muslims want to live peacefully but separately.

Families do not want inter-caste marriages; they do not want interfaith marriages. Families prefer not to have large disparities in husband-wife incomes or of family background. Progress comes via the dismantling of these prejudices, and progress does not come easy. Hence, it is always preferable not to get judgemental.

THE POLEMICS OF JUDGEMENTS

But it is hard to avoid harsh judgements. I want to relate an ex­change between a respected Indian intellectual, BR Shenoy, and a respected Muslim intellectual from Pakistan, and former finance minister, Shahid Javed Burki. I am privileged to ‘know’ both these individuals; Burki was my senior colleague during my time at the World Bank in the 1980s, and Shenoy here in India.

Burki published an article in the Express Tribune in 2024 entitled ‘The Story of the Other India’. Much like the narratives I have talked about in this book, Burki’s narrative was that ‘Muslims are downgraded to a second class status by Modi and the ruling party, BJP’. Shenoy then provided the following facts about the status, rights, etc, of Hindus and Muslims in India. I am paraphrasing and reproducing Shenoy’s response to Burki’s article (with his permission).

Fact: Indian Muslims enjoy more constitutional rights than the Hindus, such as conversions to Islam of Hindus, right to education, owning property, marriages, religious teachings in schools and colleges, etc.

Also note that in India:

– The government/s exercise no control on mosques, dargahs, mazars, etc, while all Hindu temples are under the control of the respective state governments.

– In South of India, all temple collections (amounting to Rs thousands of crores per annum) become part of govern­ment treasury, while not a paisa is taken from any mosque.

– The governments fund Islamic studies in madrassas. The University Grants Commission (UGC) permits colleges and schools to have departments teaching Islamic theology, whereas teaching Hindu Theology is illegal!

– Muslim men can marry 4 times, legally, whereas Hindu men cannot marry even a second time!

– From 1951 to 2011 (60 years) people following Indian Religions (defined as religions that originated in India such as Sikh, Buddhist and Jain as well as Hindu) increased their numbers by 3.2 times (from 31.5 crore to 101 crore), while the Muslim population during the same period multiplied by 5.5 times (from 3.7 crore to 20 crore)! During the same period, Hindu and Sikh population in Pakistan, unsurprisingly, has almost disappeared!

-Next to the GOI and the Indian Railways, WAQF boards are the biggest land owners! No Hindu is appointed as adminis­trators or CEOs to these Waqf Boards, whereas Muslims and Christians are routinely appointed by state governments to administer Hindu temples including the holiest Hindu temples in Tirupati, Guruvayur, Vaishno Devi, etc!

– While the Directive Principles prefacing the Indian Consti­tution desire Uniform Civil Code to be enacted for govern­ing the personal laws of the whole of the Indian community, Nehru enacted Hindu Code Bill in 1955 but left the Muslim community untouched, much against the express opinion of Dr Ambedkar!

Much maligned though Modi is, there has been no decrease in the benefits of his socio-economic reforms going to the Mus­lim community. Poor Muslims have equally benefited from government largesse like free toilets, free houses, free monthly rations, free power, gas, health insurance, scholarships and many other benefits.

(This is an edited excerpt from How We Vote: The Factors
That Influence Voters by Surjit S Bhalla and Abhinav
Motheram)

About The Author

Surjit S Bhalla

Surjit S Bhalla, a former executive director at IMF, has served on the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and is the author of, among other titles, Citizen Raj

Abhinav Motheram

Abhinav Motheram is a data science consultant at LEAD, Krea University