Muslims continue to lag in Bihar

Although hot property for every political party, the Muslims of Bihar are low down on the scale of socio-economic indices on practically every count""and the political demands made on them are inversely proportional to their prosperity and well-being.

Only 36 per cent of Bihar's rural Muslim households own land. Their annual household income is Rs 31,000. And of every five children of school going age, one never gets a chance to go to school.

According to a survey on "socio-economic and educational status of Muslims in Bihar", commissioned by the state's Minorities Commission and conducted by the Patna-based Asian Development Research Institute, Muslims often faced "outright discrimination" in employment and had "insignificant" representation in panchayat and municipalities.

The report was submitted in November 2004 to the Rabri Devi government but was not made public because of the impact it could had on the impending state Assembly elections.

The findings are based on a survey conducted in 8,065 households in 167 villages and 14 towns spread over 20 districts of Bihar.

The report says of the 13.7 million Muslims (census 2001), 8 per cent live in rural areas, where land and related resources form the main base of livelihood, but only 36 per cent of households have some land.

Among the general population, land-owning households constitute 58 per cent. The average land per land-owning Muslim household is only 1.91 acres compared to 2.32 acres for the general population.

With respect to livestock resources, rural Muslim households are worse off compared to general population""56 per cent of them own some livestock resources compared to 61 per cent among the general population.

The percentage of Muslim households engaged in artisan-based activities is only 2.1 per cent in rural and 4.4 per cent in urban areas, indicating that in the face of competition from modern manufacturing industries, the traditional artisan-based activities in many such households are disappearing, forcing Muslim workers to become low paid wage earners.

Given the "very adverse" livelihood conditions, migration by workers is a common practice, the report says, adding for every 100 rural Muslim household, there are 63 migrants.

In urban areas, the figure is 24. About 49.5 per cent of rural Muslim households live below the poverty line, compared to 44.3 per cent for general population.