The success of any scheme for reform and change does not entirely depend on the strength of your belief in its being correct. It is also necessary that you should satisfy the people of your society regarding the usefulness and feasibility of the scheme that you have taken up, and you should present and operate it in such a manner as to associate their hopes and interest with it.
(Abul’ala Mawdudi)
After independence and partition of Indian sub-continent, Muslims in India could not keep pace with the average national development. Progressively they have lagged behind other backward communities in almost all walks of life. Government reports and surveys conducted by various study groups confirm the general perception of the community in this regard. Two factors have been especially highlighted for Muslim backwardness: government apathy towards Muslim minority and lack of community initiative. It does not mean that nothing has been done by the government or no collective effort has been made by the community. In a democratic set-up, it is unthinkable of any government to completely neglect any community. However, efforts required for inclusive development of Muslim minority are not reflected both at the planning and implementation levels as are found in case of other backward groups. So far as community initiative is concerned, it is fragmented, scattered and without expertise in planning. Resource mobilisation is also neither well managed nor fully explored and channelized with development prioritisation.
Take, for example, the community initiative and State responsibility in respect of educational and economic development of the community. As a matter of right, the Muslim minority can establish, run and manage educational institutions and the government is supposed to support the Muslim minority institutions. No doubt, there are a large number of educational institutions being run by the community – both aided and non-aided. But in most of the cases, quarrel and conflict in management, quality deficiencies, misuse or misappropriation of fund, lack of adequate infrastructure, etc. are the normal practice, marring the collective interest of the community. Whereas, many State governments have shown apathy in granting recognition and aid to Muslim minority institutions, even to those institutions that fulfil the basic criteria. For the last three decades, this apathy has been prevailing in Bihar and West Bengal as my personal information. Even the aided Muslim minority institutions are not being treated at par other educational institutions in respect of service benefits provided for other institutions, like retirement benefits and development grants.
Thus, the lack of initiative or initiatives with deficiencies and apathy of the government or sometimes partisan attitude of governmental agencies have contributed a lot to the marginalisation of Muslim community in socio-economic and educational sectors of national development. The pitiable condition of the community has aroused deep concern among many of the intellectuals and well-off members of the community. They sincerely think over the prevailing situation, express their vision and plan for community development. But what most of them lack is affirmative engagement with community workers who are actively involved in community affairs in different fields.
On the other hand, activists and social workers rarely possess the knowledge about the demands of the fast changing world, legal requirements of institutions and societies, available opportunities for community development and planning talent and management skill. They are living in the real situation and experiencing the plight of the community. They believe in action. They are confronting the odds without integrated planning and sufficient knowledge of the complexities of social change and information about resource generation.
In most of the cases, they are complacent to maintain their initiative at the level they started the journey. They seldom bother on how to strengthen, expand and achieve excellence in their development activities. There are so many educational associations of the Muslim community. Is there any one to have planning and implementation mechanism to grow into DAV or Christian missionary chain of schools and colleges?
The situation demands that intellect and activism should meet together to give momentum to the initiatives of community development activities all over the country. Intellectuals and professionals of the community should come forward to have meaningful and active engagement with local community workers and social activists. In the beginning, there may be some adjustment problems due to differences in behaviour, perception and communication gap. Frequent engagements would energise the local workers as well as enlighten the intellectuals to lead the community towards a better future.
Under the present circumstances, intellectual class of the community may undertake the following agenda for engaging the community workers and office bearers of Muslim minority institutions:
Capacity building: Most of the community workers and institutional heads lack professional expertise, proper information and access to governmental schemes for education, entrepreneurship, health, vocational training, small scale business, etc. Professionals and intellectual should extend their active support in capacity building.
Formation of Advocacy group: The Government has launched various schemes for the Muslim minority but the concerned governmental agencies seldom give priority to these schemes at the implementation level. Common people lack information as well as advocacy talent. As such, advocacy groups should be formed at the district level by involving professional, intellectuals and community leaders to persuade the governmental agencies for proper implementation of community development schemes.
Area Study and Action Plan: There is a dearth of area based study of Muslim community at the micro level with requisite action plan for community development in different sectors. This group has competence to undertake the much needed action-oriented study of local Muslim population. Their studies and recommendations may activate the community workers to undertake specific programmes under their guidance.
Creation of Nodal Centres: The role of nodal agencies for literacy, higher education, health, finance, employment and other socio-economic spheres is crucial in providing information, guidance and formation of action plan. This group can establish Nodal centres for specific areas of community development.
Motivational Support: This group can be a source of motivation and enthusiasm for community workers. By frequent involvement in community development activities along with action groups, motivation and confidence level of common workers as well as institutional heads can be raised.
It is to be borne in mind that while setting the vision, mission and action plan for rejuvenation of the Muslim community, ideological base and value system of the community cannot be ignored. Despite ideological and moral decadence, faith in tawhīd and longing for the success in akhirah are the motivational base of the community. Development sans ideological identity cannot provide self-confidence for Muslim ummah and may lead to waywardness and stagnation of the community. Indian Muslims can play a dynamic role in national development and reconstruction of Indian society if their moral and ideological commitments are further reinforced along with efforts towards socio-economic and educational development. Ignoring the Muslim psyche may estrange the intellectuals from the community life.