Abdul Bari Masoudanalyses why the ratio of Muslim boys and girls in the civil services exams remains stagnant.
Muslims’ presence in the most sought-after civil services has been hovering between 3 and 4 percent for the past few years, despite a number of coaching centres established by community members. In the UPSC list of 933 successful applicants this year, just 30 Muslims were selected. And only one Muslim from Kashmir, Waseem Ahmad Bhat, distinguished himself by placing seventh in the Union Public Services Commission’s 2022 civil service examination.
In 2020, 31 Muslims qualified out of a total 761 candidates. In 2019, 43 Muslims qualified out of a total 829 candidates. It is a debating point in the community circles that despite a plethora of coaching sprang up in the past several years; Muslims’ share in the civil services remained stagnant. Their success rate should match with their percentage in the population.
The Hamdard Study Circle, founded by former AMUVice Chancellor Saiyid Hamid, the Residential Coaching Academy (RCA) of Jamia Millia Islamia, the Coaching Centre of the Hajj Committee of India, Crescent Academy, the Sir Syed Coaching & Guidance Centre for Civil Services (SSCGC) of the Zakat Foundation of India, and others are just a few notable institutions that have been offering coaching to students from the Muslim community and other underprivileged groups.
The scenario doesn’t change despite the services offered by these institutions.There are several factors at play. Mohammad Hamid Ansari, former Vice President of India, described it this way.Ansari claims that the main cause of the low ratio is the fact that Muslim students do not enrol in the civil services exams in large numbers.
“If Muslims apply in huge numbers for civil service exams, more Muslims will qualify and their percentage will rise as it is the only service where jobseekers rarely face any sort of discrimination,” he underlines. One may experience discrimination at class 3 and 4 level government jobs but not at the top level.
“In 1960, when I took the UPSC exam, there were only two other Muslim candidates, and out of three two were selected. The other successful candidate was Mr. Tayyiab from Madras (Chennai) and in our time, one has to pass written and viva examinations separately,” he recalls.
Ansari himself is a retired IFS, who served India in several countries and was a permanent representative in the United Nations.
There is no place for casteism, communalism, or any other kind of partisanship in the UPSC because it is seen as a relatively impartial institution. In contrast to the past, success is now determined by the combined scores on the written and viva tests.
The boys and girls from the Muslim community need to put in more effort because they are up against the best students in the country.
Ansari laments that Muslim students do not want to work hard and lack the aptitude for competitive exams.
He mentions the Aligarh Muslim University and claims that it can play a significant part in raising the number of Muslim students who are interested in taking the civil services exam. “During my Vice Presidency, I established acoaching centre in Aligarh city, there was a murmur that the centre should not have been set up in the AMU campus. However, the law does not permit the establishment of such a centre in the campus.”
Ansari also served the AMU as its Vice Chancellor.However, the former VC emphasises that Muslim boys and girls need to be encouraged and motivated by the community individuals and groups as more students will appear, more success will occur.
In order to increase the presence of Muslim students in civil services exam, the AMU should take the lead and it should encourage UG students of the arts and social sciences to work hard and read a lot of general books, biographies, and autobiographies.
Muslim students also take some inspiration from the success ofHussain Sayyed (27) who has cracked the UPSC exam 2022, securing All India Rank 570.He is son of dockworker and rose in a one-room tenement in the sprawling slum off P D’mello Road in Mumbai’s Wadi Bunder. The success has turned him overnight into a mini-celebrity and unlikely role model in his impoverished neighbourhood.
Despite making four unsuccessful attempts to pass the UPSC exam, Sayyed was unfazed. In his fifth effort, he was successful, proving that his perseverance and diligence had finally paid off.
“After I cleared my SSC from St. Joseph School, Umarkhadi, and HSC from Anjuman-I-Islam near CST, I graduated in commerce from Elphinstone College. It was my father who desired that I should try for the civil services. I had not heard of it before I entered the college, but this became my dream since then,” Sayyed told the Times of India.
Sayyed plans to retake the exam to raise his ranking but hopes to land an IPS or IRS assignment. “I’ll give it another shot and try to raise my ranking. My goal is to become an IAS officer, and I have another opportunity to try,” he stated.
His father Ramzan Ismail Sayyed, a contract worker in the loading and unloading section at Indira Dock, said he saw Sayyed, the youngest among his four children (three sons, one daughter), was diligent in studies and wanted him to become a “bada officer”. “Whatever I could, I did. It is mainly his hard work and God’s blessings that he has got this success,”he said to the paper.
Apart from lacklustre performances in the civil services exams, occasionally Muslim boys and girls do excel in the X and XII examinations held by different boards.
In the Karnataka PUC examination, Tabassum Shaik, a victim of the Hijab controversy caused by right-wing Hindutva men, earned the second place spot. She was compelled to remove the hijab for an examination.
Last year, Karnataka was marred by riots over the hijab after some students in rural Karnataka expressed concern over students wearing Hijab to the college. The Muslim students protested demanding that they should be allowed to wear Hijab to the classes.
In Bihar, Mohammad Rumman Ashraf, a student from Islamia High School in Sheikhpura, topped the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) 10th Grade Exam in 2023 with a score of 489 (97.8%).
Rumman claimed that he put in a lot of effort during the session and that the effort paid off in the end.
Besides these success stories, Advocate Farheen Fatima has become the first ever Muslim woman as Advocate-on-Record of the Supreme Court. She passed Advocate-on-Record Examination 2022 conducted by the Supreme Court of India.She hails from Kareli, Allahabad (Prayagraj).
Fatima has been practising in the Supreme Court of India ever since she completed her graduation in law. She did her schooling from St. Anthony’s Convent School, Prayagraj with flying colours and did law from Dehradun.
There is no doubt that Muslim students suffer from socioeconomic disadvantages. The socioeconomic standing of Muslims in India today provides the explanation. For students to have better possibilities, their financial situation must be better. The only way to cross this is by working harder than usual. Several community organisations are working on this front.