Vice-President Hamid Ansari has disputed the view that Muslims in India were losing ground and said they had started seeking their fair share in decision making. Pointing out that with 13.4 per cent of India’s population, Muslims were the second or third largest community in the world, he said, “The realisation is dawning that as equal partners in a democratic polity governed by the ideals of social, economic and political justice, they can make the weight of numbers felt in political decision-making and seek a fair access to it.” Dr Ansari was speaking after releasing a book ‘Muslims in Indian Cities’ edited by Laurent Gayer and Christoph Jafferlot here last evening. In his view any generalisation about the state of Muslims in India in today’s context would be hazardous. The Vice-President also spoke about the effect on Muslims of the partition of India in 1947 which he said was a result of political calculus, compromises and adjustments of elites but not of population at large. He said for several decades thereafter the socio-economic impact of that event on the Muslim minority, particularly in the northern and eastern states of the Indian Union, remained largely unstudied or understudied and ad hoc government initiatives taken occasionally were poorly implemented. UNI
