The Economist chides India for neglecting the (primarily urban) muslim population.

Muslim population growth and consequences: Private studies guess that India has about 177m Muslims, comprising 14.6% of the total population. It marks a rise of nearly 40m, or a percentage point, on a decade before….Crucially, fertility tends to fall only as poverty drops. Muslims are poorer than average and are heavily present in the big, poor, northern states. According to a study by the Pew Research Centre, India will probably have 236m Muslims in two decades’ time….. In certain states, however, change is more dramatic. In Assam, in the north-east, Muslims now make up a third of the population, a sharp rise in the past two decades (though immigration accounts for some of it).

Where population change is fast, instability may follow. Last year 77 people were killed and 400,000 were displaced in Assam, amid clashes between Muslim settlers and Bodo tribal groups who feel their land is under threat. Still, growing populations alone did not provoke the violence in Assam. Shifting political loyalties were also a factor.

Muslim development post-Sachar: Wajahat Habibullah, who heads the National Commission for Minorities in Delhi, sees only faint reasons for cheer. Muslims in India outperform their neighbours in Pakistan on some social indicators, such as having lower fertility rates and infant mortality, and higher literacy and life expectancy…..Yet much else is discouraging. A new study by an American think-tank, the US-India Policy Institute, assessing progress since the Sachar report, bluntly concludes that Muslims have “not shown any measurable improvement”. Even in education, Muslims’ gains are typically more modest than other groups’.

In 2009 (as reaction to 2008 attack) muslims voted en masse for congress else probably Mayawati would have conquered Red Fort at the head of a magical and mysterious third front (which is the dream of the political left). Muslims have preferred non-C govt in the states for some time now and may still prefer a weak-C govt at the center (anything to prevent prime-minister-in-waiting NaMo sir to take the throne).

regards

update: Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind has set a two-month deadline for the UPA government to enact a law on reservation for muslims in government jobs in proportion to their population….It also asked the government on Tuesday to pass the anti-communal violence law besides release of innocent Muslim youth arrested on false charges of involvement in terrorist activities…Taking on UPA chairperson and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Jamiat general secretary Maulana Mahmood Madani said, “You can’t remain competent and eligible to the legacy of the great family if injustices in the states run by your party are not stopped, and communal violence law is not enacted during the UPA regime.”

Detailed background on the proposed anti communal violence law which will provide more protection to minorities (for e.g. Hindus in Kashmir and Nagaland) as well as the drawbacks are provided by Ashutosh Varshney.

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21572785-steadily-rising-muslim-population-continues-fall-behind-growing-and-neglected

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/rethink-the-communal-violence-bill/818096/0