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 An article on The saga of the current Indian Muslims
By Mahboob Ali Khan (Director Quality Assurance PSBJH)
T
he disembodied voice was chilling in its rage. A gunman, holed up in theOberoi Trident hotel in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), where some40 people had been taken hostage,told an Indian news channel that the attacks were revenge for the persecution of Muslims in India. "We love this as our country, but when our mothers and sisters were beingkilled, where was everybody?" he asked via telephone. No answer came. But then he probably  wasn't expecting one.The roots of Muslim rage run deep in India,nourished by a long-held sense of injustice over what many Indian Muslims believe is institutionalized discrimination against the country'slargest minority group. The disparities between Muslims, who make up 13.4% of the population,and India's Hindus, who hover at around 80%, are striking. There are exceptions, of course, butgenerally speaking, Muslim Indians have shorter life spans, worse health, lower literacy levelsand lower-paying jobs. Add to that toxic brew the lingering resentment over 2002's anti-Muslimriots in the state of Gujarat. The riots, instigated by Hindu nationalists, killed some 2,000people, most of them Muslims. To this day, few of the perpetrators have been convicted.The huge gap between Muslims and Hindus will continue to haunt India's — and neighboringPakistan's — progress toward peace and prosperity. But before intercommunal relations canimprove, there are even bigger problems that must first be worked out: the schism insubcontinental Islam and the religion's place and role in modern India and Pakistan. It is a crisis150 years in the making.
The Beginning of the Problem
 On the afternoon of March 29, 1857, Mangal Pandey, a handsome, mustachioed soldier in theEast India Company's native regiment, attacked his British lieutenant. His hanging a week latersparked a subcontinental revolt known to Indians as the first war of independence and to theBritish as the Sepoy Mutiny. Retribution was swift, and though Pandey was a Hindu, it was thesubcontinent's Muslims, whose Mughal King nominally held power in Delhi, who bore the bruntof British rage. The remnants of the Mughal Empire were dismantled, and 500 years of Muslimsupremacy on the subcontinent came to a halt.Muslim society in India collapsed. The British imposed English as the official language. Theimpact was cataclysmic. Muslims went from near 100% literacy to 20% within a half-century.The country's educated Muslim élite was effectively blocked from administrative jobs in the
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