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In the last about three years the
growth of India's economy which had continued to grow at a healthy
6 to 8 percent annually for about a decade, has slumped to about 5
percent annually. In the same period corruption at the highest
level in the government has mushroomed. Three major corruption
scandals, namely the Commonwealth Games scam, the G8
telecommunication tender scam and the Coal block scam have occurred
with cyclical regularity. The ministers and top bureaucrats in the
central government, taking huge bribes gave away monopoly rights
to explore and market controlled products and services to private
contractors at very low rates without any competition. Those
contractors then sold those rights at very high rates by
bargaining with competitors. Thus a huge amount of funds that
could have come to the government, and that the government could
use for the improvement of woefully inadequate infrastructure,
have gone as windfall to private contractors, many of them foreign
corporations.
The prime minister and the central government are pretending as if
nothing untoward has happened. The economic growth has dropped
substantially. Instead of paying attention to the grievances of
common people against such colossal corruption and loss to the
national treasury, the prime minister and central government have
announced increase in the price of diesel fuel and to let foreign
big retail stores eg Walmart, Kmart, to open supermarkets in India
that will sell raw food products like vegetables, fruits, milk,
cooking oil and other consumer items of daily use. At this time a
huge number of small time street hawkers and shopkeepers sell
these goods from unpretentious shops. The multinational
corporations with their huge funding bases and loans from banks
will lower prices of consumer goods for a certain period to make
the small shopkeepers go out of business. After that they will
increase prices of those goods to sock it to the consumers one
more time.
A large number of these small shopkeepers, street hawkers,
artisans are Muslims. This Government action called Foreign Direct
Investment in Retail, will force more than 100 million small
shopkeepers in the country, to go out of business. Of this 100
million small shopkeepers roughly 35 million are Muslims.
Similarly the diesel fuel price increase will cause extreme
hardship to about 500 million Indians, about 90 million of them
being Muslims - about half of the country's Muslim population who
presently live below poverty line, by the immediate increase in
prices of daily use food and consumer products.
Thus it stands to reason that leaders of Muslims in India join
hands with the other leaders who are protesting the above
mentioned actions of the central government and the Prime Minister
loudly . However it is very strange that almost all recognizable
Muslim leaders and groups are keeping aloof from these national
movements that affect not only the nation but also ordinary
Muslims in a big way.
The central government on its part is branding all those who are
protesting the above huge corruption and terrible economic policies
as communal politicians. Thus they are managing to keep the
leaders of Muslims silent on this issue and cut off from
participating in the major mainstream movements of the day. This
is not the first time that Muslim leaders have been manipulated in
this crass manner by politicians. The future of Muslims in India
and their hardships are the same as that of the other deprived
Indians, who now number roughly half of the country's population.
Let us hope that he leaders of Indian Muslims will relaize this
basic fact and join the national movements to remove corruption
and to stop the harmful economic policies, that are greatly
widening the gap between the rich and poor and that are resulting
in big losses to the nation's treasury and its ability to lessen
the burdens of the common Indian - the "aam aadmi".
The writer is a
Washington based activist.
He can be reached on:
kaleemkawaja@gmail.com
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