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Religious Minorities in Karnataka
The population of religious minorities as per 2011 Census is about 96,00,475 which forms 15.92% of the total population of Karnataka. People belonging to Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh and Parsi communities come under religious minorities. It was observed that a majority of the minority communities are reeling below the poverty line and they need a helping hand to improve their economic and educational status.
Report on comprehensive Study on the socio-economic condition of Minorities in Karnataka
FINDINGS OF THE STUDY
Demographic Profile:
In the Karnataka State, minorities constitute around 16% of the total population. Muslims are the major minority group followed by Christians and Jains. Muslims and Christians are concentrated in Bangalore, Dakshina Kannada and Gulbarga regions, Jains in Hassan, Belgaum and Bangalore, Buddhists in Gulbarga, Chamarajanagar and Bangalore, Sikhs in Bidar and Bangalore, Parsees in Bangalore City. The minority population as a whole has higher presence in Dakshina Kannada, Bidar, Bangalore Urban, Gulbarga and Dharwad regions.
Committee have observed certain demographic features among minority communities which seem to suggest that these communities are socially backward. These features are:
- Barring Christians, sex-ratio- among minorities is not favorable to women. Iii the case of Muslims, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs, the proportion of women is less compared with the State level average. In respect of Sikhs, the sex ratio is much worse at 42.5% followed by 47.6% among Buddhists.
- Though mean age at marriage for the currently married females is more or less the same among Hindus and Muslims, the mean age at marriage in the urban areas is lower among Muslims and Buddhists compared with the Hindus.
- Fertility rates among minorities, particularly among Muslims, Buddhists and Jains, are somewhat higher than those among Hindus. As a result, the average annual growth rates of population among these communities are higher.
- Since the annual average growth rate of population among minorities, barring
- Christians and Sikhs, is higher, the proportion of child population is higher resulting in lower demographic dividend enjoyed by Muslims and Jains.
Literacy and Education:
Compared to the State average, literacy rate among minorities is not bad at all except in the case of Buddhists where it is lower. However, among the minorities, the female literacy rate, barring Christians and Jains, is very low compared to their male counterparts.
With regard to school education, students from Muslims and Jains in Bangalore region, Muslims and Sikhs in Belgaum region and Muslims in Mysore region are studying in local body; schools.
Attendance ratio among Muslim and Jain students in rural areas, Muslim, Christian and Jain students in urban areas, in any type of education is lower compared to Hindus. similarly, among persons in the age group of 5-29 years the proportion currently not enrolled educational institutions is larger among Muslims.
Data relating to completed level of education for the religious groups shows that Muslims, Christians and Jams have a lower presence in higher education (Diploma, Graduate and Post-Graduate education) compared to the Hindu community both in the rural and the urban areas. All of this is indicative of the fact that majority of the minority population is comparatively educationally backward.
Health Status:
As for Health Status, the morbidity rates, both in the rural and urban areas, are higher among Christians and Jains compared to the rates in respect of the majority community. What is more, these rates are higher in the case of females.
Muslims have a lower morbidity rates which is a happy development. The other indicator of the health status is infant mortality rate. The infant mortality rates in Karnataka are fairly higher than the national average.
The Muslim community though exhibits a higher infant mortality rate than the national rate, has a fairly lower figure than that of the Hindu community. A largest proportion of Muslim children suffered from Diarrhea which is the main-culprit of infant mortality.
Most of the sample households seek Medicare facilities from private hospitals and clinics rather than from Government hospitals, which means that these households pay large sums of money for medical treatment out of their own pockets.
Majority of the sample households avoided Government hospitals on the ground of poor quality of health care, long distances, long queues and waiting times including absenteeism of medical staff. Of course, health insurance is available in the State but only 6 per cent of the respondents have availed of health insurance cover.
Among the sample households 74 per cent did not avail this facility. What is disturbing is that 20 per cent of the households were not aware of this facility!
Means of Livelihood:
Coming to the means of livelihood, in the rural areas landlessness is very high among the minority communities compared to the majority community. And those who own land fall into the category of marginal and small farmers which by and large are not economical due to low yields arising from lack of irrigation and other inputs. Also, the fact that the operational holdings of the minority communities are larger than land owned toy them suggests that the minorities may have leased in land from others. That means to say, members of minority communities have also been working as tenants with a view to supplementing their inadequate incomes from land.
Since landlessness is high among minorities and, wherever they own some land, since the same was very meagre in size these communities naturally tended to be either self-employed or work as casual laborer. Besides, they have significantly low participation in Government and Corporate services. As a result, they tend to be more vulnerable in terms of conditions of work in so far as they are concentrated in the informal sector employment.
Also their job conditions like contract period, employment and social security even in respect of regular work are less than those for other religious groups. In the urban areas too they are largely self-employed and casual laborer. Since these means of livelihood, particularly those in the unorganized sectors are not productive in nature, the returns from these means of livelihood are not adequate and hence economic conditions of these groups are not likely to be of a high level. Further, their thin presence in the organized sector, especially in Government sector, as also a larger proportion of them being casual laborer compared to Hindus, have contributed to lower income levels among the minority communities.
The low household income among the minorities, particularly among Muslims, seems to have increased the incidents of child labor compared to others. This is evident from the fact that the worker population ratio for the age-group 10-15 for Muslim males and females is much higher compared to Hindus.
The fact that child labour particularly the female child labour is ubiquitous among Muslims is a matter of great concern.
In other words, a new phenomenon seems to be emerging in our society in recent times. That is in recent times religious minority groups appear to be concentrating in low-. remunerative lines of economic activities instead of a high paying line of activities. An inference that can be drawn from this is that while earlier we had a caste-based hierarchical occupational structure, today a religion-based hierarchical occupational structure seems to be emerging — a development which is challenging to the policy makers.
Poverty and Inequality:
Our data shows that there are income inequalities across majority and minority communities and that these inequalities have widened in recent times. What is interesting is that within the minority also communities inequalities have emerged m recent times. Among Christians inequalities are sharper.
Since the means of livelihood available to the minorities appear to be low income-based, the incidence of poverty is higher among minorities both in the rural and urban areas. This is especially true of the Muslims. The Christian community seems to be doing well in this regard. However, the incidence of poverty among minorities is higher in Gulbarga and Belgaum divisions compared to Mysore and Bangalore divisions.
It may be noted that since Gulbarga and Belgaum divisions are backward, naturally poverty levels are higher over there. One observation which deserves to be made at this point is that the liberalization policy has adversely affected minorities more than others. Alternatively, minorities appear to have failed to profit from the liberalization policy.
Quality of Life:
Social and educational backwardness coupled with lower economic base in terms of land and other resources, and restricted access to institutional credit have caused a low quality of living among the minorities. This can be seen from the fact of where they largely live in, the nature of their houses and availability of civic amenities. Thus, minorities, especially Muslims and Christians, largely live in slums. And what is more, Muslims and Christians live in non-notified slums and the entire lot of Muslims live in squatter settlements.
Majority of the Muslims and Christians live in semi-pucca dwelling structures having a smaller floor area. Besides, comparatively speaking, Muslims face the problem of scarcity of water and of fetching it from a longer distance. A larger proportion of Muslims and Jains lack latrine facilities and face access to improved source of latrine especially in the rural areas. In some settlements where minorities live, there is also lack of street light facility.
Gender Dimension
An important issue that is subsumed in the findings of the study listed above is the gender concern. Gender problem is universal across all religions and castes in India. But this problem, appears to be comparatively more acute among the religious minorities.
This is evident from the following:
- With the exception of Christians, sex ratio among minorities is adverse to women. In respect of Sikhs and Buddhists sex ratio is much worse.
- Compared to Hindus, the number of births is higher among Muslim and Jain women which means these women have to manage more number of deliveries.
- Since the fertility rates are higher among the minority group women, generally speaking, the problem of lactating women is more among them.
- Access to health care facilities to the minority community women appears to be limited. Thus, ANC visits to pregnant women are lower in the case of minority religious groups compared to the Hindu community. Similarly, a large proportion of minority group women have had complications both during pregnancy and during delivery period.
- Literacy rates among women belonging to religious minorities are lower compared to their male counterparts. In the case of Muslim, Sikh and Buddhist females’ literacy rates are far lower compared to their own males and even compared to Hindu women.
- Irrespective of the place of residence — rural or urban — the overall educational level among females is comparatively lower among Muslims and Sikhs. The situation is hopeless in the rural areas.
- General work participation rates among females are, of course, comparatively lower. But these rates are far lower among minority community women. In the case of Muslims, the situation is worse.
- Compared to Hindu community, women headed families ae more among Muslims and Christians in the rural areas which may be due to the practice ofileir male members migrating to urban areas in search of jobs. However, this puts heavy burden on the shoulders of these women of not only managing the household chores but also managing the siblings apart from possibly earning means of livelihood.
- The incidence of deserted women is found to be high especially among Muslims — a point that emerged from our field visits.
- Higher incidence of poverty among minority communities impacts rather heavily on their women folk as they have to play a dual role of earner as also home maker. This imposes a heavier physical and mental burden on the minority community women.
- Similarly, low quality of life among minority communities, especially those who live in slums and ghettoes, impacts more on women who have to stay longer at home and carry out routine household chores braving the unhygienic surroundings and civic amenity -deprived environment.
- Representation in the political bodies like Legislature and Parliament for minority community women is minimal. In the Cabinet their presence is rare. Only in the local rural and Urban governance institutions; they are present. But in their case the phenomenon of proxy governance or husband-guided governance is said to be comparatively more rampant.