| Summary, etc. |
For centuries Muslims have been living in the midst of<br/>Hindus and other communities and over time bave,<br/>become an inseparable part of the Indian sociei;<br/>However, the Muslim community of India has become an<br/>object of curiosity and "expert" comments are very often<br/>made on the state of Muslim society on the basis of<br/>impressions which have no scientific validity whatsoever.<br/>Evaluations, in all honesty, should be rooted in the<br/>authenticity of data on the ground realities which should<br/>be empirically verifiable.<br/>The idea behind the work, is to furnish solid and<br/>incontrovertible statistics on a number of indicators critical<br/>to an understanding of the social, economic, demographic,<br/>occupational and educational status of Muslims in India in<br/>comparision to the Hindu and other communities. It needs<br/>to be emphasized that the study absolutely rejects the idea<br/>of treating Muslims as a social isolate.<br/>The work has been so designed that the statistics, based<br/>and compiled from field survey, provide information on<br/>a whole gamut of problems, such as, social structure,<br/>household size, mother-tongue, general and age-specific<br/>sex ratio, age structure, marital status, fertility rates, work<br/>articipation rates and the industrial classification of the<br/>wik force, occupational structure, literary and<br/>educational levels, drop-outs and the quality of education.<br/>The underlying assumption behind this study is that for<br/>evolving any corrective mechanism and for ensuring<br/>healthy, equitous and balanced development of all<br/>sections of Indian society, it is most necessary to have<br/>all data-base cross-classified by communities on<br/>indicators of development. The study, by and large,<br/>synchronizing with the operations of the 1991 Census of<br/>India, improves upon the Census report, in the sense that<br/>it is possible, with its assistance, to generate<br/>cross-classified data- at the household and community<br/>levels in a given area. It can thus be justly claimed that<br/>the present work, in ways more than one, makes a major<br/>headway on the Census of India, 1991 data.<br/>This study is based on the household level data collected<br/>from Kishanganj, a class II town and headquarters of the<br/>district of the same name in Bihar, which lies in that<br/>triangle where India, Bangladesh, and Nepal meet.<br/>Territorially, it has been an area of ethnic inter-mixing<br/>and cross-cultural interaction has been the highlight of its<br/>social history. While it cannot be claimed that the sample<br/>of Kishanganj is representative of the Muslim population<br/>of Bihar, it is also true that it is not very far from it. The<br/>data were collected through a schedule which was<br/>canvassed in the town in early 1991 by local volunteers<br/>conversant with the local languages/dialects such as<br/>Maithili, Saryupari, Bengali, Santhali etc. Thus a very true<br/>and genuine picture emerges. |
