Slides from the presentation of Mr Mohammad Allam of Minto Circle, Aligarh on April 10, 2016 at the National Seminar on Growth with Justice at Lucknow. The video is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0UvxJjwy7Q and the paper has been published in the compendium available at http://www.amazon.in/dp/1519227078

1. Higher Education and the Socio-economic
Development of Indian Minorities
MOHAMMAD ALLAM
Minto Circle, AMU Aligarh
Mob:8899487660
e-mail-mohammad_allam@rediffmail.com

2. INTRODUCTION
India is the second largest country in the world after China in term of population. According to
Census 2011, the total population of India is 1.21 billion 1.The total populations of minorities
(here in term of religion) is about 19 percent. There are six minority communities in India.
The last community which declared as minority community is Jain.2At present, there is six
government declared minority communities in India.3 Among all the minority communities,
Muslim is in a dominant position with the largest numbers while the numbers of Parsi is
merely 69000(2001); very negligible to the total population of the country and minority
communities. So, the data related to Parsi uses to be omitted by the various studies.
There is a strong relationship between socio-economic development and higher education
which the UNESCO acknowledges in its World Declaration on Higher Education for the
Twenty- First Century: Vision and Action. As per the UNESCO “Higher education has given
ample proof of its viability over the centuries and of its ability to change and to induce change
and progress in society. Owing to the scope and pace of change, society has become
increasingly knowledge-based so that higher learning and research now act as essential
components of cultural, socio-economic and environmentally sustainable development of
individuals, communities and nations”4 Due to emergence of knowledge-based society, higher
education has assumed the importance among the people, nations and world community. The
speedy emergence of the Global world in the 21th century has put the importance of higher
education beyond the boundaries of the nations. The research oriented development models of
the societies around the world and ongoing market-driven regions in the world have put higher
education as a catalyst for economic, social, human development etc. of the world.

3. In the context of a nation like India, the socio-economic development of minority communities
is important for the advancement of the nation. The socio-economic development means the
improvement in the standard of living due to changes in education, employment, income, skill
development etc. In this paper, the socio-economic development has been used to see the
overall improvement in the standard of living of the community due to changes in the higher
education. The socio-economic development is referred “to the ability to produce an adequate
and growing supply of goods and services productively and efficiently, to accumulate capital,
and to distribute the fruits of production in relatively equitable manner”5
There are many indicators of the improvement in the standard of the living of a community.
These are employment, income, skill development, life expectancy; education etc. This paper
has used some important indicators to find the impact of higher education on the socio-
economic development of the communities.
There is a wider difference at the socio-economic, educational, cultural, political etc. levels
among the minority communities of India. The most backward community among the
minorities is Muslims. In spite of being the largest community among the minorities,
constituting about 72.6 percent of all minority population, Muslims are behind than other
minority communities of India. There are many reasons for the backwardness of Indian
Muslims. These may be the low educational attainment, weak economic condition, low level
of access to modern technology, poor health care system, lack of employment, political
marginalization etc. This paper has taken higher education as one of the reasons for the study
of the socio-economic conditions of Indian minorities comparatively.

4. OBJECTIVE OF STUDY
There are following objectives of the paper.
I. To study the population of Indian minority communities
II. To study the higher education of minority communities
III. To study the role of higher education in socio-economic development of minority
communities
IV. To compare the socio-economic condition of Indian minority communities
QUESTION AND IMPORTANCE OF STUDY
In the light of the objectives, there are following questions which have been raised by the
present paper whose answers are essential to understanding the central points of study the
relationship of higher education with the socio-economic condition of minorities. These
questions are:
a. What is the population of Indian minority communities?
b. What is the status of higher education among Indian minorities?
c. What is the role of higher education in the socio-economic development of minorities?
d. Is any community ahead in higher education, also ahead in socio-economic development?

5. This study is important to understand the role of higher education in the socio-economic
development of minority communities. In many studies much emphasis has been put on just
education particularly on primary education. There is no doubt that primary education is
important but without converting that primary education attainment into higher education, no
community could advance in socio-economic matters. Higher education provides skills for
employment, for business, for the job, for innovation, for research, for vision, and for political
empowerment. This paper has studied the socio-economic advancement of the minorities due
to attainment in higher education. This paper would give insight to the policy maker, planner,
community developer, NGOs, international communities and international organizations into
the socio-economic development of the minority communities of India. So, in future, they
could consider on the attainment of the higher education and its impact on the socio-economic
development of a community. They could allocate more resources on the expansion of higher
education among minority communities particularly Muslims.
The present government under Honourable Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi has started
numerous campaigns like “Make in India7”, “Start-Up India8” to make India as leading
economic powers of the world by encouraging manufacturing in India. This study would help
to understand the potentialities of minority communities and their contribution to the
economic development of the country. The ‘Make in India’ campaign could be realized
through higher education and human development as many leading economies of the world
have achieved in the past. The more a community would attain higher education, the more that
community would be higher in human development and the socio-economic development.

6. METHODOLOGY AND DATA
The present study is based on the secondary data derived from various sources and has used Descriptive
Analytical Method. The data have been derived from the following sources.
A. Census Survey
B. Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD)
C. Ministry of Minority Affairs (MOMA)
D. All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE)
E. University Grants commission (UGC)
F. NATIONAL ASSESSMENT AND ACCREDITATION COUNCIL (NAAC)
G. UNESCO
H. National Sample Survey (NSSO)
I. Make In India website
J. Sachar Committee Report
K. Planning Commission
L. Documents of Five Year Plans
M. Journals
N. Magazines
O. Paper
P. Theses
Q. News Papers etc.
The data have been taken directly from the sources while in somewhere the data have been taken from the
sources and re-arranged as per the requirement of the paper. Much care has been taken to use the reliable
data derived from the authentic sources and concerned special agencies. So, the study would be more
valid and reliable.

7. MINORITY COMMUNITIES AND THEIR NUMBERS
Among all the six declared minority communities of India, Muslim is the largest and dominant community. As per
the Census 2011, the numbers of the various minority communities are given in Table-1
Table-1 Population of Minority Communities in India
Source(s): a-Census-2011 b-The Hindu 9
S.No Name of the
Minority
Community
Total Population
(in Crores)
Percentage of the
Total population of
Country(2011-1.21
billion)
Percentage of
Increase in the
population
1 Muslim
17.22
14.2
24.6%
2 Christian
2.78
2.3
15.5%
3 Sikh
2.08
1.7
8.4%
4 Buddhist
0.84
0.7
6.1%
5 Jain
0.45
0.4
5.4%
6 Parsi 69000(2001) -0.007(2001) 12% decadal
decline

8. The Table-1 shows that in term of numbers, among all the minority communities,
Muslim is the largest community. This community is about sixth times bigger than the
second-largest minority community of India. Among other minority communities,
Sikhs are 2.08 crores, Buddhists are 0.84 crores; Jains are 0.45 crores and Parsi below
one lakh.
In term of the rate of growth, Muslim community growth rate is 24.6 percent which is
the lowest growth rate in six decades. The other minority communities like Christian,
Sikh, Buddhist and Jain are 15.5 percent, 8.4 percent, 6.1 percent and 5.4 percent
respectively. The growth rate of Parsi is on the decline and their numbers have
negligible impact in comparing to the total population of the country and minority
communities.

9. MINORITY COMMUNITIES AND THEIR LEVEL OF LITERACY
There is a need to see the literacy ratio to understand the socio-economic condition of minority
communities. The more the literacy ratio of a community, the more that community is advanced
in numerous areas. The Table-2 gives the literacy ratio of major minority communities of India.
Table-2 Literacy Ratio of Minority Communities of India
Source(s): a-Census survey b-ClickPune.com10
S.No Name of the
community
2001 2015
Male Female Total Male Female Total
1 Muslim 67.6 50.1 59.1 72.9 63.9 68.4
2 Christian 84.4 76.2 80.3 91.4 85.3 88.3
3 Sikh 75.2 63.1 69.4 87.6 81.2 84.4
4 Buddhist 83.1 61.7 72.7 89.2 76.5 82.8
5 Jain 97.4 90.6 94.1 98.3 94.6 96.4
6 Parsi --- ---- 97.9 ---- --- ---

10. The Table-2 shows the data of literacy of Census 2001 and 2015(calculated on the basis of
Census 2011).As per the Table-2, the community which lags behind in the literacy is 2011
and 2015 are Muslim while the highest literacy rate is of Parsi and Jain. The Jain has been
declared as a minority community in 2014.The other communities which follow Jain in
literacy are Sikh, Christian Buddhist etc.
How near a community is to Higher education?
There is a need to see the status of minority communities from just literacy to senior
secondary levels to understand the performance in higher education. The question is; are
those communities which higher in literacy ration, ahead in senior secondary-the near to
higher education, too? The Table-3 gives the status of minority communities from primary
level to senior secondary level.

11. Table-3 Status of Minority community from Primary to Senior Secondary levels.
Source: Census 2001
Includes Literacy without education level, below primary level and Primary level
The Table-3 shows that the status of all minority communities is not equal at every level. The status of Muslims is
better at Primary level with 65.31 than other communities but reaching to senior secondary level, the community
lags behind than other communities while other communities somehow are reaching to senior secondary level in
better position. Over all, the minority communities could not sustain the momentum till senior secondary level.
There may be many reasons which are right now beyond the scope of the present paper.
S.No Name of Community Upto Primary
Level*
Middle Secondary Senior
Secondary
1 All Religion 55.57 16.09 14.13 6.74
2 Hindu 54.91 16.18 14.25 6.92
3 Muslim 65.31 15.14 10.96 4.53
4 Christian 45.79 17.13 17.48 8.7
5 Sikh 46.70 16.93 20.94 7.57
6 Buddhist 54.69 17.52 14.09 7.65
7 Jain 29.51 12.27 21.87 13.84
8 Others 62.12 17.48 11.24 4.55

12. Minority Communities in Higher Education
The purpose of this paper is to see the relationship between higher education and
socio-economic development. The advancement in higher education is mostly
seen in term of Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER).GER is defined as “the ratio of
students enrolled in a particular level of education (regardless of age) to the
population of official school age for that level of education”11There is a wider gap
among the condition of minority communities in Higher education in India. The
Table- 4 gives the clear picture of the minority community for the last 25 years.
The data have been derived from NSSO gives a constant growth in higher
education among all minority communities. The data about the Jain has been
given as religious group as this community has been declared as a minority
community in 2014 only. The Table-4 is about the Gross Enrollment Ration
(GER) of the minority communities taking both rural and urban status.

13. Year Gender/R
eligious
Groups
Hindu Muslim Christian Sikh Jain Buddhist Others Total
1983 Male 14.82 7.35 15.14 12.13 36.69 13.36 14.54 13.91
Female 7.12 2.80 23.05 8.87 27.21 4.41 10.31 7.01
Total 12.15 5.59 17.20 11.28 33.04 10.77 13.34 11.52
1993-94 Male 16.45 8.30 23.00 9.90 30.81 17.54 15.61 15.61
Female 8.01 4.36 19.27 11.01 24.83 7.72 7.98 7.98
Total 12.38 6.39 21.14 10.48 28.19 12.44 11.92 11.92
2004-05 Male 19.86 11.15 30.07 15.64 56.88 20.74 17.66 18.84
Female 14.04 7.44 25.68 19.16 27.11 21.50 8.70 13.53
Total 17.08 9.38 27.83 17.24 43.68 21.10 13.32 16.31
2007-08 Male 20.50 11.31 25.30 14.57 47.33 16.27 7.40 19.12
Female 16.08 7.68 31.39 19.50 60.02 22.94 5.19 15.32
Total 18.40 9.56 28.45 16.90 53.44 19.57 6.24 17.31
2009-10 Total 20 11.3 31.3 23.1 54.6 17.9 ----- 18.8
Table-4GER by Religious Groups: Rural + Urban
Source(s): a-National Sample Survey b- Dalit Studies12

14. The Table- 3 shows the GER of the minority communities of India. The GER in
higher education is highest in Jain community; followed by Christian, Buddhist
and Hindu communities. The lowest GER in higher education is of the Muslim
community; Starting from 5.59 GER in 1983 to 9.56 in 2007-08.
The main features of GER of minority communities are: the lower growth of
GER in a rural area as compare to urban area and less GER of female against
male. There is also a difference between a male of urban and rural areas and
female in an urban area to the rural female of rural area.
There is a constant increase in all communities’ higher education with the
passage of time. The advancement in higher education for those communities is
higher whose economic condition is better than other communities. This relation
shows that higher education promotes socio-economic development and socio-
economic development promotes higher education.
What Role the Higher Education plays in the Socio-economic Development
of Minority Communities?
Higher education plays an important role in the socio-economic development. A
community which is higher in higher education is also ahead in socio-economic
development. Here, only a few parameters of socio-economic development have
been taken to the advancement of the minority communities’. These are Income
of the community, Level of poverty, Work participation, employment, life
expectancy etc. The Table-5 gives the status of the various parameters of the in
the socio-economic development of the communities.

15. Table-5 Status of Minority Communities in Socio-economic Development
S.No Name of minority
community
Living standard Level of Poverty
Exp-2009-10(Monthly Per Capita
Consumption Expenditure
(MPCE)/Per Day)
2004-05 2011-12
1 All India 1,128/37.51 37.7 22.0
2 Muslim 980.00/32.66 43.6 25.4
3 Christian 1,543/51.43 24.5 16.4
4 Sikh 1,659/55.30 18.9 5.9
5 Buddhist ------ ----- ------
6 Jain ----- 4.6 3.3
7 Parsi ------ ------- -------
Source(s): a-NSSO Data 2009-10
b- The Hindu 13 ,
c- Panagaria A.14
d-Sunita Sanghi, A Srija 15

16. The Table-5 shows due to better in higher education, there is also found the difference in the
living standard of the communities. In term of living standard, the Muslims are lowest both
at rural (Rs. 833) and Urban (Rs 1,272) areas. The condition of other communities is better
than Muslims in rural areas. The MPCE of Hindu is Rs 888, Sikhs Rs 1,498 and Christian
Rs 1,296 respectively.
In term of urban areas, the other communities are also better than Muslims. The MPCE of
Sikh community is Rs 2, 180, Christian Rs 2,053 and Hindu Rs 1,797 respectively.
If one sees in term of per day MPCE, Muslims are behind than other communities with
32.66.The other communities like Christian and Sikh etc. have Rs 51.43 and Rs55.30 per
day respectively.
Due to better higher education, the other minority communities also have less incidence of
poverty. If one compares the level of the poverty of 2004-05 data with 2011-12, he finds that
the level of poverty has declined. The level of poverty is highest in Muslim community.
According to the calculation of Panagaria A. (Columbia University), 16 the incidence of
poverty is the least among the higher educated people. It is about 2.8 for 2011-12(on
Tendulkar Line) as compared to other levels of education and illiterate. The incidence of
poverty for Secondary or higher secondary is 9.9, Middle is 18.3, Primary or less is 24.5.5
and illiterate is 33.5 for the year 2011-12.This shows the more the higher education the less
level of incidence of poverty in a community.

17. Another parameter of socio-economic development is employment. The more and higher education a
community attains the more and higher employment it gets. The Table-6 gives the employment status
of the minority communities. The categories of employments e.g. Self-Employment (SE),
Regular(R) and Casual(C) have been taken into consideration.
Table-6 Per 1,000 Distribution of Usually Employed by Status during 2009-10
Community Rural Male Rural Female Urban Male Urban Female
SE R C SE R C SE R C SE R C
Hinduism 537 83 379 547 41 411 397 441 161 393 404 203
Islam
(Muslims)
528 79 393 649 39 312 496 298 205 597 216 187
Christianity 500 168 332 554 114 332 294 450 256 284 607 109
Sikhism 545 123 333 789 86 125 444 352 204 515 367 118
All India 535 85 380 557 44 399 411 419 170 411 393 96
SE=Self Employed R=Regular C=Casual
Source(s):a- NSSO Data 2009-10
Sunita Sanghi, A Srija 17
The Table-6 Shows that the self-employment is higher among Muslims than other minority communities. While in
the case of Regular Employment( R) the number of Muslims is less than other communities. Most of the Regular
employment is based on the education. Here the number of employment (for males rural) in1000 for Muslim,
Christians, Sikhs is 79,168 and 123 respectively. In rural for female in 1000 is least among Muslims which is 39.In
Urban (males) and Urban (Females), Muslim’s numbers are 298 and 216 respectively which are less than other
communities. Even, both at Rural and Urban levels, Muslim’s numbers are less than All India levels.

18. CONCLUSION
There are many reasons for the socio-economic advancement of minority
communities in India. The present paper has studied the relationship between
Higher education and socio-economic development of minority communities of
India. The role of the higher education in the socio-economic development has
been studied and reached on this conclusion that those minority communities of
India which have a higher level of higher education they are ahead in socio-
economic development too. The Muslim community is behind in higher education
than other minority community; as a result, this community is also behind in socio-
economic development. The highest number in higher education is of Jain, so this
community is higher in socio-economic development too. The study proves that
higher education plays an important role in the socio-economic development.

19. SUGGESTIONS
In the light of the study about the relationship between higher education and socio-economic development, the
following suggestions could be put forwarded.
1. There is a need to enhance the Gross Enrolment Ratio at All India level to advance the higher education
among all the minority communities.
2. There is a need to promote higher education among the members of Muslim, Sikh, and Buddhist
communities.
3. There should be an increase in the expenditure on higher education. The present spending of 1.2 percent of
GDP on higher education is not sufficient as compared to world’s leading economies.
4. The Human development of India could not meet the world standard without the high expenditure on higher
education. The performance of the country could not improve at international level until and unless there
would be no advancement of higher education accessible to all communities equally in India.
5. Socio-economic development and higher education are interlinked. So, there is a need to promote the
development of both.
6. There is a need to emphasis on the higher education for women. In the study, it has been found that women
of rural and urban areas are behind than their male counterpart at every level. No improvement can be done
without the advancement of higher education among women.
7. There is need to release complete data on various aspects of the higher education of minority communities.
8. There is need to release data on higher education of minority communities at an equal interval. The
government should direct the concerned departments/agencies to release data yearly community wise for
higher education.
9. There is a need to direct to Ministry of Minority Affairs to the commission or assign the duty to the
organizations/agencies to collect data on socio-economic development and higher education of minority
communities and release regularly.
10. There is a need to promote higher education among minorities, particularly among Muslims by granting
financial help or scholarship or loan or waiving fees at an institutional level to admitted students.

20. REFERENCES
1. http://censusindia.gov.in/
2. http://www.minorityaffairs.gov.in/sites/upload_files/moma/files/notification_jain.pdf
3. http://www.minorityaffairs.gov.in/sites/upload_files/moma/files/notification_jain.pdf
4. http://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/wche/declaration_eng.htm
5. J. David (1998).Levels of Socio-economic Development Theory; West port, Connectient.London.2nd ed. Introduction:
The Meaning of Development and the Levels of Theory; pp-03
6. http://censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/India_at_glance/religion.aspx
7. http://www.makeinindia.com/home
8. http://www.startup-india.org/
9. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/census-2011-data-on-population-by-religious-communities/article7579161.ece
10. http://clickpune.com/literacy-rate-in-india-2015-religion-wise-literacy-rate-india.html
11. http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/271/hdr_2011_en_complete.pdf
12. http://www.dalitstudies.org.in/wp/wp604.pdf
13. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/muslims-poorest-among-religious-groups-says-nsso-survey/article5042032.ece
14. http://indianeconomy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/working_papers/working_paper_2013-02-final.pdf
15. http://www.ies.gov.in/pdfs/Employment_Trends_among_Religious_Communities_of_India.pdf
16. http://indianeconomy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/working_papers/working_paper_2013-02-final.pdf
17. http://www.ies.gov.in/pdfs/Employment_Trends_among_Religious_Communities_of_India.pdf

21. Than