Factors behind sharp decline in detention of Muslims in India

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By Mumtaz Alam, IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, 31 Oct 2014: It is past midnight one Sunday this September. Two men in mid-twenties are on the central road in Jamia Nagar locality of Muslim dominance. They are walking and watching construction work of Delhi Metro Rail. Jump to September 2008 when the infamous Batla House encounter took place here following the deadly serial blasts in the heart of the national capital. You cannot find a match of the Sunday midnight walk – so had the fear griped the whole area and its inhabitants thanks to raids and detentions in course of terror probes.

Even though Muslims, India’s largest minority with about 14% population share, continue to be around 20% of prison population (convicts, undertrials, detenues) today, their percentage, particularly among detenues, has sharply declined compared to the year 2009 when the community was under the hot pursuit of police and security agencies following the serial terror blasts that claimed hundreds of innocent lives in different parts of the country in 2008. Muslim share among undertrials and convicts has also gone down, even though the community continues to overpopulate all the three categories in contrast to its share in the national population.

Figures speak
Reasons for the continued overpopulation and the share decline could be many, but first the facts and figures.

Compared to 2009, there was sharp decline in detention of Muslims by police in India in 2013. In 2009, Muslims constituted over 30 percent of the total detenues in the country, more than double their share in the nation’s population. In 2013, it came down to around 20 percent, says Prison Statistics India Report 2013 which was released on Wednesday by the National Crime Record Bureau, country’s premier government agency on the subject.

According to the report, by the end of December 2013, there were 3,113 detenues in the country jails, 19.7 percent (613) of them were Muslims, more than 10 percent down from 2009 when they were 30.3 percent (676) of the total 2232 detenues.

Detenues 2009 – 2013
Year
Hindus
%
Muslims
%
Christians
%
Total
2009
1,246
55.80%
676
30.30%
281
12.60%
2,232
2010
1,345
57.84%
717
30.83%
243
10.45%
2,325
2011
1,485
60.60%
650
26.50%
254
10.40%
2,450
2012
1,203
62.60%
543
28.20%
116
06.00%
1,922
2013
2,144
68.90%
613
19.70%
248
07.90%
3,113

Source: National Crime Record Bureau

Their share in the category of convicts and undertrials has also slightly fallen. In 2009, Muslims were 18.5% and 22.5% of convicts and undertrials respectively. The corresponding figures in 2013 were 17.1% and 21%.

Convicts and Undertrials 2009 and 2013

Year
Hindus
%
Muslims
%
Total
Convicts
2009
90,057
72.7%
22,946
18.5%
1,23,941
2013
93,273
72.0%
22,145
17.1%
1,29,608
Undertrials
2009
1,73,732
69.4%
56,229
22.5%
2,50,204
2013
1,92,202
69.0%
57,936
21.0%
2,78,503

Source: National Crime Record Bureau

Position of Christians, the third largest minority in India, has also improved. In 2009, they constituted 12.6% of detenues, which has come down to 7.9% in 2013. But it is still about four times higher than their national population share, which is a disturbing sign. Christians constitute 2.3% of the total Indian population.

However, eminent Christian scholar and rights activist Dr. John Dayal and Indian-American journalist Kashiful Huda sound cautious on the figures. “Statistics do not tell the full story, but they give clues,” says Dr. Dayal.

“I think these declines are little misleading and I am not sure how significant they are. There seems to be upward trend in total number of inmates which is bad news for many who are wrongfully or unjustly in our prison system,” says Kashiful Huda, who runs India’s most popular Muslim news portal TwoCircles.net.

Why Muslims, Christians overpopulate in jails?

However, there is almost consensus among minorities particularly Muslims and Christians that country’s police have gross bias against them.

“It is common knowledge that Muslims in India, like blacks in the US, form a much larger part of the undertrials and prison population than their ratio in the population…it is a fact of life that Muslims are easily arrested and convicted. When riots occur, the victim Muslims are arrested wholesale while same enthusiasm is not shown in case of the instigators and perpetrators of communal riots,” says Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan, President, All India Muslim Majlise Mushawarat, an umbrella body of Indian Muslim organizations.

Dr. John Dayal has almost similar viewpoints on overpopulation of Christians and Muslims in jails.

“The population of Christians in India is 2.3 per cent of the total Indian population. There is no sociological or behavioural reason for the rate of criminality among Christians to be higher than the national average. Why are more Christians arrested than their percentage in the population?” asks Dr. Dayal.

“There would be a common sense explanation if all the arrests were made in Nagaland and Mizoram, the two Christian majority states in the country, or in Meghalaya, the third. But they are also in Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh where tribals and dalits live, many of who are Christians. Why are these people being arrested? One reason is that they may be protesting the takeover of their forests and lands. The second could arrests on false charges made by communal Hindutva elements. Or the police are bigoted,” he avers.

About overpopulation of Muslims in jails, he says: “For Muslims, a major cause would be a bias in the police forces. Bias comes out of ignorance as well as out of the infusion of communal sense by Sangh elements who penetrate the police force at various levels. The issue of terror cases is a part of this discourse.”

“The inadequate representation of minority communities in the police force is also a reason,” he says.

Decline of Muslim share in jail population

Though the community still overpopulates the jail population, their share has come down in last five years.

Kashiful Huda, whose portal was in the front to highlight illegal detentions in 2008 and later, says there is slight improvement.

“If you look at the total numbers then you see that Muslims numbers has come down only slightly from 676 in 2009 to 613 in 2013 but their percentage has declined because total number of detenues has jumped from 2,232 to 3,113. This may be good news for some Muslims who have been released or worse for those that got shifted to some other categories and continue to rot in the prison system,” says he who lives in the United States and adds.

“But one thing is certain that system continues to be discriminatory and that discrimination is not just for Muslims but against dalits, tribals, poor, and women as well.”

However, he admits there is decline in conviction of Muslims and he gives credit to “less discriminatory” judicial system of the country.

“Only real decline I see is number of convicts and which suggests to me that judicial system is less discriminatory than India’s law & order machinery and that’s why when given opportunity Muslims are able to gain their freedom,” he says.

But Zafarul Islam Khan, who is also Editor of esteemed Muslim English magazine The Milli Gazette, counts UPA regime and protests and legal course taken by the community as two factors behind the decline.

“If there is a real dip, it may be because of the ten-year tenure of UPA which in any case was not as harsh for Muslims as NDA-1 of Advani or now NDA-2 of Modi,” he says.

“Protests and challenge of cases in courts and on streets should also be responsible for a dip,” he adds.

Acquittal of Muslim youths in some terror cases while arrest of some Hindus linked to extremist outfits may also have been a factor.

Way-out

“The solution is in making the police forces more inclusive and with adequate representation of religious and other minorities, and women,” suggests Dr. John Dayal. Police reform is also needed in areas of training, he adds.

— Follow the writer on Twitter @MumtazAlam1978

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