Post 9/11, Muslims feel alienated: Survey

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

Lucknow, Sep 11: The relationship graph between the majority and the Muslim communities in the country has come down even as a sense of insecurity has gripped the minority community in the wake of recent world-wide spate of terrorist attacks, according to the findings of a survey.

The situation took a reverse turn, particularly after '9/11', which castigated the sense of insecurity and disillusionment, though majority of Muslims still have firm faith in the country's democratic set-up.

This was the finding of a recent survey conducted by a group of sociologists associated with Lucknow University.

The years during which terrorism worldwide had begun to be identified more with Islam and events like Gujarat riots within the country had shaken belief of the minority community, the report said.

The report is based on a survey of about a 1000 muslim families which showed that insecurity among them had increased and their interaction with other communities had taken a dip.

The survey said interaction between the majority and the Muslim communities had gone down. A mere 0.3 per cent of those surveyed said they would like to keep a Hindu family their tenants and vice-versa. Only 18 per cent accepted to have eaten together with Hindus while 23 per cent Muslims said they visited Hindu houses.

However, the most positive thing of the survey was that 95 per cent of Muslims had full faith in democracy.

Dr S Fakhrul Hasan Rizvi, reader, Sociology department, Shia PG College, says sense of insecurity had increased among Muslims.

''Those, whose families are living abroad have become more concerned. This had been due to the events which had been going worldwide,'' claimed Dr Rizvi who was the one behind the survey.

The survey was primarily carried out to cover various social and economical aspects of the Muslims and it also tried to find out the degree of relationship between the Muslims and other community.

Dr Rizvi claimed that there was disillusionment amongst the Muslims in sharing with majority community. The percentage figure had gone down as only 0.3 per cent of Muslims had no hesitation living in company of Hindus which clearly signified the increasing gap between the communities.

The report hinted that what had gone behind increased distrust and insecurity among Muslims was their belief that every Muslim was identified as a 'terrorist', especially after 9/11.

Maulana Khalid Rashid, Sunni religious leader claimed that from US to India, there had been a series of acts which had shaken Muslims. ''We ask why in every act of terrorism only Muslims are considered as suspects... during Mumbai train blasts' probe, innocent Muslims were made to sit in the police stations,'' he quipped.

In the survey, common Muslims also felt that administration, police and polity often worked with a bias, said Dr Rukhsana Lari, reader of Arabic, Karamat Girls PG College adding that there had been many acts of atrocities by police. ''...and even media had also been biased on various occasions, which led to the feeling of confinement amongst the Muslims.''

UNI

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