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“When will They Ever Learn”? Selective Discrimination in Provision of

Schooling Facilities in Muslim Majority Areas: A Case Study of Murshidabad
District of West Begal

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DOI: 10.1080/13602004.2016.1154288

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“When will They Ever Learn”? Selective

Discrimination in Provision of Schooling Facilities
in Muslim Majority Areas: A Case Study of
Murshidabad District of West Bengal, India

Arijit Das

To cite this article: Arijit Das (2016) “When will They Ever Learn”? Selective Discrimination
in Provision of Schooling Facilities in Muslim Majority Areas: A Case Study of Murshidabad
District of West Bengal, India, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 36:1, 125-145, DOI:
10.1080/13602004.2016.1154288

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 Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 2016
Vol. 36, No. 1, 125–145, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2016.1154288

“When will They Ever Learn”? Selective Discrimination

in Provision of Schooling Facilities in Muslim Majority
Areas: A Case Study of Murshidabad District of West
Bengal, India

ARIJIT DAS

Abstract
Inequality in educational attainment among various religious communities in India
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has come to light in the public domain only after the publication of Sachar Commit-
tee Report. The committee opined that selective discrimination of schooling facilities
in Muslim concentrated areas is one of the major reasons behind the low educational
attainment of that community. The present study aims at understanding the dispar-
ities in the provision of schooling facilities in Muslim-dominated and non-Muslim-
dominated regions of West Bengal considering Murshidabad district as the study
area. The present study constructed an Educational Development Index by consid-
ering 11 socioeconomic indicators and using the principal component analysis
method, applied it to the study population. It has been found that the blocks
having a higher share of Muslim population registered lower levels of educational
development. It has also been found that most of the deprived schools located in
the Muslim-dominated areas and within the non-Muslim-dominated areas the
schools having higher share of Muslim pupil are mostly deprived.

Introduction
Equal access to educational opportunity is a basic human right and essential to human
well-being. Elementary education is considered as an important component of human
development. The human development approach views elementary education as a
human right, as an opportunity and as an entitlement. Attainment of elementary edu-
cation is important both due to its impact on the living standards of people and enhancing
individuals capability. Thus universalization of elementary education has become an
accepted concept and national project in India. Elementary education in India refers to
first eight years of schooling, that is, primary (I–V) and upper primary (VI–VIII)
school education. Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) was launched in 2001 by the Government
of India as its commitment to universalize the access and completion of elementary
schooling by 2010.1 In spite of strong government initiatives, universalization of elemen-
tary education remains a distant dream. India’s failure to universalize elementary edu-
cation is largely due to unevenness in achievements across gender, regions, social
groups and religious groups.
West Bengal is one of those states which are performing poorly in universalizing the
elementary education. In spite of the fact that West Bengal is under the regime of commu-
nist government for last 35 years the educational attainment is poor among the minorities
which is a very surprising incidence. Since the minority development and removal of reli-

© 2016 Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs

 126 Arijit Das

gion-based discrimination are among the top most priorities of the CPIM government of
West Bengal.2 But in practice the dominant minority community in West Bengal, that is,
Muslims are lagging far behind the other religious communities’ in terms of economic,
health and educational attainment. In West Bengal the recent Sachar Committee
Report (SCR) suggests that people belonging to Muslim community groups are economi-
cally deprived.3 If so, knowledge of the educational exclusion of children from these reli-
gious groups is important from a policy viewpoint. Achieving universal primary education
would require full participation of children from disadvantaged religious communities.
The inequality in educational attainment between the Muslims and the non-Muslims
can be addressed from both the demand side and the supply side aspects. On the demand
side, Muslim children may be more disadvantaged in terms of family factors such as
poverty, lack of parental motivation or labor demands on children. Muslim parents
have lower average levels of education compared to Hindus, and Muslim children are
therefore often first-generation entrants into schooling. Muslims also have limited own-
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ership of land in rural areas and hence are likely to be poor. They are primarily engaged in
traditional trades such as weaving, trading and crafts where demand for child labor may
be high. In addition, Muslims predominantly select into non-farm self-employment
instead of formal salaried work.4
On the other hand, such between-group inequality can also be explained by discrimi-
nation in the supply of public goods across communities. Recent studies that examined
the influence of state characteristics on the allocation mechanism of education services
in rural India using district-level data have reported evidence of selectivity in the allo-
cations against Muslims.5 Additional possible explanations for Muslim educational
backwardness have been put forward in the SCR6 which lists a number of possible
reasons, such as under-provision of government schools in Muslim neighborhoods, a
lack of political participation and representation of Muslims in governance structures,
underrepresentation of Muslims in mainstream economic activities and occupations.
Muslim households are likely to be concentrated in states that are institutionally (e.g.
schools, banks, roads and so on) underprovided by the government and/or the local
communities.
Acknowledging the importance of this issue, the Government of India recently carried
out a large-scale study to better understand the extent and nature of Muslim educational
disadvantage in the country.7 The report highlighted a number of stylized facts about the
Muslim population’s deficits in educational participation and literacy. These include a
national literacy rate among Muslims that is lower than the national average and
higher dropout rates among Muslims at the primary, middle and higher secondary
school levels. Nonetheless, quantitative studies on the extent and evolution of Hindu–
Muslim educational gap in India are limited, let alone studies explaining the underlying
reasons for Muslim educational disadvantage. Apart from Boorah and Iyer,8 none of the
extant published studies emphasize the importance of one’s religious group membership
as a determinant of educational attainment.
In the view of the above, this paper attempts to fill this gap by looking into the nature of
the educational disadvantage of Muslim children in West Bengal by taking into consider-
ation Murshidabad district as the study area. The present paper tries to explore the dis-
parities in educational development with the help of various aspects of schooling facilities
(accessibility, infrastructure, and teacher-related aspects and outcomes) in various
Muslim areas. It also attempts to develop the methodology for identifying the most
deprived schools and look at its spatial distribution to establish the association between
 Selective Discrimination in Provision of Schooling Facilities in Muslim Majority Areas 127

the performance of students and the nature of schools they enrolled in Murshidabad dis-
trict of West Bengal.
The rationale for the choice of Murshidabad district as the study area can be defended on
many grounds. First, Murshidabad is one of the most backward districts in terms of edu-
cational attainment in West Bengal. Second, Muslims are the dominant community with
63.67% share in total population in the district. Third, out of 26 community development
blocks (Maps in the Appendix) in the district 11 have Muslim population share ranging
between 50 and 60% (means have sizeable non-Muslims) and rest of 15 community devel-
opment blocks the share of Muslim population even exceeds 60% (very small size of non-
Muslims) which provides an ideal ground for looking at the spatiality in educational devel-
opment (i.e. effect of relative size of Muslims in educational development). It is also to be
mentioned that the study is cross-sectional and has taken into account the schools infor-
mation from the School Report Card data, 2008–2009 (see note 1). The data on religious
composition of population at block level are obtained from the Census of India, Socio-Cul-
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tural Tables, 2001.

Relative Size of Minority and Disparity in Educational Development

Murshidabad district as a whole accounts for about 3,735,380 Muslim population out of
5,866,569, which is 63.67% of the total population. There are many ways of measuring edu-
cational development. In this study the educational development is measured in terms of
access to schooling, infrastructural condition of the schools, availability of teachers and
the outcome of the students. Eleven indicators have been used altogether to measure the
levels of educational development. All the 11 indicators9 are then compared against different
categories of Muslim-dominated class to have a clear-cut picture about the magnitude of
exclusion of the Muslim communities from participating in the educational system.
The association between the relative size of a minority population (i.e. Muslims) and
disparity of educational development in Murshidabad district is examined with the
help of regrouping spatial units (sub-district/community development blocks) into differ-
ent areas based on the proportion of Muslims to total population.
Murshidabad is delineated into five areas corresponding to the proportions of Muslim
population at the block level, that is, extremely dominated, highly dominated, moderately
dominated, low dominated and non-Muslim dominated.
From Table 1 it is clear that almost 19.2% community development blocks of Murshi-
dabad belongs to extremely Muslim-dominated (more than 80% Muslim population),
23.1% of the blocks are highly Muslim-dominated (70–80% Muslim population),

Table 1. Regionalization of Murshidabad districts on basis of proportion of Muslim population.

Proportion of Muslim population No. of Percentage of

Areas (%) blocks blocks

Extremely dominated More than 80 5 19.2

Highly Muslim dominated 70–80 6 23.1
Moderately Muslim 60–70 4 15.4
dominated
Low Muslim dominated 50–60 10 38.5
Non-Muslim dominated Less than 50 1 3.8
Total 26 100

Source: Census of India, Socio-Cultural Table, 2001.

 128 Arijit Das

15.4% of the blocks belong to the moderately Muslim-dominated or nearly district

average (60–70% Muslim population), 38.5% are low Muslim-dominated (50–60%
Muslim population) and only 3.8% blocks belong to the non-Muslim-dominated (less
than 50% Muslim population) categories.

Disparities in Access
The disparities in accessibility lead to inequalities in enrollment and also to differential
outcome. The accessibility to the educational systems has been measured by considering
two indicators: number of elementary schools per 10,000 population and primary to
upper primary (P/UP) schools ratio. It has been found that the number of elementary
schools per 10,000 population decreases as the proportion of Muslim population
increases, as it is evident from 9.85 elementary schools that are available for 10,000 popu-
lation in non-Muslim-dominated areas to the 5.95 elementary schools per 10,000 popu-
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lation in the extremely high Muslim-dominated areas. Other indicator of accessibility

here used is the P/UP schools ratio, the higher value of which actually indicates less
number of schools available for the students after successfully completing the primary
schooling cycle. Again it is observed that the ratio is kept on increasing with an increasing
proportion of Muslim population, which is 1.85 in non-Muslim-dominated areas to 4.73
in extremely Muslim-dominated areas. From both the indicators it is clear that the acces-
sibility is lower in those areas having a higher share of Muslim population in comparison
to the areas having a lower share of Muslim population.

Disparities in Infrastructure
School infrastructure decides the intake capacity of particular schools and also has a pro-
found impact on the performance of the student. The levels of infrastructure in the
schools are measured in terms of five indicators: student–class room ratio (SCRR), percen-
tage of schools having drinking water facilities, percentage of schools having common
toilets, percentage of schools having separate girls’ toilets and percentage of schools
having electricity facilities. Among all the five indicators only the SCRR is a negative indi-
cator, the higher value of which actually indicates low levels of infrastructure development
and the rest of the indicators are positive indicators which means the higher value of which
shows higher level of infrastructure development. It is found that all the positive indicators
showed a lower value as the proportion of Muslim population increases. For instance, per-
centage of schools having drinking water facilities is 96.40% in non-Muslim-dominated
areas increases to 72.96% in the extremely Muslim-dominated areas, it is 93% in non-
Muslim-dominated and 72.12% in extremely Muslim-dominated areas for percentage of
schools having common toilets facilities, 73.40% of the schools in non-Muslim-dominated
areas and 41.42% of the schools in the extremely Muslim-dominated areas having separate
girls’ toilet facilities, 60.50% of the schools in non-Muslim-dominated areas and 25.60% of
the schools in the extremely Muslim-dominated areas having electricity facilities. Similarly
in case of the SCRR it is only 43% for non-Muslim-dominated areas, whereas it is as high
as 95% in extremely Muslim-dominated areas.

Disparities in Teacher-related Development

Teachers are considered as the major determinant of the students’ performance hence
disparities in teacher-related development aspects might also reflect in the variation of
 Selective Discrimination in Provision of Schooling Facilities in Muslim Majority Areas 129

the students’ performance. Teacher-related development aspects measured in terms of

percentage of schools having at least one female teacher, percentage of teachers having
professional qualifications and pupil–teacher ratio (PTR). Out of the three indicators
only the PTR is a negative indicator – the higher value of which actually indicates bad per-
formance. It is found that both the percentage of schools having at least one female
teacher (62.50% in non-Muslim-dominated areas against only 32.16% in extremely
Muslim-dominated areas) and percentage of teachers having professional qualifications
(81.50% in non-Muslim-dominated areas against only 27.96% in extremely Muslim-
dominated areas) decrease as the proportion of Muslim population increases. While
the PTR is only 39% in non-Muslim-dominated areas it is 88% in extremely Muslim-
dominated areas (Table 2, Figures 1–7).
It is clear from the above discussion that in Murshidabad the Muslim-dominated
areas are deprived in terms of school development in comparison to the non-Muslim-
dominated areas. To understand the causality between the dominance of the Muslim
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occupants and educational development at school, rank correlation has been done
between the proportion of Muslim population and the various indicators of educational
development. The results are given in Table 3.
There is a strong and statistically significant relationship between the proportion of
Muslim population and the educational development indicators, which clearly reflects
the fact that Muslim-dominated regions are selectively excluded from participating in
the school system.
The relationship between the percentage of Muslim population and the indicators like
elementary schools per 10,000 (correlation coefficient is −072 and is significant at 1%
level of significance), P/UP schools ratio (correlation coefficient is −0.56∗ and is signifi-
cant at 5% level of significance), percentage of school having drinking water facility
(correlation coefficient is −0.74 and is significant at 1% level of significance), percentage
of schools having common toilets (correlation coefficient is −0.63 and is significant at 5%
level of significance), percentage of school having girls’ toilets (correlation coefficient is
−0.89 and is significant at 1% level of significance), percentage of school having electri-
city (correlation coefficient is −0.69 and is significant at 1% level of significance), percen-
tage of schools’ having at least one female teacher (correlation coefficient is −0.71 and is
significant at 1% level of significance), percentage of teachers having professional quali-
fications(correlation coefficient is −0.73 and is significant at 1% level of significance) and
percentage of students passing with more than 60% (correlation coefficient is −0.74 and
is significant at 1% level of significance) are showing strong negative association and are
statistically significant at either 1% or at 5% level of significance which indicates that as
the proportion of Muslim population increases the provision of accessibility and infra-
structure and the teacher-related factors decline.
On the other hand, negative indicators such as SCRR and PTR are showing strong
positive association with the proportion of Muslim population. For instance, the corre-
lation between the proportion of Muslim population and the SCRR is 0.68 and is signifi-
cant at the 1% level of significance, which indicates that students per class room increase
as the proportion of Muslim population kept on increasing. This implies that there is a
serious lack of provision of class room facilities in the Muslim-dominated areas. The
same is true for the PTR as the correlation coefficient between the proportion of
Muslim population and the PTR is 0.65 and is significant at the 5% level of significance,
which indicates that there is serious problem of availability of teachers in the
Muslim-dominated regions which is one of the major responsible factors behind the
poor performance of students in the Muslim-dominated regions.
 130 Arijit Das

Table 2. Performance of facility indicators in schools with respect to varying proportion of Muslim
population.

Extremely Highly Moderately Low Non

dominated dominated dominated dominated dominated
(>80%) (70–80%) (60–70%) (50–60%) (<50%)

No. of Blocks 5 (19.23) 6 (23.08) 4 (15.38) 10 (38.46) 1 (3.85)

% of Muslim 72.46 70.60 70.26 51.68 28.90
enrollment
Access No. of 5.95 6.38 6.28 7.23 9.85
elementary
schools per
10,000
population
P/UP schools 4.73 3.80 3.00 2.20 1.85
ratio
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Infrastructure SCRR 95 87 80 67 43
% of schools with 72.96 77.60 79.33 87.06 96.40
drinking water
facility
% of schools 72.12 77.20 80.78 86.92 93.00
having
common
toilets
% of schools 41.42 47.23 53.50 60.66 73.40
having girls’
toilets
% of schools 25.60 35.00 42.08 53.03 60.50
having
electricity
Teacher- % of schools 32.16 39.52 41.33 51.36 62.50
related having at least
factor one female
teacher
% of teachers 27.96 30.30 41.60 57.63 81.50
with
professional
qualification
PTR 88 73 65 56 39
Outcome % of students 17.42 33.67 43.3 51.14 62.50
passed with
>60% marks

Source: Census of India, Socio-cultural Tables, 2001 and School Report Card, 2008–2009.

Constructing Educational Development Index

Looking at Disparities in a Single Frame
To look into the aspects of educational disparities among the Muslim-dominated and the
non-Muslim-dominated regions an Educational Development Index (EDI) has been
formed by taking into consideration the entire 11 indicators relating to accessibility; infra-
structure; teacher-related factors and outcomes; namely, elementary schools per 10,000,
P/UP schools ratio, SCRR; percentage of school having drinking water facility; percen-
tage of schools having common toilets; percentage of school having girls’ toilets; percen-
tage of school having electricity; PTR; percentage of schools’ having at least one female
 Selective Discrimination in Provision of Schooling Facilities in Muslim Majority Areas 131
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Figure 1. Distribution of elementary schools per 10,000 population.

teacher; percentage of teachers having professional qualifications; and percentage of stu-

dents passing with more than 60%.
Among the 11 indicators, some are positive indicators and some are negative indi-
cators. The following procedure has been adopted in converting the indicators into a nor-
malized form. First the best and the worst values in an indicator are identified. The best
and the worst values depend on the nature of the indicators. In case of a positive
indicator, the highest value will be treated as the best value and the lowest value will be
 132 Arijit Das
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Figure 2. Distribution of P/PUP schools.

considered as the worst value. Similarly, if the indicator is negative in nature, then the
lowest value will be considered as the best value and the highest, the worst value. Once
the best and worst values are identified, the following formula is used to obtain normal-
ized values:


BestXi − Observedij
NVij = 1 − .
BestXi − WorstXi
 Selective Discrimination in Provision of Schooling Facilities in Muslim Majority Areas 133
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Figure 3. Percentage of schools with common toilet facilities. Source: School Report Card,
2008–2009.

Normalized values (NV) always lie between 0 and 1, as the value of a particular indi-
cator inclined toward 1 indicates better performance and vice versa. The principal com-
ponent analysis method has been employed for the construction of the EDI.
So far as the educational development is concerned it is found that Burdwan block has
highest level (ranked 1) of educational development and Domkal block the lowest level of
educational development (ranked 26). The top five blocks in terms of educational devel-
opment are Burdwan, Nabagram, Khargarm, Murshidabad-Jiagang and Berhampore.
Incidentally, the top five blocks have an average Muslim population of 49.61%
whereas Raninanagar1, Samsherganj, Bhagwangola2, Bhagwangola1 and Domkal are
placed at the bottom rung, with an average Muslim population of 84.12%. From this it
is also clear that blocks having higher proportion of Muslim population are also having
 134 Arijit Das
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Figure 4. Percentage of schools with drinking water facilities. Source: School Report Card,
2008–2009.

lower educational development. The relationship between two become much clearer
when cross tabs have been done between the Muslim-dominated class and the edu-
cational development level.
Table 4 is very informative. It demonstrates that the extremely high Muslim-
dominated blocks–extremely low levels of educational development combination is
dominating, 5 blocks out of 26 belong to that category (almost 19.23%), followed by
highly Muslim-dominated–very low educational development category and low
Muslim-dominated–high educational development category, 4 blocks (15.38%) belong
to that category. Low Muslim-dominated–moderate educational development,
moderately Muslim-dominated–high educational development and low Muslim-
dominated–very high educational development occurred 3 times (11.54% each). High
 Selective Discrimination in Provision of Schooling Facilities in Muslim Majority Areas 135
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Figure 5. Percentage of schools with electricity facilities. Source: School Report Card, 2008–
2009.

Muslim- dominated–low educational development occurred in 2 blocks (7.59%). Non-

Muslim-dominated–very high educational development and moderately Muslim-domi-
nated–moderate educational development occurred once each (3.85%). The crux of
Table 4 is simply that Muslim-dominated areas are educationally backward and high edu-
cational development occurred in the non-Muslim-dominated areas or areas having low
Muslim domination.
The association between the proportion of Muslim population and levels of edu-
cational development is very strong and negative. The rank correlation coefficient
 136 Arijit Das
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Figure 6. Percentage of schools with having at least one female teacher. Source: School
Report Card, 2008–2009.

between these 2 is −0.79 and is significant at 1% level of significance. This indicates that
the areas having higher proportion of Muslim population are deprived of educational
facilities and hence experienced low educational development (Figure 8).

Mapping the Most Deprived (Vulnerable) Schools in Murshidabad

The discussion of the educational development at block levels clearly reveals the fact that
the blocks that have a higher proportion of Muslim population are deprived of edu-
cational facilities hence it is very important to measure the most deprived schools in Mur-
shidabad and locate them. Hence the data that are available at schools level provide the
scope to look into that aspect.
 Selective Discrimination in Provision of Schooling Facilities in Muslim Majority Areas 137
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Figure 7. Percentage of teachers with professional qualification in schools. Source: School

Report Card, 2008–2009.

To fulfill that purpose certain norms has been set and the indicators are recoded into 1
and 0. Schools able to satisfy the norms set against an individual indicator are recoded as
1 and if failed than recoded as 0. Here eight indicators are considered (listed in Table 5).
After recoding the values are simply added up. The maximum score will be 8, which
satisfies all the norms and lowest score will be 0, which failed to satisfy all the norms.
The schools that failed to satisfy at least the norms for 2 indicators (25%) are identified
as the most vulnerable or most deprived schools.

Distribution of Deprived Schools in Various Areas

Murshidabad district has 3605 schools out of which 1855 schools failed to satisfy at least 2
norms, which is 51.46% of the total schools. It is therefore important to understand the
regional distribution of the most deprived schools in Murshidabad. The most deprived
schools are mostly clustering around the extremely Muslim-dominated and highly
Muslim-dominated areas. In extremely Muslim-dominated areas out of 563 schools
 138
Table 3. Correlation between Muslim Population and Indicators of School Development.

Arijit Das
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI

% Muslim pop −0.72∗∗ −0.56∗ 0.68∗∗ −0.74∗∗ −0.63∗ −0.89∗∗ −0.69∗∗ −0.71∗∗ −0.73∗∗ 0.65∗ −0.74∗∗
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∗
Correlation is significant at 5% level of significance (two tailed).
∗∗
Correlation is significant at 1% level of significance (two tailed).

le
b-
a-
r-
e-
n-
l-
u-
v-
re
a-
4
7-
3-
Table 4. Magnitude of Muslim domination and levels of educational development.

Muslim-dominated Class

Extremely dominated Highly dominated Moderately dominated Low dominated Non dominated
EDI class (>80%) (70–80%) (60–70%) (50–60%) (50%)

Very high 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 3 (11.54) 1 (3.85)

High 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 4 (15.38) 0 (0)
Moderate 0 (0) 0 (0) 1 (3.85) 3 (11.54) 0 (0)
Low 0 (0) 2 (7.69) 3 (11.54) 0 (0) 0 (0)
Very low 5 (19.23) 4 (15.38) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0)

Source: Authors own calculation from School Report Card, 2008–2009.

 Selective Discrimination in Provision of Schooling Facilities in Muslim Majority Areas 139
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Figure 8. Levels of school development in different Muslim-dominated areas. Note: School

means both government and private schools. Source: Census of India, 2001 and School
Report Card, 2008–2009.

Table 5. Norms set against individual indicator and methods of Recoding.

Indicator/norms Satisfy Not satisfy

I P/UP schools ratio not more than 2:1 1 0

II SCRR should be less than or equal to 1:50 1 0
III Schools should have drinking water facility 1 0
IV Schools should have common toilets 1 0
V Schools should have separate girls’ toilets 1 0
VI Schools should have electricity facilities 1 0
VII Every school should have at least one female teacher 1 0
VIII PTR should be less than or equal to 1:50 1 0
 140 Arijit Das

Table 6. Distribution of most deprived/vulnerable schools in Murshidabad.

No. of No. of vulnerable % of Vulnerable

schools schools schools

Extremely dominated (>80%) 563 374 66.4

Highly dominated (70–80%) 829 495 59.7
Moderately dominated (60–70%) 557 297 53.3
Low dominated (50–60%) 1435 622 43.3
Non dominated (<50%) 221 67 30.3

Source: Author’s own calculation from School Report Card, 2008–2009.

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Figure 9. Distribution of vulnerable schools in different Muslin-dominated areas.

 Selective Discrimination in Provision of Schooling Facilities in Muslim Majority Areas
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Table 7. Muslim enrollment and distribution of most deprived schools.

Most vulnerable schools in different Muslim-dominated areas

Extremely dominated Highly dominated Moderately dominated Low dominated Non-dominated area
(>80%) (70–80%) (60–70%) (50–60%) (<50%)

% of Muslim No. of % of No. of % of No. of % of No. of % of No. of % of

enrollment schools schools schools schools schools schools schools schools schools schools

<50 54 14.4 61 12.3 37 12.5 73 11.7 7 10.4

50–60 67 17.9 104 21.0 49 16.5 114 18.3 10 14.9
60–70 90 24.1 99 20.0 58 19.5 131 21.1 15 22.4
70–80 67 17.9 101 20.4 62 20.9 117 18.8 14 20.9
>80 96 25.7 130 26.3 91 30.6 187 30.1 21 31.3
Total 374 100.0 495 100.0 297 100.0 622 100.0 67 100.0

Source: Author’s own calculation from School Report Card, 2008–2009.

141
 142 Arijit Das

Figure 10. Distribution of most deprived schools in different Muslim-dominated clusters

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having different proportion of Muslim enrollment.

which is 66.4%, followed by highly Muslim-dominated areas (59.7%), moderately

Muslim-dominated areas (53.3%), low Muslim-dominated areas (43.3%) and least
occurrence in the non-Muslim-dominated areas (30.3%). It is again Muslim-dominated
areas having most deprived schools and it certainly reflects on the students’ performance
(Table 6, Figure 9).

Area-level Disparities in Distribution of Deprived Schools

It is found that most deprived schools are clustered around the extremely high Muslim-
dominated regions and high Muslim-dominated regions. But within Murshidabad where
they are located is an important aspect to be examined. For that distribution of most vul-
nerable schools is plotted against the percentage of Muslim enrollment in schools. The
underlying hypothesis is that most of the Muslim students are enrolled in the most deprived
schools and which is one of the major factors responsible for the poor performance of the
elementary-level students among the Muslim communities in Murshidabad (Table 7).
Within the extremely Muslim-dominated areas, of schools having less than 50%
Muslim enrollment only 14.4% schools belong to the most deprived category which is
not far worse off than the non-Muslim-dominated areas with less than 50% Muslim
population having 10.4% most deprived schools. The same is found but in different
form when Muslim enrollment exceeds 80%. For instance, in extremely Muslim-domi-
nated areas almost 25.7% schools belong to the most deprived category if the schools
have more than 80% Muslim enrollment which is 31.3% in the non-Muslim-dominated
cluster. It is important to note that the maximum clustering of most deprived schools is
found in non-Muslim-dominated areas which are having more than 80% Muslim enroll-
ment. This clearly indicates the fact that Muslim communities are excluded from parti-
cipating effectively in the education system, be it in the Muslim-dominated areas or in
non-Muslim-dominated areas. More importantly schools having more than 80%
Muslim enrollment and located in the non-Muslim-dominated areas are more suscep-
tible to be most deprived rather than schools having more than 80% Muslim population
but located in the high or extremely high Muslim-dominated areas (Figure 10).
In brief, the results are very striking; most of the schools that are having a higher pro-
portion of Muslim population belong to the most deprived category. Put in another way
most of the Muslim students are forced to enrolled in the schools which are mostly
 Selective Discrimination in Provision of Schooling Facilities in Muslim Majority Areas 143

deprived in terms of basic amenities and development parameters and hence hampering
the performance of the students belonging to Muslim communities.

Conclusion and Policy Suggestions

It is apparent in the light of the above discussion that schooling facilities among the Muslim
and non-Muslim-dominated areas of Murshidabad districts exhibit striking disparity. In
most of the dimensions of educational development the Muslim-dominated clusters are
lagging behind the non-Muslim-dominated clusters. The deprivation of schooling facilities
is almost directly proportional to the increasing proportion of Muslim population. Almost
all the school-related development indicators belong to accessibility, infrastructure and
teacher-related factors and become worse off with the increasing proportion of Muslim
population, which clearly indicates Muslim-dominated clusters are excluded from the pro-
vision of educational facilities. Therefore, it is not surprising that most of the deprived
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schools are concentrated in the Muslim-dominated areas. Moreover, majority of the

deprived schools have a very high proportion of Muslim enrollment.
For West Bengal which is lagging behind many other states in India in moving toward the
goal of universalization of elementary education, an important challenge is to close the gap in
the provision of schooling facilities in Muslim and non-Muslim-dominated areas. Hence, the
deprivation of educational development among the Muslim community in Murshidabad can
be addressed through correcting the lack of provision of schooling facilities in the Muslim-
dominated regions as well as in the schools having higher share of Muslim enrollment. To
remove the deprivation of schooling facilities among Muslim communities in Murshidabad
the following policies are suggested: First, identification of blocks having higher share of
Muslim population and allocation of additional school development fund to those blocks.
Second, preparation of complete chart of most vulnerable schools and allocation of the
additional school development fund and teaching learning materials grant to the most vulner-
able schools. Third, provision of incentives to Muslim children in the form of distribution of
free uniforms, text books and scholarships and regularizing the delivery of midday meal in
schools, and finally continuous monitoring of the performance of most vulnerable schools
since they admit large number of student mostly belonging to the Muslim community.

NOTES
1. Government of India, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, New Delhi: Ministry of Human Resource Development,
2001.
2. Left Front Government & the Development of Muslim Minorities in West Bengal, CPI (M) campaign
material, West Bengal Assembly Election, April–May, 2011.
3. Government of India, Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India: A
Report, New Delhi: Ministry of Minority Affairs, 2006.
4. M.B. Das, Ethnicity and Social Exclusion in Job Outcomes in India: Summary of Research Findings,
Washington, DC: World Bank Institute, 2003
5. Ibid.
6. R. Betancourt and S. Gleason, “The Allocation of Publicly Provided Goods to Rural Households in
India: On Some Consequences of Caste, Religion and Democracy”, World Development, Vol. 28,
2000, pp. 2169–2182.
7. Ibid.
8. V. K. Borooah and S. Iyer, “Vidya Veda, and Varna: The Influence of Religion and Caste on Education
in Rural India”, Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 41, No. 8, 2005, pp. 1369–1404.
9. Government of India, Educational Development Index, New Delhi: Ministry of Human Resource Devel-
opment, 2005–2006.
 144 Arijit Das

Appendix. Map showing the distribution of Muslims population in the

community development blocks of West Bengal.

Distribution of Muslim population. Source: Census of India, Socio-Cultural Tables,

2001.
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 Selective Discrimination in Provision of Schooling Facilities in Muslim Majority Areas 145

Table A1. Nature of school development indicator.

Elementary schools/10,000 + % of schools having electricity +

P/UP schools ratio − % of schools having at least one female teacher +

STR − % of teachers having professional qualification +
% of schools having drinking water facility + PTR −
% of schools having common toilets + % of students passed with >60% +
% of schools having girls’ toilets +

Notes: (+) indicates indicator is positive to school development and (−) indicates indicator is negative to
school development.
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