By Prof. Hasan Mulani
When a small town *”Mumbra”* – located at Sahayadri range in Thane district celebrated the success of their *first Indian Civil Servant (UPSC 2016) Ezaz Ahmed;* the socio-educated class of Muslims felt proud for this accomplishment.
Though an achievement, this year, we got some 50 such Ezazs from our community which is very, very less than required.
On other hand, _due to poor representation at the administration or civil services in the government, Muslim community faces one of the worst situations since independence. This has also led to call for long-time separated religious clerics unite and reach out to the masses._
The country has over 200 million Muslims living in rural & urban India in which Muslims of Maharashtra (around 20 million) has major role to play towards the development of their community. The reason why I say “Maharashtrian Muslims” because they have better access to economies, technology, education and lively conditions compared to Muslims of UP, Bihar, WB or Telangana.
For me, it is simple, Muslims living in Maharashtra are Maharashtrian Muslims.
At large, the Maharashtrians has been called “Community of Clerks.” (Clerk – employees who work 10 to 5 and stick to one table & chair throughout the life). Unfortunately this doesn’t suits Maharashtrian Muslims here.
_Muslims in the state has produced ample number of doctors, engineers, CA/CS, lawyers & professionals through various minority institutes, scholarships and also Madrassa. For e.g: just observe number of clinics and hair cutting salons around us. Definitely you’ll find more doctors around you than barbers._
Now the time has come where we need to stop producing the above mentioned professionals and start producing Civil Servants in which teachers, Maulvis, NGOs has crucial role to play.
To begin with, we can aim at producing State Level Civil Servants which can create “Delhi” like atmosphere, study circles for UPSC.
One can see the syllabus of Maharashtra at www.mpsc.gov.in One will find it very easy as 70% of topics are from 10+2 syllabi.
The results of Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) will surely going to help and build our morale too. Every year toppers are coming from small sized rural towns with securing first class or just above percentage and getting deputation as Deputy. Collector, Assistant Commissioner of Police or Deputy SP. I’ve complete faith & believe in the zeal & thrust of Muslim Children for education and accepting challenges.
No doubt, we’ve immense talent in our childrens’ & now the time has to come divert them to Civil Services and help the community by adding more Lawmakers in coming days.
(The views are personal. Prof. Hasan Mulani is working as an Assistant Professor for Mass Media Studies at Mumbai-based College. He can be reached at hasan.mulani@gmail.com or 09833 786 375)_*
