No Role for Muslims in India Inc.

Today India celebrated its 60th Republic Day. In her ceremonial address to the nation on 25th January, President Pratibha Patil pointed out that India was the fourth largest economy in the world in terms of purchasing power parity. She also hoped that India was on target for achieving a double-digit growth rate.

But shockingly, the Muslim community is not likely to play any role in achieving this target. Despite constituting 13.4 per cent of the total population (2001 Census), the Muslim contribution in shaping the Indian economy is very minimal. Their participation in the industrial, agricultural or corporate sectors is almost nil. It may sound too pessimistic, but the Indian Muslims themselves, especially the youth, it seems, are not interested in playing an active role in second industrial revolution that is brewing.

The Forbes India magazine in its December edition published the list of 100 richest people in India. Of them, only three were Muslims. With a net worth of $ 14.9 billion Wipro chairman Azim Premji ranked 4th while Yusuf Hamied of Cipla with $ 1.89 billion ranked 27th and Shahid Balwa of DB Reality with $ 1.02 billion stood 50th among the 100 richest people. Interestingly, all three of them are not first generation entrepreneurs. They inherited wealth and businesses from their fathers. However, they expanded and strengthened those businesses to make it to the list of 100 richest people in India.

I was recently going through the list of top 500 companies of 2008 & 2009 in India and to my surprise, not even one per cent of those companies are owned by Muslims. All these companies are listed either with the Bombay Stock Exchange or National Stock Exchange, or both. With varied business activities, they are playing a crucial role in boosting India's economy and giving employment to lakhs of people. But sadly, the Indian Muslims are not making any (significant) contribution in any of these sectors. Similarly, not even two per cent of the non-listed companies are owned by the Muslims. Though Muslims own small or mid-size businesses in some cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad, but they are all proprietors and they show no inclination to expand and grow at the national level.

Though the Indian corporate world is not divided, at least for now, on religious lines, but the statistics show that the presence of Muslim community here is dismal. Contrary to this, several all other communities, including the minority communities like the Christians have made a place for themselves in the corporate world.

Quoting official reports, the Indian Muslims often complain that they are being denied an opportunity to do business. Justice Rajinder Sachar in his report mentioned that the average amount of bank loan disbursed to the Muslims is 2/3rd of the amount disbursed to other minorities. In some cases it is half. The pity is that, according to the report, many areas of Muslim concentration have been marked by many banks as 'negative' or 'red' zones where giving loans is not advisable. Therefore, Muslims engaged in self-employment ventures are not getting the required funds. However, I feel that these conditions are not applicable to all sections of
the Muslim society.

Today the Muslim community can be largely classified into three groups -- the rich, middle class and those living below poverty line. While the dependence of the middle class and BPL Muslims on government or bank funding is understood, although a majority of them are already engaged in self-employment activity, the rich muslims too are giving the same excuse to stay away from the corporate world. They are preferring to live in a 'safe mode'. They are investing money in real estate or other ventures with minimal risks. They seems to have stopped investing in a factory or other manufacturing units which also generates employment. They simply don't want to expand as they are afraid of losing money. This trend must go.

Hyderabad, for instance, is now a home to at least one thousands Muslim millionnaires. But shockingly, not many of them are engaged in organised business. Most of them, especially the NRIs, have made huge investments in the real estate. A few of them have also invested money in equity market. Investments in both the forms was not on long-term basis and therefore, they lost crores of rupees when the stock market fell and the real estate was hit by slowdown. These rich Muslims are not open to the idea of starting their own business on professional lines, to generate both employment and also sustained revenue. Instead, they would invest and lose money in some fly-by-night companies like Alfalah, which duped hundreds of depositors in 1999.

If the rich Muslims learn to take calculated risk and enter the corporate world, then they can generate both employment and profits, besides being a part of India growth story.