Discrimination has a crippling effect on society. It always has, as history has proven, and it always will. Muslims in India are among those who face constant discrimination in a way that doesn’t just affect pride, but their means of living as well.

Making up around 14 to 15 percent of India’s population, Muslims are a clear minority (as opposed to around an 80.5 percent of Hindus in the state.) For decades they have been unable to work in higher paying jobs because of their lack of education. Children are dropping out or just automatically turning to low income small businesses for work because they don’t want to be discriminated against in their possible future jobs or just staying true to tradition. Some are kept back because their parents were never educated themselves. Old customs are responsible for parents refusing to send their daughters to school as well. The lack of schooling among the Muslim community has been a factor in the resulting 12.8 percent poverty rate of Muslims living in India, as of late 2013.

The key to getting Muslim Indians out of this constant cycle of discrimination and poverty is education. It’s imperative to expand education for this minority in India in order for them to advance in terms or types of jobs. The only way to do this is to become competitive in the market. It’s hard to do that when these people seem to “be stuck at the bottom of almost every economic or social heap,” according to The Economist. The only way to become relevant and competitive in a market like India’s is to be well educated. One must be better than everyone else in order to succeed and make it in the job market anywhere in the world. This succession can only come with education.

Muslim Indian youth, especially in less urban areas, need to remain motivated and relentless in their studies so they can succeed and get out of the cycle that they and their families have been stuck in. Organizations such as AIM (Association of Indian Muslims) make it their mission to help the Muslims in their homeland. As a non-profit organization, they use donations to establish schools and improve schooling all over India –particularly areas with a high Muslim population and high amounts of poverty. Some schools that they’ve started have a majority of girls in their student demographic. With the Muslim population increasing in India, they need to be able to access education in order to climb up the ladder of job competitiveness and out of the poverty loop. Hopefully we’ll see more measures like this to provide a starting point for change in the treatment of Muslim Indians.

[Image Attribute: rajkumar1220 via Compfight cc]