The Sachar Committee Report on Muslims in India

In 2006, a government-appointed committee published the first detailed, official data on the socio-economic condition of India’s largest religious minority. The Sachar Committee’s report shaped a decade of minority-welfare policy. Two decades on, some of its central recommendations still have not been acted on.

1Chapter 1: The Committee and Its Findings

Must Know

A seven-member committee

• The Sachar Committee was a seven-member high-level committee, set up in March 2005 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
• It was chaired by Justice Rajinder Sachar, a former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court.
• Its official name was the Prime Minister’s High Level Committee.

Its mandate

• It was asked to study the social, economic and educational condition of Muslims in India.

The report

• The Committee submitted its report in 2006.
• It was made public on 30 November 2006.
• It found that the Muslim literacy rate in 2001 was 59.1%, below the national average of 65.1%.
• Muslims scored below average on most socio-economic indicators.
• Muslim representation in government jobs was low.
• In some States, Muslims were also overrepresented among jail inmates, compared with their population share.

2Chapter 2: Recommendations and Credit

Good to Know

Credit discrimination

• In most surveyed States, Muslims reported that both public and private banks discriminated against them in giving credit.

76 recommendations, 72 accepted

• The report made 76 recommendations in total.
• The government accepted 72 of them.
• It took 43 formal decisions that grouped the accepted recommendations together.

Four flagship recommendations

• An Equal Opportunity Commission.
• A Diversity Index for education, workplaces and living spaces.
• A National Data Bank.
• An autonomous Assessment and Monitoring Authority.

Where Muslims live

• The report found Muslims concentrated in slum-like settlements, with poor roads, water and sanitation.
• In many cities, Muslim and non-Muslim families were also increasingly living apart.

3Chapter 3: What Happened Next

Great to Know

The National Data Bank was built

• Implementation of the flagship recommendations was uneven.
• The National Data Bank was built.
• It now sits within the Central Statistical Organisation.
• It hosts dozens of data tables on education, health and employment.

A commission approved, then withdrawn

• The Equal Opportunity Commission fared differently.
• A bill was drafted, and the Cabinet approved setting it up through an Act of Parliament in 2014.
• That approval was later withdrawn from Cabinet consideration by the incoming government.
• The Commission has never actually been established.

What the Commission was meant to do

• It was meant to work like an anti-discrimination watchdog.
• It would have heard complaints about discrimination in jobs, housing or education.
• It covered religion, caste or other identity, not just Muslims.
• Without it, a person facing such discrimination has no single dedicated body to approach.
• They must rely on general courts or on bodies built for narrower purposes.

A familiar gap

• The gap between a recommendation and an actual institution is not unique to this report.
• In many reform panels, the headline proposal stalls while smaller technical ones quietly get implemented.

The wider framework

• The findings sit alongside India’s constitutional framework for minority protection.
• See Special Provisions for Minorities, SC and ST for the rights and reservations involved.

Quick Q&A

• Who chaired the committee? Justice Rajinder Sachar.
• When was it set up? March 2005.
• When was the report made public? 30 November 2006.
• Recommendations accepted? 72 of 76.
• Which key body was never set up? The Equal Opportunity Commission.