Educational System and the Muslim Diaspora in India: Analysis of a Need Based Inclusive and Assimilative Policy for their Growth

India witnessed massive politico-social upheavals in its history of last one thousand years. This millennium has proved to be a turning point, which brought about massive structural changes that fermented the social fabric, which in turn affected the life style, economy, ideas of the people of this country. With the coming of the Muslim rulers in the medieval period and later the political hegemony of the British in the modern period a process of amalgamation, acculturation have taken place with the intermingling of varied cultures along with the indigenous culture and that process became the progenitor of umpteen socio-political and cultural movements. In this way a number of permutation and combination occurred which resulted in the growth of different affiliations, groups, faiths, sects over centuries. The social picture of India changed which further provided scope to the growth of multiculturalism. In this cultural milieu, the Muslim population is one, which is one of the major communities among the minor communities. Education was given due importance by the Muslim community all over the world. But with the passage of time differences occurred in the approaches towards education in different parts. In India, the Muslims had a long rule in medieval times. And likewise they witnessed changes in the socio-cultural transformations. After the attainment of independence, the Government of India has enunciated a number of policies and enumerated number of articles in the Constitution to enhance the status- both educational and social- of all the sections of the society irrespective of caste, creed, religion and race. But, still India is languishing in some areas like poverty and literacy even after six decades of independence. This article tries to find out the reasons for the backwardness of the Muslims and their isolationist attitude towards participatory development.