Summary of Findings and Recommendations
A national meet was organised on the theme ‘What it Means to be a Muslim in India Today’ by Anhad in collaboration with Siasat and other organisations Delhi from 3 to 5 Oct 09. A large number of individuals as well as representatives of organisations participated and spoke about their experiences and problems late into the evenings. A detailed report is under preparation. However, this is a very brief summary of some of the major findings and recommendations that emerged from the hearings.
Overall
The predominant finding of the meet was that there is an intense, almost universal sentiment of fear and growing despair among Muslim citizens of the country. Many of those who testified in the meet went so far as to declare that they felt reduced to second class citizenship. They shared their mounting disillusionment with all institutions of governance, and more so with the police and judiciary, as well as with political parties and to some extent the media.