Muslim representation in governing body of prominent institutes of India: 14 years of Sachar committee

Introduction: In 2005, the Indian government constituted a High Level Committee under the leadership of Justice Rajindar Sachar to study the social, economic and education status of the Muslim community in India. The committee submitted its report in 2006 and highlighted the under representation of the community on all the three criterion. The report is now a seminal work in the field of study. A neat summary of the exercise can be found on the PRS website.

I was midway through my own law school journey when I first read the Sachar Committee report. Since then, I've carried out little observations on the proportionate Muslim representations in our institutions. I make no correlation claims, but the observations over the last few years have amazed me.

Disclaimer: I have put the data on two separate Twitter threads, dated 23rd April 2020 & 25th April 2020. The same can be accessed from my Twitter handle (@RajatDutta13) and are available on Thread 1 and Thread 2. The data is updated as of 23rd April 2020 and is taken exclusively from primary sources, available on the institutional website or in case of corporations, from their filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, in case the website did not mentioned the required information. I am assuming religion from their names and I could be wrong. Please correct and I would be happy to correct the same.

Higher Education in India

I start with arguably the top 3 Business schools, Technology schools and Law schools of the country. Examining the Muslim representation on their respective board of governors.

Institute	Muslim Members	Total Members	Remarks
IIM Ahmedabad	0	15	Alma mater
IIM Bangalore	0	19	4 special invitee
IIM Calcutta	0	14	-
IIT Bombay	0	10	-
IIT Delhi	0	10	-
IIT Madras	0	15	-
NLSIU Bangalore	1	22	Supreme Court nominee
NALSAR Hyderabad	2	11	1 - vice chancellor
WBNUJS Kolkata	0	18	-

I will proceed to other reputed colleges in India - medical schools, Delhi University colleges and other colleges which are usually considered as institutes of excellence in India.

Institute	Muslim Members	Total Members	Remarks
SRCC	0	15	Outdated data on website
St Stephens College	0	16	-
Miranda House	0	13	-
AIIMS Delhi	0	13	Governing Council
PGI Chandigarh	0	14	-
KGMU Lucknow	0	16	Executive Council
JNU Delhi	2	23	Executive Council
IISc Bangalore	0	19	-
ISI Kolkata	1	34	-

In medical sciences, crucial to current pandemic, the ICMR has 1/44 Muslim Members. (Happens to be the Jamia Hamdard representative on the board). MCI has 0/11 Muslim Members.

For accountancy professionals, ICAI represents the governing body for Chartered Accountants. The ICAI council has 40 members, 10 from each region. Zero Muslim Members amongst them. The ICAI

board of studies (Academic Council), has 0/32 Muslim Members.

Let's wrap up education with another interesting data set comprising of numbers from the other organ of institutes, as per the government numbers for the Academic Year 2018-19.

Muslim Students in Higher Education:

Overall: 5.23%

Institute of National Importance - 2.19%

Muslim Faculty in Higher Education

Overall - 5.35%

Institute of National Importance - 2.88%

Indian Corporations

Let us now move to Corporate India and look how they fare out while we evaluate Muslim member representation on their board of directors or the equivalent governing bodies. Let's begin with FMCG majors, some of which are Indian arms of US multinational corporations. 

Organisation	Muslim Members	Total Members	Remarks
Hindustan Unilever Limited	0	10	-
Proctor & Gamble	0	12	-
ITC Limited	0	14	-
Nestle	0	8	-
Pepsi India (Varun Beverages)	0	10	-
Colgate - Palmolive	0	8	-
Marico	0	10	-

Let us now examine the large family run business groups of corporate India.

Organisation	Muslim Members	Total Members	Remarks
Tatas	0	8	-
Aditya Birla Group	0	9	Business Directors, No BOG at group level
Mahindra	0	14	-
Reliance	1	14	-
RPG	0	7	Leadership Team, No BOG at group level
CK Birla Group	0	8	Leadership Team, No BOG at group level
Adani Power	0	6	-
Adani Port	0	9	-

Let's move to the state held portion of the corporate India by looking at the data of the 10 of the biggest Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs)

Organisation	Muslim Members	Total Members	Remarks
ONGC	0	11	-
Indian Oil	0	17	-
NTPC	0	14	-
Power Grid	0	10	-
BPCL	0	8	-
Coal India	0	11	-
HPCL	1	10	-
GAIL	0	10	-
Power Finance	0	8	-
REC	0	4	-

Finally, we wrap up this section by looking at business headed by Muslims

Organisation	Muslim Members	Total Members	Remarks
Wipro	3	9	-
Cipla	4	10	-
Wockhardt	4	11	-

Financial Institutions

While we are at, it is pertinent to look at the representation of Muslim members in the board of directors of the prominent financial institutions of India.

Organisation	Muslim Members	Total Members	Remarks
State Bank of India	0	12	-
HDFC	0	10	-
LIC	0	12	-
SEBI	0	9	-
RBI	0	14	-
NSE	0	9	-
BSE	0	8	-
PNB	0	9	-
ICICI	0	12	-

Indian Media

If the glaring disparity in the representation numbers comes as a shock to you, then we need to question why haven't we engaged more on this topic. The responsibility for such engagement also falls on the fourth pillar and a crucial member of the democracy - the media.

Let us start with looking at the Muslim representation in the Board of Governors of top Media Houses:

Organisation	Muslim Members	Total Members	Remarks
Bennet Coleman	0	12	Times Group
HT Media	0	6	-
Kasturi & Sons	0	14	The Hindu
Indian Express	0	6	-
Dainik Jagran	0	18	-
Dainik Bhaskar	0	18	-
Manorama Malyala	0	8	-
Outlook	0	5	-

Moving on to the Television News Section of the Indian Media:

Organisation	Muslim Members	Total Members	Remarks
India Today	0	7	Aajtak
Times Group	0	12	-
NDTV	0	5	-
ASG Media	0	3	Republic TV
ABP	0	7	-
India TV	0	5	-
Network 18 (CNBC)	1	8	Same person on Reliance board (owner)
Sun TV	0	15	-
News Broadcasting Association	0	10	-
Zee News	0	5	-

The Indian state and pubic sector

Disclaimer: The numbers have minor variance in reporting by different outlets. If you believe there is a gross error in the numbers, please cite the source in the comment. Would be much appreciated.

Legislature: Starting with looking at the country's legislature post the Sachar Committee Report.

Total members in Lok Sabha - 543

Tenure	Muslim MPs	Percentage	Winning party numbers
2019-24	27	4.9%	1/303
2014-19	23	4.2%	0/282
2009-14	40	5.5%	11/206

Examining the top 5 Indian states with Muslim population percentage:

State	Muslim population	Muslim MLAs	Remarks
Assam	34.2%	23.8%	-
West Bengal	27.01%	20%	-
Kerala	26.5%	20.7%	-
Uttar Pradesh	19.3%	5.7%	-
Bihar	16.9%	9.9%	-

Executive: Let us start with covering the political Executive first.

Tenure	Cabinet Size	Muslim Members	Remark
2019-24	23 + PM	1	Minority Affairs Minister
2014-19	26 + PM	1	Minority Affairs Minister
2009-14	27 + PM	3	Minority, Health, External Affairs

Let's move towards our permanent Executive now, our hallowed civil servants and look at the number of candidates qualifying the UPSC - Civil Services Examination, a statistic keenly observed in the Sachar Committee Reports as well. I wonder what Justice Sachar would have thought of it.

Year of exam	Muslim	Total	Percentage
2018	28	759	3.7
2017	52	990	5.3
2016	50	1099	4.5
2015	37	1078	3.4
2014	38	1236	3.1
2013	34	1122	3.0
2012	30	998	3.0
2011	31	920	3.4
2010	21	875	2.4

Now that we have looked at the entry level, let's round up the Executive by looking at the top level representation,

The Director General of Police, is the senior most IPS of the state and head of the police organisation. Including J&K, there are 29 such DGPs and none of them are Muslims. (0/29)

The Chief Secretary of the region is the senior most IAS. Including all States & Union Territories, there are zero Muslim chief secretaries out of a total of 37. (0/37)

Let us move to the final element of the state & the holy grail of our democracy - Judiciary

Muslim judges in Supreme Court as of 31st March/1st April of the last 4 years:

2020 - 1/33

2019 - 1/33

2018 - 1/24

2017 - 1/28

In all the 4 instances, it has been the same judge - Justice S Abdul Nazeer

Muslim Senior Advocates designated by the Supreme Court - 30/416 (7.21%)

Current Muslim AG/SG/ASGs: 0/19

Muslim Office Bearers of Bar Council of India - 0/19

Final words: I make no correlation claims, as that would require much more detail, in depth study - something completely out of my resources, financial and temporal. 

From my observations on the list, other dimensions on which these boards fall short are the usual suspects of gender and caste. While caste is more difficult to guess than religion, gender is not that difficult. Women board members are few & meeting symbolism/statutory norms.

Does an approximate 15% of Muslim minority translating into near 0 numbers in governance of our top institution indicate anything? Will leave it to your respective biases. Muslim representations decline as one moves upwards on socio-economic-political ladder.

I will rest it here for now. The trend is almost similar for all places I have tried to dig in. They are terribly skewed versus the Muslim representation in our population. No field, comes even close to the estimated 15%. Most fields figure in or around the absolute zero.

Earnest request, please read the Sachar Committee Report/Summary. It is really a monumental document in our democracy. It was conducted in 2006 and has tragically, stood the test of time for over the next 14 years or so.

End disclaimer, I am no expert. In terms of educational qualification, I hold undergraduate degrees in arts, law and management. BA LLB (Hons) and an MBA.

I can be reached on rajatdutta13@gmail.com

Edit: Media coverage of the data

1. Prabhat Khabar: https://www.prabhatkhabar.com/opinion/muslims-in-top-institutions

2. Sabrang: https://www.sabrangindia.in/article/no-room-muslim-representation-education-media-corporates-leadership-boards

3. Inquilab - published in the newspaper on 29th April 2020.