When the story of a young Muslim boy receiving a letter from a company, Hari Krishna Exports, regretfully informing him that the firm only hires non-Muslims surfaced, we were all shocked. The young man posted the letter on Facebook and social media went berserk; the police took note of it and filed an FIR against the company. The company denied this happened, blamed a young staffer in the human resources department and pointed out that it had several Muslims on its rolls. The boy got several job offers after that.
But what exactly were we all shocked about? That it happened at all? That something like this could take place in a cosmopolitan city like Mumbai? That discrimination could be so blatant and open? Yes to all of the above, but what was most surprising is that we were shocked at all. Yes, the letter was offensive in the extreme and the state government rightly moved fast to send out a message that this would not be tolerated, but all it did was to bring out into the open one of the worst kept secret of Indian life, not just in Mumbai.
It is a fact that there is open discrimination against Muslims out there. Not just in the job market but also in other situations. While we hear of Muslims finding it difficult to get housing, what is not so well known is that they also face prejudice in other ways.
Ask a Muslim who lives in a primarily Muslim area about his attempts to get a credit card and you will be surprised at the stories you hear. Sometimes the same candidate will get an application approved if he is from another area; should we then say that this is just caution by the banks? It is difficult to prove. (Ironically, in the informal money lending market there is no such prejudice — given the usurious rates of interest, money lenders are happy to give loans to anyone who asks, irrespective of their religion, caste or community.)
Equally difficult is to say with conviction that someone was rejected for a job because s/he was a Muslim or indeed a dalit, who too face discrimination in the private sector. The letter from Hari Krishna Exports merely outed a commonplace practice; there are large corporates who have no Muslims on their rolls, especially in the officer cadre. They just don’t hire them, period. And there is nothing anyone can do about it. Muslims find their way into the informal sector or in small companies where salary structures are less rigid and the benefits non-existent. Or they become entrepreneurs.
As more and more Muslims — especially girls — are coming out of colleges with good degrees and new job opportunities are emerging in the service sector, the old practices will not do anymore. There is a demand for qualified and skilled people and a company would be foolish to turn down a good candidate simply because s/he belongs to the “wrong” community. As it is, companies keep complaining about a severe shortage of good personnel; one would imagine that they would grab anyone half-way personable and smart and then train them. At the end, the bottom line is more important. Which is why many young Muslims find their way into the call centre business and many north-easterners, who too have had their share of discrimination, end up in the restaurant and hotel business and in the aviation industry. Old barriers are slowly breaking down, not because there is a change in social values or people have suddenly become less narrow-minded, but simply due to market pressures.
Which is what makes the action of Hari Krishna Exports much more inexplicable. One would presume that as a growing company — it certainly is profitable, given that it passed around attractive bonuses like apartments and cars to its staff just last year — would want more and more qualified staffers irrespective of the background they come from. If a young Muslim recruit looked like he could get them more business they would grab him, not reject him sight unseen. One should also give them the benefit of the doubt when they say they do have Muslim staffers and this was an inadvertent act.
But whether it was the decision of a young newbie who was acting on her own or part of company policy that she was enthusiastically implementing or indeed knee-jerk communalism, it showed that old bigoted mindsets are still alive and well. The difference is that, while in a previous era this remained under the radar and went by uncommented, today such prejudice gets called out. In a way, putting it in black and white actually brought the hidden debate out in the open. Happily, the reaction by not just ordinary citizens but also the government has been encouraging. The company is now left squirming and will have to live with this stain.
One can be an optimist and point to the revulsion among fellow Indians after news of this rejection became public. Or one could realistically point out that this is just one case and there are hundreds or thousands of similar incidents that never make it to the public domain. The young man himself must be congratulated for posting the letter on Facebook. Other companies will now think several times before they do something similar, even subtly. But will it change things at a fundamental level? Hardly. Old prejudices don’t die easily. It’s a long fight ahead to remove discrimination from Indian society.
