More Muslims are urban than the National Average

More Muslims are urban than the National Average: India's population is predominantly rural. In 2001 only 27.8% lived in urban areas, cities and towns of various sizes, showing a low degree of urbanization. Moreover, the tempo of urbanization has been quite low after 1981, with only about two percentage points rise in the share of the urban population over each decade. The Muslim population is also predominantly rural, but the level of urbanization among them has been higher than the population as a whole. In 1961, while overall only 18.0% of the population lived in urban areas, 27.1% of the Muslim population did so. This substantial gap has persisted, and in 2001, when 35.7% of the Muslim population was urban compared to 27.8% of the overall population. In many states, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Chhattisgarh, the majority of Muslims live in urban areas. Muslims have generally been relatively more urbanized even in the past. By and large, India's Muslim population is less linked to land than the overall population. This is true even in rural areas. The 2001 census data show that whereas among all religions, 40 percent of rural workers were cultivators, among Muslims this figure was only 30 percent. Agricultural workers (cultivators and agricultural labourers combined) constituted 75 percent of rural workers overall but only 60 percent of Muslim rural workers. Experts believe that a number of historical factors lie behind the higher urbanization among Muslims in India. As mentioned above, nearly 36 percent of India’s Muslim population lives in urban areas and almost all them are slum dwellers. Due to poor educational standard, they have to satisfied with low-pay jobs and hence unable to afford better accommodation. The other reason is that the Muslims dislike to live with non-Muslim kafirs and hence they are increasingly resorting to live in congested ghettos across the country that lack proper sanitation and other public facilities like fresh water supply, sanitation, electricity, schools, public health facilities, banking facilities, roads, and transport facilities. This is more pronounced in communally sensitive towns and cities. At the same time, living in ghettos seems not to be advantageous for the Community for another reason. It makes them more isolated from the mainstream population that add to their backwardness.