While I completely agree with Sumit’s views that in a country like India there are some benefits to ‘positive discrimination,’ I worry we might not know where to stop. There are communities marginalised due to gender, wealth and caste in our country. India has some sort of allocation for all these categories. The government has so far resisted a case for allocations according to religion, although there have been commissions that have asked for allocations aimed at the Dalits to be extended to Muslims as well.
Since Muslims, at over 12 percent of the Indian population, are an important vote constituency for mainstream politicians, there’s a chance that these demands may be encouraged in several quarters. There’s a recent Economist article that talks about this. It’s a good sum up of the basic situation.