Why Are Many Indian Muslims Still Poor?

It's usually said that Muslims are an urban community, that they're concentrated more in urban centers. But in Bihar, Bengal, Assam there are large numbers of Muslim peasants — very large numbers in rural settings. Especially in Bengal and Assam, the peasantry itself is largely Muslim; Muslims are part of the peasantry there. So if you count poverty in those places, obviously Muslims will show up in fairly large numbers, because wherever it's agricultural, wherever industrial states haven't developed, the poverty there hits Muslims harder. Now — can politics change that? Of course politics is what has the capacity, because all decisions are generally political decisions. What kind of politics emerges, what is its goal, what is its agenda, how does it look at Muslims and so on — that's decided politically. So politics of course has the potential to alter that, to change the situation over a period of time. Yes — there hasn't been a concentrated attempt to do so. And it isn't only about Muslims. In the states of poverty I'm talking about, other communities are just as poor.