Muslim engineer in India’s Assam denied job over faith
Applicant from northeastern Assam says he was denied vacancy after revealing faith, highlighting ongoing concerns over bias in hiring
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — Allegations of workplace discrimination have surfaced in India after a Muslim engineer from the northeastern state of Assam said he was denied a job when a recruiter directly asked about his faith.
According to The Observer Post, the applicant, 26-year-old Shamim Barbhuiya from the city of Silchar near India’s border with Bangladesh, applied through the job site Indeed for a mechanical engineering post at a workshop in the Bihara Railway Station Yard.
Barbhuiya said the recruiter initially offered him a salary of 18,000 Indian rupees ($205) a month and asked him to join after September 6. But when asked whether he was Hindu or Muslim, he said the conversation ended abruptly and he was told the vacancy no longer existed.
Barbhuiya said the job description itself raised concerns, as it required applicants to be “Bengali by birth and Indian by birth” alongside fluency in three languages. He described the experience as discriminatory and a violation of India’s constitutional guarantee of equal opportunity. “Recruitment should be based on skills and merit, not religion,” he said, urging companies and job platforms to act firmly against such practices.
Civil society groups note that incidents of identity-based bias have been reported across India. In July, Kashmiri students at a nursing college in Bengaluru said they were barred from classes for wearing the hijab or burqa.
Earlier this year, assistant professor Sanjida Quader resigned from a college in Kolkata, citing harassment for her decision to wear the hijab. In 2024, a Muslim nursing student in Ahmedabad alleged that he was told to shave his beard before being allowed to sit for an exam.
Labour data points to a broader pattern. Figures from the government’s Periodic Labour Force Survey show that the share of Muslim workers in wage employment dropped from 22.1 percent in 2018–19 to 15.3 percent in 2022–23 — a fall of nearly seven percentage points in just four years.
Analysts say the decline reflects both systemic exclusion and growing hostility toward India’s 200-million-strong Muslim population.
For Barbhuiya, the figures resonate with his personal experience. “This was never about my qualifications,” he said. “It was only about who I am.”
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