Maulana Shamsudeen Qasimi, who runs Azhagiya Kadan IAS Academy from Makkah Masjid, Chennai, believes the Indian civil service forms the backbone of the government and can help the Muslim community earn its rightful place.

Ours is one of the most discriminated and least understood communities in the world today.

"The utter contempt and hatred for the Muslim population cannot be justified by the acts of terrorism by a few in our community. It is downright humiliating and degrading. The saddest and scariest part of this situation is that we have nobody to defend or speak for us.

"Today, to be heard, we require a certain degree of power. Of course getting into politics would be one way of safeguarding our interest. But politics too has its drawbacks; there is always pressure from the top brass and besides there is no stability in politics.

So our only option became the Indian civil service, the backbone of the Indian government."

That was Maulana Shamsudeen Qasimi, chief imam of the Makkah Masjid in Anna Salai, Chennai. He doesn't pull his punches while speaking about the discrimination against his community.

But he has set out to do something constructive about it.

He founded the Azhagiya Kadan IAS Academy. It started February last year on the mosque's premises.

The academy trains Muslim students for the competitive civil service examinations. It does so free of cost, providing accommodation and food as well.

The maulana sees the civil service in India as a powerful and prestigious organ of the government. Unfortunately, he says, in the past 18 years, no Muslim candidate from Tamil Nadu has cleared the IAS exam.

"We started the academy with the aim of reversing these statistics. Today I am proud to say that of our initial batch of 30 students, three have successfully cleared the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) preliminary exam. Three others have cleared TNPSC (Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission) Group 1 exam. Five of our academy students have also cleared the staff selection commission preliminary exam."