Thanks
to the Congress party’s unrelenting
pursuit of vote bank politics the issue of reservations for minorities in jobs
and educational institutions is back in the news. Designed as a ploy to regain
a foothold in UP (as a key to capturing power at the centre in 2014), it carved
out a 4.5% sub-quota for minorities (primarily Muslims) in the 27% reservation provided
for OBCs. In its vulgar greed to capture power at any cost it conveniently
forgot the sequence of events, beginning with the creation of separate electorates
based on religious lines in the 1930s, which eventually led to the partition of
the country. The creation of separate electorates was precisely based on the
same logic and for the same reasons that the government now seeks to create
reservations for Muslims.
As
soon as it came back to power in 2004 the Congress
party began planning its long term strategy to woo permanent vote banks that
would be beholden to it. In the first fifty years after independence it expropriated
the freedom movement as a convenient anchor to lay claim for power. During this
period also it tried its best to project itself as a champion for the welfare
of minorities.
The
Justice Rajender Singh Sachar Committee
was constituted on March 9, 2005 to prepare a report on the social and
educational status of Muslims (not minorities) in India. The other members of
the committee were Mr. Sayyid Hamid, Dr. T.K. Ooman, Mr. M.A. Basith, Dr.
Akhtar Majeed, Dr. Abu Saleh Shariff and Dr. Rakesh Basant. Dr. Syed Zafar
Mahmood, a civil servant, was appointed as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to assist
the commission. The Committee submitted
its report on November 17, 2006.
The
Committee was asked to prepare a report
on the relative, social, economic and educational status of Muslims at the
district, regional and the state levels by obtaining relevant information and
conduct[ing] a literature survey. Please note the last part in the first item of the
terms of reference. The Committee was
not expected to conduct any field research; it just had to conduct ‘literature survey’! This gives the committee
led by J Rajinder Singh Sachar virtually the latitude to write anything it wants. (That the said J
Rajinder Singh Sachar later turned out to be an honoured guest of Pakistani ISI-Front,
Gulam Nabi Fai is another matter.)
PRS
Legislative Research (“PRS”) which posted a summary of the report on its
website has this to say of the report: “Barring some generic observations about
the cause for the ‘development deficit’ among Muslims, there is no explicit or
detailed discussion of the causes of such conditions.” (Click
here to see the summary: Sachar Committee Report)
Sample
some of the recommendations of the report, apart of course from recommending
reservations for Muslims which was the latent reason for constituting the
committee:
“… Work out mechanisms to link madarasas with higher secondary school board.
“Recognise degrees from madarasas for eligibility in defence, civil and banking examinations.”
On
the other hand governments in various states have been merrily closing down Oriental Colleges, which were established
during the British reign to impart Samskritic
education in Vedas and allied
sciences. The ostensible reason for closing these colleges, most of which were
over a hundred years old is their dwindling enrollment.
But
the most perilous course that the Committee recommended is in this
recommendation:
“Establish a delimitation procedure that does not reserve constituencies with high minority population for SCs.”
If
this course is followed the problems the nation is facing in Jammu &
Kashmir are likely to surface in other states like Assam, West Bengal and
Kerala. (See below for population ratios
of these states.)
The
following may be summed up as the report’s errors of commission and omission.
The report did not take into account the bulk of educated employed Muslims that
migrated to Pakistan when the country was partitioned. It did not take into
account the numbers of Muslims engaged in trades and other professions. The Committee
willy-nilly concedes that the “[…] most striking feature is the
relatively high share of Muslim workers engaged in self-employment activity,
primarily in urban areas and for women workers. […] Muslim participation rates
in traditional manufacturing and trade (especially wearing apparel, auto-repair
and electrical machinery) is much higher than for other groups, while their
participation in the agricultural section is lower.” It excluded the scheduled castes and
scheduled tribes from corresponding Hindu figures thus annulling any equity in
its comparisons. Last but not least it excluded educated and well off Muslims
from comparisons.
The Committee also had to concede that the literacy rate among Muslims @ 59.1% was
slightly below the national average of 64.8%, “with the greatest gap in urban areas” for reasons already mentioned above, but
that “the literacy rates were higher than those of SCs and
STs.”
The Committee ignored the fact that the country did provide fair and equitable
opportunities to all and those Muslims who availed of them did prosper - in filmdom,
in industry, in government / university jobs or in politics. If you go by the
findings of the report, Asghar Ali Enginner, A. G. Noorani, Azim Premji, Syed
Shabuddin, the Khan trio and other Muslim celebrities of Bollywood and a host
of other Muslims in high places (Sayyid Hamid, T.K. Ooman, M.A. Basith, Akhtar
Majeed, Abu Saleh Shariff and Syed Zafar Mahmood included) - all need
reservations in government jobs!
The
National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) has concluded that the findings of
the Sachar Committee were manipulated. The committee’s job was all the more
easier as it was given the theories; it was only expected to go out
and find facts to fit into them! Lo and presto, it did it and
how? Try as you might, you cannot accuse the Committee of
objectivity or doing anything right either by commission or omission. The Committee’s report, to borrow from information technology jargon, was doomed to
be GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) right from inception.
The Committee set out with faulty assumptions, faulty data collection and
faulty analysis and of course ended up in arriving at faulty conclusions.
However
the report made certain interesting findings with regard to the Muslim population
in India. The states with the highest percentage of Muslims include Jammu &
Kashmir (67%), Assam (30.9%), West Bengal (25.2%) and Kerala (24.7%). In 2001
the population of Muslims in India was 138 million which grew to 150 million by
2006. Between 1961 and 2001 their population grew from 10.7% to 13.4%. The
committee estimates it is likely to grow to between 18% and 21% by 2101. These
statistics are quite significant in that they raise a query about the
definition of minority as applicable
to Muslims.
The
Constitution of India in Article 15 (1)
ordains that “[t]he State shall not discriminate against
any citizen on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of
them.”; and in Article
16 (1) that “[t]here
shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to
employment or appointment to any office under the state.”
By its latest
executive fiat and in spite of court of after court questioning its motives the
government at the centre seems to pursue a perilous course that might once
again threaten the unity and integrity of the nation.
