Background Note

Muslim women constitute a disadvantaged within a disadvantaged group and they are not only doubly disadvantaged, but doubly vulnerable and subject to discrimination on ground of religion and of gender and as Muslim women in situations of conflict.

The level of literacy and education among Muslim women is the lowest in India comparable and sometime lower than, that of women belonging to SC, ST and OBC's. Their representation in public and private employment is marginal. Indeed the destiny of the Muslim Indians depends in a large measure on the mobilisation of woman power for education and social work.

Muslim women are conspicuous by their absence in national institutions; they have not only a low salience but are almost invisible. Very few Muslim women have been legislators at the State or the Central level. No Muslim woman is an office-bearer in any national party at the national level. Thus circumstances have forced Muslim women to abdicate from a role in public life.

On the other hand, the burden of discrimination and persecution largely falls on the Muslim woman. She is defenceless against physical assault in social conflicts and is often targetted with vengeance as a person belonging to the "other" group. She loves her breadwinner and her children in social violence and her hearth and home, her agony goes unheard, her case, unrepresented in the communally surcharged atmosphere. She rarely evokes the sympathy and support of the other women.

The nation is moving towards social justice and towards empowerment of weaker section, of the disadvantaged, of the persecuted, of those who constitute a minority group at every level and those who have been deprived of their due share in the fruits of development.

A national consensus favours representation of women in the legislature. However it is doubtful that Muslim women who constitute 1/8 of the female population of the country shall benefit from this reservation. Apart from the quota for the SC and ST women, the general quota is likely to be utilised by the high castes and the political class for placing their women into Legislatures, to the exclusion of women from the lower castes or disadvantaged groups.

For effective amelioration of the condition of women, the benefit of reservation must be equitably, dispersed over the entire society and reach out to all sections. This can be brought about only by carrying out separate proportional sub-quota for each identifiable social group, with a proportion in the total population higher than a common cut-off limit, e.g. the OBC's, the Muslims and any other similarly placed disadvantaged groups.

The Committee for the Empowerment of Muslim Women is of the view that the objective of equitable representation cannot be fulfilled in the present circumstances without a separate quota for Muslim women.

The Committee, therefore, while supporting the demand for a separate quota for the women belonging to the OBC's, seeks a separate quota for the Muslim women.