The National Convention for Movement for Empowerment of Muslims in India was held on May 9th, 1999 at New Delhi. A galaxy of eminent Muslims from all over the country representing all walks of life and all regions of the country, who had scaled great heights in their respective professions, participated.

The Convention

. Noted with deepest concern and anxiety that the present share and status of the Muslim community in every major area of national well-being is significantly lower today than at the time of independence and well below its share in the country's population.

· Pointed out for the attention of all decision making bodies that this decline has heightened its sense of frustration and in consequence, alienation. Unless this trend is reversed visibly, effectively, and quickly, it could lead to despair with its inevitable and unfortunate fall out on the very socio-political fabric of the national body politic.

This will seriously impair the nation's unity, its strength and its ability to face the serious challenge of internal dissension and external threats to its smooth and unfettered management of the task of good governance. It will also compromise the nation's will and ability to look to the largest good of the largest number of its members with complete socio-economic justice as its major goal.

The task of remedying this situation of the Muslims in India is of the highest urgency, not just of the community and its leaders, but also of the nation as a whole.

The Convention, therefore, resolved

. that the Movement for Empowerment of Muslims has to be launched on a sustained and enduring basis, always remaining truly and positively secular and apolitical and prioritize for immediate attention on the four issues of

Educational empowerment

Economic empowerment including employment and self-employment

· Political and administrative empowerment and

. Social and cultural empowerment community development, health and housing

And in furtherance thereof Education

· Urges the government to take all necessary steps to empower Muslims in the field of basic and primary education, women's education and professional education and to establish institutions required to serve these objectives with efficiency and autonomy, safeguarding the legitimate interests of the community.

Urges the government to secure through adequate reservation, for the Muslim students, their due share in institutions of higher education especially technical and professional. While doing so, it should be ensured that a major portion of this share is earmarked for those backward Muslim communities who have been so notified in various states.

· Urges the community to strengthen the Madarsa system of education with all requisite financial support, especially providing for the teaching of modern subjects therein.

. Further urges the community that each and every one of its educational institutions pursues the goal of excellence.

Economic Upliftment

· Calls upon the government to recognize that all steps hitherto undertaken by the state have failed to ensure adequate representation to Muslims in public employment.

It, therefore, urges the government to take positive and affirmative actions, through appropriate reservation to provide employment to Muslims in various state services, including para-military and police, public enterprises, autonomous bodies, judiciary, banks and other financial institutions.

· Urges the government to ensure through a system of reporting and proper monitoring an adequate and continuous flow of credit to support the Muslim enterprises especially in the small and tiny sector.

· Urges the government to provide for the drawing up of a special component plan for Muslims and to ensure that they receive their proportionate share of various socio-economic development schemes and welfare programmes, both in terms of finances and numbers.

This should be supported by a rigorous programme of reporting and monitoring its implementation.

Political and Administrative Empowerment

. Urges the government and various political parties to take serious note of the sharp and continuous decline of Muslim representation in Parliament and State legislatures in the last fifty years, which makes a mockery of the assurances extended to the community in the Constituent Assembly.

· Urges them to take all necessary steps to secure for Muslims a proportionate share of seats in Parliament, State legislatures, Panchayats and other local bodies.

Urges the community to ensure enrollment of all eligible Muslim voters; resist by all peaceful and legitimate means any attempt to disenfranchise them; and ensure that they exercise their right to vote.

· Urges the government to use its discretionary powers to nominate adequate number of Muslims to various Commissions, Committees, Panels, Boards, Tribunals and other collective administrative and regulatory bodies.

· Urges the political parties and the government to constitute without delay a Parliamentary Committee for Minorities, on the lines of the Parliamentary Committee on SC/ST, with the mandate to safeguard all the legitimate interests of the minorities, examine and supervise measures to protect their life and property, safeguard their civil rights, monitor the representation of the minorities in the public services and its adequacy and ensure that the benefits of government expenditure flows to them equitably in all sectors.

Social and Cultural Empowerment including health and housing

. Urges the community to introspect and remedy, without delay, the various social infirmities they are afflicted with.

· Urges the community to develop and maintain friendly social relations with all communities at all times and take initiative to open and maintain a constant dialogue with them to build up mutual understanding and tolerance.

» Urges the government to provide for proportionate representation to Muslim women in the proposed women's reservation bill.

The Movement resolves to constitute a Steering Committee which will take all necessary steps to follow up the resolutions passed by this Convention and to set up a secretariat at its headquarters in Delhi and extent its activities to various states in a phased manner.