RESERVATION

Saiyid Hamid on Reservation for Muslims

Muslims are the most backward community educationally, socially and economically. This has been admitted in government-sponsored documents such as Gopal Singh Committee's report, the report of the 43rd round of the National Sample Survey and the Programme of Action, New Education Policy - 1986.

Although Muslims constitute 12 per cent of India's population, their proportion in the country's services does not exceed 2 per cent. They have thus been denied a share in the management and development of their country. Prospects of government jobs having receded after independence Muslims started neglecting education as infructuous.

* Representatives of Muslims in the Constituent Assembly had foregone reservation on the strength of the tacit assurance that their interests would be safeguarded. Later developments, however, belied the assurance and Indian Muslims went downhill at a staggering pace.

Various steps announced by government by ameliorate the conditions of Muslims such as the Fifteen-Point Programme (which curiously did not provide at all for education) and the Programme of Action remained on paper as revealed in the report submitted to the Ministry of Human Resource Development by an officially appointed evaluation group.

* Over the last about fifteen years Muslims made a concerted effort to compete for government jobs but to no avail. They could not, for example, go beyond 2.5 per cent in the Civil Services examination conducted by the UPSC. In lower services their representation is even poorer. They are similarly unable to compete for admissions to institutions of higher learning including professional colleges. The reasons are obvious:

a)    A bias has been operating against them;

b)   they are unable to compete because of the denudation of talent in the wake of the country's partition and because of a gnawing and incapacitating sense of insecurity kept alive by communal killings,

c)    with expanding reservations, the area open to competition has shrunk and it is becoming difficult for Muslims to compete with the educationally and intellectually advanced groups.

Given this situation it would be reckless as well as dangerous to leave Muslims to their resources and to aggravate their frustration! In the national interest they ought to be salvaged by giving them proper share in power and management. Reservations in government jobs for a limited period of 25 years is the obvious answer. This step has the advantage of being specific and implementable and accountable. It is also calculated to raise the morale of the community.

The argument that a demand for reservation in services would invite a majority backlash and would create conditions similar to those preceding the partition is as puerile as it is cruel and undemocratic. For one thing, conditions now are entirely different, for another, a demand that is just cannot be stifled by raising phobias You cannot threaten a group of people out of their rightful aspirations, at least not in a secular democracy. * Leaders of some biradris among Muslims have expressed the fear that in case the demand for reservations for the Muslim community as a backward class is conceded the more advanced classes among Muslims will appropriate what has already been given to the more backward classes under the Mandal Commission's recommendations. In point of fact nothing has been given to them. They will soon discover that it is a mirage. They will have to compete with other backward classes which are far more advanced than them.

It is curious that India's Constitution which is the bulwark of the minorities is being invoked to deprive the minorities of their rightful share. Was religion not taken into consideration when it was laid down that Scheduled Castes, if they forsook the Hindu religion, would be deprived of the concessions given to them including reservations in jobs and in the legislature? Did the Constitution stand in the way when Muslims in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu were treated as a backward class and given reservation on that score? Is the inconsistency in the attitude not glaring? It surely cannot be the nation's intention to squeeze Muslims out of their abysmally low share in administration and reduce them to pariahs. Whey then this reluctance to concede a right that is overdue?

• The first Convention on Reservation was held in Delhi on October 9, 1994. The demand has gathered tremendous momentum ever since. Forums for Reservation have been constituted in a large number of states and Conventions and Conferences held. The demand has become irresistible and had better he conceded with grace.

(Source: The Nation and the World, 1 April, 1996)