Memoranda for Submission to the Chief Ministers of the Two Telugu States.

National Security

Reservations for Muslims & Others

Dt:  1/7/15

 

Reservations for Muslims & Others

 

Dr T.H.Chowdary*

 

Now  and  then with increasing  stridency some Muslim parties and  organisations are  demanding  that  there should be  12% reservation for Muslims  for admissions to government educational  institutions, recruitment to government jobs and so on.  This is the  most  unjustified, totally communal and divisive demand.  The Constituent Assembly  discussed this matter thoroughly  and   came to the conclusion that  it was  separate  electorate and reservations for Muslims that the British introduced on the  demand of  Muslims, that ultimately  led to the two-nation theory (that is, Muslims are not Indians but that they are  a separate  nation) and consequently India had to be divided to create a home -land for the subcontinent’s Muslims . That is  Pakistan

 

2. It was not  the Muslim majority provinces  that   stridently and  violently   demanded the division  of India . It was in fact,   the Muslims in UP, Bihar,  Madras  and Bombay  and Central provinces that voted (98% for the  Muslim League) and rioted ( Direct Action day in Calcutta on the  16 of Aug 1946 when 10,000 Hindus were slaughtered)  for the  division of India and creation of Pakistan.   But  these people  did not  go to the   state that they  created. Over 85% of them remained here in India.   The Constituent Assembly  with the concurrence of the Muslim members who still attended the Consembly had, after a long and serious discussion done away with   reservation for Muslims  and weightage for them as the  British before 1947.  Now  those who are demanding reservation for  Muslims are  reviving  the two-nation theory

 

3. It may be worth remembering that in the Muslim -ruled ( for about five centuries    Nizam’s Hyderabad state  10%  Muslim population  had 90% of the jobs until Sept 1948.  It is inconceivable that the ruled -Hindus had made ruling Muslims  backward. Backwardness obviously is self inflicted by  two main reasons.  Much larger number of children  per family ( currently 50% more than  Hindus ) and no good liking for modern education but preference for Urdu  medium and  madrasa education.  

 

4. Article - 30 of the  Constitution gives rights to religious minorities  ( a right that is not available to people of  the majority religion) to found and manage  educational institutions of  their  choice.  Thus, there are   for Muslims by Muslims  colleges  for engineering, medicine, dentistry, business  administration, computers and so on.  If  Muslims are  backward, why cannot all the seats available in those  colleges be filled by Muslim students only even if they get 0% in the  qualifying entrance  examination just as  the SCs & STs among Hindus being backward  can get admission to professional colleges  irrespective of the marks they get in the  admission examination till the constitutionally mandated 15% and 7.5% seats are  filled  by the SC & ST candidates.

 

5. In the 1951 census the   Muslim population in India was  about 10% . As per census 2011, it is officially 13.5% and perhaps much more  as claimed by Muslims.   This furious proliferation is  the  reason for  poverty and backwardness.    With 50% more rate of  growth of population, periodically  the demand for   higher percent of   reservation would be  advanced. That the growth of this particular community  is causing disquiet not only in India  but in many other countries  where they are a minority is very well-known. For this  very reason, Myanmar has passed a law that no Muslim family should have  more than two-children. One of their provinces  adjoining  Bangladesh is getting converted into  Muslim majority,  reducing the natives to minority and insecurity. The same tendency is  evident in India  too.  Two  Muslim majority districts  had been carved out in Kerala and  one in Haryana. 92 more  districts had been designated  as Muslim -intensity districts  and all this is happening  in the  name of secularism and minority welfare and minority security.   The losers  are the non-Muslim communities. The minutest minority, Parsis don’t ask for  reservation. That is  because they place high value on education and limited families; they don’t also raise the bogey of insecurity as their ancestors  in India  did no wrong or atrocities on Hindus. 

 

6. Pakistan is a 98% Muslim state and the Muslims there are  self -governing without any  hindrance from  the non-Muslim miniscule minorities like Hindus and Christians.   In respect of Human Resource  Index  (like life expectancy, infant  mortality,  literacy and per capita income (PCI)) the Pakistani Muslims  are no better developed;  in fact,  they are more  backward than the  Muslims in India.  Obviously, it shows that   the backwardness of  Muslims whether in India (compared to  Hindus and  Christians ) or in Pakistan  is self -inflicted and not  due to any external religious group or government .  

 

7. For all these and many other reasons  including    the Constitutional  constraint that India is a secular  state and  that  its governments cannot  make  laws and rules keeping  in view a particular  religious community,  and the  Supreme Court having  ruled that all types of reservations  together cannot exceed 50% the demand for 12%  or any reservation for Muslims shall be   held as  divisive,  unconstitutional and  India  -disintegrating and therefore impermissible. 

 

8. Within India, the SC population seems to have gone up from 15% in 1951  to more than 18% ( according to  claims 22%) and the  ST population has gone up from 7.5% to  more than 10% ( claims upto 12%) according to the  2011 census.   Both these  groups are   demanding that the current reservations for them at 15% and 7.5% must be increased to be equal to  their increased proportion in India’s population.  Some sections of  India’s population are   proliferating faster than  other sections  and it is these who are claiming   increasing  % of reservations.  What is common for all these is a higher  rate of growth of population in the sections claiming reservation.  A new class of privileged people ( usually called  government Brahmins in Maharashtra) are emerging because of  reservations  while  at the  same time those who have not at all benefitted from  reservations for  SCs & STs are  many.  In order to spread the  benefit of  reservation for   not yet benefited people,  it is  necessary that  reservations should be only for  1 or 2 generations  in the  family and that too only  for  one  or at best to two   children in the   family. With these restrictions, the not yet benefited reservation entitled people will have  a chance to move upwards.

 

9. The  non-limitation of welfare   like  subsidised food grains, sugar, kerosene, NREGA, RTE, poor persons housing, free education  etc.,  are discouraging  family planning among the poor families.  The poverty is not coming in the  way of having large  families because of the welfare benefits ensuring painless poverty.  The population of India  is going up unchecked.  Even as the growth  has come down from 2.8% per year in the 1950s to about a 1.5% now –a- days, but since  the base is huge at more than 125 cr,  we have been adding since the  mid 1970s about 18 mln people per annum. Never so far have we created more than 10 mln jobs per year.  That means, mindlessly and perhaps  unconsciously we are adding about 10 mln  people to the unemployed  ranks every year.  When they swell to tens of millions, India will be crushed under the weight of unemployed  young  who could be  the recruits for the Maoist guerrilla armies waging war against the  Indian state .(1,218 words)

 

 

 

END