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)
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