An entire community watches from the fringes

The Rajinder Sachar panel's findings on the status of Muslims have revived the debate on quotas for the community, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Nov 19, 2006, 02:25:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Rajinder Sachar panel's findings on the status of Muslims have revived the debate on quotas for the community, though the committee has made no such recommendation.

Jama Masjid Shahi Imam Syed Bukhari used the report to hit out at the Congress, alleging the party would use it as a "political bandwagon" to appease Muslims before the elections in Uttar Pradesh. "The report indicts the Congress for our present status," he said while demanding that the entire community be categorised as 'backward' and be given the benefits of quota. "If Hindu Dalits can get reservation, why not Muslim Dalits," he asked.

Others made similar demands. MMM Madani, general secretary of the Jamiata-ul-a-Hind, sought a constitutional amendment to pave the way for Muslim quotas.

Deepak Sharma, spokesman for the Diwan Darga Ajmeri Sharief, said reservation was the only way to end discrimination against Muslims.

All India Muslim Personal Law Board spokesman Abdul Rahim Qureshi said the Sachar report should be the basis for declaring the entire Muslim community as 'backward' under Article 16(4) of the Constitution.

But apolitical Muslims like former cabinet secretary Zaffarullah Khan said reservation was no magic potion. He said such moves would be ineffective unless the government had an accountable mechanism in place at the grassroots. He also stressed on the need to end discrimination against Muslims.

Sharma said the Sachar panel recommendations on setting aside at least 15 per cent government schemes for Muslims could help check this discrimination. Khan wanted the government to immediately implement the panel's recommendation of having at least one Muslim in each of its recruitment committees.

Muslim leaders agreed with the Sachar panel on the fact that Muslims needed better access to education but differed on the mode. "We will not allow modernisation of madrasas till the government ends its bias against Muslim schools," Madani, whose organisation runs 3,000 madrasas, said. The Deoband is also opposed to government interference in madrasas.

But Qureshi and Khan favoured "relevant" education in madarsas and said they wanted the government to open more schools in Muslim-dominated areas.

"Islamic and modern education should be amalgamated," Bukhari too said. Qureshi quoted from the Sachar report to point out that only four per cent Muslim children study in madrasas.

Email chetan@hindustantimes.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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