How to share the reservation pie

Muslim leaders agree that the community could do with some quotas but differ on how to go about it, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Published on: Nov 19, 2006, 02:30:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Muslim leaders agree that the community could do with some quotas but differ on how to go about it. While some want the affluent among them to be kept out of the ambit of quota, others want the quota for Scheduled Castes (SCs) to be extended to the community.

On November 22, Dalit Muslims will meet under the banner of the All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahz to demand the extension of the SC quota for Muslims.

"Those Muslims who perform the same duties as SCs should not be clubbed with other Muslim backwards who are entitled to reservation under the OBC quota," said Janata Dal-United MP Anwar Ali. Party president Sharad Yadav is also expected to take part in the meeting.

Others like Ramvilas Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party want reservation for the entire community and have urged the government to bring in a constitutional amendment in the winter session of Parliament. He has the support of religious leaders like MMM Madani of the Jamiat-ul-a-Hind and Jama Masjid Shahi Imam Syed Bukhari.

Ali, however, explained that extending reservation to the entire community would mean helping saffron forces make it a communal issue. He said the benefits of reservation can be extended to the poorest of poor among Muslims.

He suggested that the Bihar model of OBC reservation—dividing the 27 per cent into two categories, one for the better placed and the other for the socially—weaker among them—be implemented all over the country.

Ali said there was also the fear that rich Muslims would usurp the benefits of quota if it was extended to the entire community. The way out, he said, was to demand a sub-classification of reservation so that all castes benefit from the affirmative action.

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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