Major worry over minority tag

Not just political parties, even institutions governed by National Commission for Minority Education are opposing the move to define 'minority'. Chetan Chauhan finds out why.

Updated on: Jul 6, 2007, 02:13:26 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Not just political parties, even institutions governed by the National Commission for Minority Education are opposing the move to define the term minority. The reason: not only will it change the character of minority-run institutions in India, it is also against the basic framework of the Constitution.

For instance, students and institutions now claiming minority status in states like Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya and Mizoram will no longer be members of the minority community. In these states, Hindus will be the new minorities.

The 103rd Constitutional Amendment seeks to have state-wise minority status rather than national status, as is the norm now. Minorities in states will be decided through a presidential notification in consultation with the state government. The amendment will be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament starting in August.

The National Commission for Minority Education says the amendment will make Christian students from Meghalaya and Mizoram ineligible for admission in Christian colleges like St Stephens, as they will not have domicile minority status.

Likewise, Sikhs from Punjab and Muslims from J&K will not have minority status. Christian-run institutions in Kerala may also lose their minority tag.

"It will create a divide between the so-called minority communities. In some states, they will have minority status and in others they won’t," a commission official told HT. He added, "In case the states don’t declare minority communities, it can even lead to confusion."

Commission member BS Ramoowalia said: "Muslims will be increasingly alienated in Kashmir, as will Sikhs in Punjab, Christians in Northeast."

Commission chairperson MMA Siddique has written to HRD Minister Arjun Singh and Minority Affairs Minister AR Antulay saying the constitutional amendment that the Cabinet approved in May first week is against the spirit of Article 30 of the Constitution.

"Articles 25 to 30 guarantee protection of religious, cultural and educational rights to both majority and minority communities. Therefore, it was felt not to define minority. We cannot supersede this vision," Siddique has written.

He has quoted BR Ambedkar saying in the Constituent Assembly that the term minority is used to "prevent political safeguards" and its definition can result in its interpretation in a narrow sense. The government decision, the Commission felt, will defeat the purpose of Article 30.

The Akali Dal is backing the commission and has written to the PM opposing the move.

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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