Religion, Caste And Tribe Based Reservation - 3

[Guest]

{Came via email}

<b>Demand by missionaries and mullas for treating Dalit Christian and muslim converts on par with S/C and S/T Hindus for purposes of Constitutional and other legal privileges.</b>

It is widely known that the present Government at the Center, deeply intent to make the religious minorities special citizens and a vote bank in elections, has set up the present National Commission for religious and linguistic minorities, under the chair of Justice Ranganath Mishra. The Commission does not have any Hindu voice as a member and is loaded with known Hindu baiters representing the two large and powerful religious minorities in the country. The silver lining, however, is that Ex-Chief Justice Sri Ranganath Mishra is in the Chair of the Commission.

The Commission has invited public opinion on “requests to designate scheduled caste Hindu converts to Islam and Christianity as Scheduled castes”. The time limit given is three weeks.

This matter was considered many times in the past both within GOI and by the Judiciary. The demand was rejected more than once in both.

The arguments against the demand are known. Still, from a well-written representation ( Kerala Branch of the Federation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) given to the Mishra Commission, I summarise below a few points:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->· Christians and Muslims may be numerically ‘minority’ but they are much more powerful, than the so called ‘majority’ Hindus, with their enormous worldwide resources which are put to conversion. This demand is nothing more than another attempt to secure more sinew for conversion and for grabbing political power.
· Please refer to Project Joshua and the new project Thessalonica (see attachment).
· Converts already enjoy all benefits, as Hindu OBCs and now they want the privileges of S/C and S/T. Why?
· Constitutional benefits for S/c and S/t were meant to mitigate the disabilities on account of ‘untouchability’ a phenomenon that dogged Hindu society for several hundred years. Christian conversion is primarily based on the inapplicability of any such kind of caste disability after conversion.
· Comparing these minority religions with Budhism or Sikhism (converts to these religions don’t lose their S/C and S/T benefits) is invalid because they are not aggressive prosyletising religions.
· The very term S/C and S/T has a nexus exclusively with Hindu religion. The present demand mischievously wants to remove this nexus.
· Given the SC Judgements capping reservations, conceding the demand will definitely mean that S/C and S/T who refuse to convert will definitely lose, with the eligibility of converted “Dalits” to same treatment.
· In 1996 the National Commission on S/C and S/T, clearly opined that this demand must not be accepted for a variety of reasons.
· The Planning Commission also was not in favour of this demand.
· The Supreme Court has held, inter alia, against the demand in Soosai vs Union Of India ( AIR 1986, SC 733) with elaborate analysis of the entire concept of special privileges for the deprived castes within Hinduism. The present Government is attempting to nullify that judgement by encouraging concerted religious minority pressure.
· Converted Christians already enjoy all benefits of reservation in education and in employment under Art 15(4) and 16(4) of the Constitution. The present demand, spearheaded by the World Council of Churches and the Indian counterparts is really to secure reservation of seats in legislatures, Panchayats,Municipalities etc. under Art. 330,332, 243D and 243T of the Constitution, and also in governing bodies of Statutory institutions. This means without any doubt “political power” to overwhelm Hindu majority in the entire polity. This is a diabolical move. See how much clout these two ‘minority’ religions wield already in the Northeast, in Kerala and a large number of electoral constituencies ( Religious demography of India by Center for Policy Studies ).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->