11-14-2006, 06:15 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Communal quotas </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
This way lies folly and disaster
All of a sudden, unable to cope with mounting social and economic problems, not to mention the rapid collapse of the national security system, and the attendant criticism, <b>the UPA Government, more so the Congress, has begun to voice the demand for communal quotas.</b> What began as a bizarre move by the Congress Government of Andhra Pradesh to declare all Muslims as "backward" and reserve seats in educational institutions and jobs for them, is now fast snowballing into a clamour with insidious undertones. It would seem that even before the committee headed by Justice RS Sachar has formally submitted its cockamamie report on the socio-economic status of Muslims to the Prime Minister, others in Government, including those representing the Congress's 'secular' allies, are tripping over each other to demonstrate their commitment to the empowerment of minority communities by advocating communal quotas. Leading the pack is Union Minister for Minority Welfare AR Antulay who wants the Government to impose quotas for "Dalit Muslims" and "Dalit Christians" which are, in reality, fictional communities. For, neither Islam nor Christianity recognises the Hindu caste system: A Muslim or a Christian cannot be a Dalit. In fact, conversion to either faith is propagated among Dalit Hindus as a means of escaping their debilitating caste identity. What Mr Antulay is proposing, with more than wholehearted support from the Congress, is deceitful and dangerous: It is an attempt to justify the obnoxious demand for communal quotas by making it appear as a move to empower Dalits. Such disingenuous demands, as also those voiced by politicians who are brazen enough to push for communal quotas without any riders, should be rejected unambiguously and without allowing any spurious debate.<b> Since the Congress appears to have conveniently forgotten that Jawaharlal Nehru was opposed to the very idea of communal quotas, it would be instructive to recall his famous denunciation that "this way lies not only folly but disaster".</b>
Indeed, a special committee set up by the Constituent Assembly, after elaborate deliberation on the issue of communal quotas, rejected the idea in its entirety. Sardar Patel, summing up the committee's views, told the Constituent Assembly, "In the long run, it would be in the interest of all to forget that there is anything like a majority or a minority in this country and that in India there is only one community." Nehru seconded Patel by asserting, "If you seek to give safeguards to a minority... you isolate it... keeping it away from the main current in which the majority is going." Such was Nehru's abhorrence for communal quotas and his insistence that Muslims and Christians should not be given the benefit of reservations that his Government specifically defined the beneficiaries of Article 341 of the Constitution as Hindu Scheduled Castes and four Dalit groups among Sikhs - Kabirpanthis, Ramdasias, Sikligars and Mazhabis. Subsequent Presidential Orders and amendments, which extended the benefit of quotas to all Dalit Sikhs and neo-Buddhists, protected the stand taken by Nehru and Patel from being subverted. Five decades later, those who claim to be the inheritors of Nehru's vision of India - Patel has long ceased to be part of the pantheon of Congress leaders - are busy demolishing the cornerstone of his quota policy, their eyes lusting for Muslim votes.
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The Pioneer Edit Desk
This way lies folly and disaster
All of a sudden, unable to cope with mounting social and economic problems, not to mention the rapid collapse of the national security system, and the attendant criticism, <b>the UPA Government, more so the Congress, has begun to voice the demand for communal quotas.</b> What began as a bizarre move by the Congress Government of Andhra Pradesh to declare all Muslims as "backward" and reserve seats in educational institutions and jobs for them, is now fast snowballing into a clamour with insidious undertones. It would seem that even before the committee headed by Justice RS Sachar has formally submitted its cockamamie report on the socio-economic status of Muslims to the Prime Minister, others in Government, including those representing the Congress's 'secular' allies, are tripping over each other to demonstrate their commitment to the empowerment of minority communities by advocating communal quotas. Leading the pack is Union Minister for Minority Welfare AR Antulay who wants the Government to impose quotas for "Dalit Muslims" and "Dalit Christians" which are, in reality, fictional communities. For, neither Islam nor Christianity recognises the Hindu caste system: A Muslim or a Christian cannot be a Dalit. In fact, conversion to either faith is propagated among Dalit Hindus as a means of escaping their debilitating caste identity. What Mr Antulay is proposing, with more than wholehearted support from the Congress, is deceitful and dangerous: It is an attempt to justify the obnoxious demand for communal quotas by making it appear as a move to empower Dalits. Such disingenuous demands, as also those voiced by politicians who are brazen enough to push for communal quotas without any riders, should be rejected unambiguously and without allowing any spurious debate.<b> Since the Congress appears to have conveniently forgotten that Jawaharlal Nehru was opposed to the very idea of communal quotas, it would be instructive to recall his famous denunciation that "this way lies not only folly but disaster".</b>
Indeed, a special committee set up by the Constituent Assembly, after elaborate deliberation on the issue of communal quotas, rejected the idea in its entirety. Sardar Patel, summing up the committee's views, told the Constituent Assembly, "In the long run, it would be in the interest of all to forget that there is anything like a majority or a minority in this country and that in India there is only one community." Nehru seconded Patel by asserting, "If you seek to give safeguards to a minority... you isolate it... keeping it away from the main current in which the majority is going." Such was Nehru's abhorrence for communal quotas and his insistence that Muslims and Christians should not be given the benefit of reservations that his Government specifically defined the beneficiaries of Article 341 of the Constitution as Hindu Scheduled Castes and four Dalit groups among Sikhs - Kabirpanthis, Ramdasias, Sikligars and Mazhabis. Subsequent Presidential Orders and amendments, which extended the benefit of quotas to all Dalit Sikhs and neo-Buddhists, protected the stand taken by Nehru and Patel from being subverted. Five decades later, those who claim to be the inheritors of Nehru's vision of India - Patel has long ceased to be part of the pantheon of Congress leaders - are busy demolishing the cornerstone of his quota policy, their eyes lusting for Muslim votes.
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