State News And Discussion - II

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5% reservation for muslims in Andhra pradesh <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Being a student myself, it's so disheartening to see the pontiffied cleric Y.Samuel R. Reddy reosrting to such a disastrous step. WTF is going on !!, Is there no cinematic & charismatic leader who can take upto all these mullah's and missionary mafia's ? Not one ?

I still remember this event, i had to give away my seat to a SC student who has gotten a rank of 50,000 plus in the engineering entrance, inspite of me being in the top 1000 :F*** Them. India has never seen education through intellectual competence. Either possess the paisey or reservation !! F*** no, i had none.

Is this being secular and plural ? The govt of India is indirectly responsible for my hatred against the so called lower caste's and the political hindu's. It certianly sucks to be a poor fellow from the upper caste especially from the family of brahmins. But, my brahminhood gave me a reason to live, I would be blessed if I'm re-born in the same famiily no matter what.

F*ck off - you Samuel's and Stalin-Sonia's

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald...04/sl1.asp

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One more knot in the quota tangle

Reservation for religious minorities is a Pandora’s Box. Andhra Pradesh introduced 5 pc reservation for Muslims, but the high court has stayed it. Karnataka and Kerala are the only states which have a quota for Muslims.

When a good idea is politicised, the people get victimised and pay the price. A community gets alienated, society gets divided and the country, wounded. It happened with Mandal and history threatens to repeat itself with the five per cent reservation for Muslims in Andhra Pradesh.

There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that a large number of Muslims are socially and economically backward and need a helping hand. “Other than the Dalits there is no group as backward as the Muslims in Andhra Pradesh,” says Prof Javed Alam who teaches European Philosophy in the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages, a deemed university in Hyderabad. Reservation is fully justified and will go a long way in shoring up the community educationally and consequently economically, he says. “But I believe anything that weakens democracy, the secular foundations of the country and the Muslim community itself should be avoided,” he says. The issue of reservation may give a handle to the forces of the Hindu Right so a better way needs to be found on how the community can be helped.

On July 12, the Congress government, headed by Dr Y S Rajashekhar Reddy, ordered five per cent reservation for Muslims in educational institutions and employment by including them in the Backward Classes and categorising them as BC ‘E’. Fulfilling its election promise to Muslims, the Congress government issued a government order (GO) on quota which came into effect immediately. The GO quoted a study of Muslims by the Minorities’ Welfare Commissioner that revealed that 65 per cent of the Muslims in the state out of a total of 64 lakhs (8.5 per cent of the population) were below the poverty line, that is, an annual income of Rs 11,000. Another 16 per cent were under the double poverty limit of an annual income of Rs 44,500 taking the economically depressed Muslims to 81 per cent.
A few supporters of the Sangh Parivar moved court. The AP High Court stayed the operation of the GO pending its disposal by a full bench. The main objections were that reservation based on religion was unconstitutional, that the total reservation would be 51 per cent (25% for BCs, 15% for SCs, 6% for STs and 5% to Muslims), exceeding the 50 per cent bar placed by the Supreme Court, and that there should be reservation for the socially and economically backward people rather than the entire religious group.

Besides, the Backward Classes Commission was not consulted before categorising Muslims as backward, as directed by the SC. What is of importance is that several backward Muslim communities such as Ansari, Jhulai, Khatiq, Mehtar or Bin, Noorbash are already included in BC ‘A’ and 1‘B’, that is, the most backward group. The Puttaswamy Commission on Backward Classes, to which the issue of declaring Muslims and Kapus as backward was referred to 12 years ago, did not submit its report although it reportedly favoured both communities. The Chandrababu Naidu government allowed the commission to lapse as it was not keen to court controversy or offend its ally the BJP.

Hasty decision

Those in the know admit that the Congress decision was hasty and taken without the government doing any homework. Apparently, even the Muslim ministers have been taken by surprise. “The decision was taken overnight and the GO announced even as the Assembly was in session...they were waiting for the green signal from Delhi and the moment it came action was initiated. Quite clearly, it was done for political benefit,” says a Muslim expert who has close connections with people in the corridors of power.

A highly respected bureaucrat who waged a war to implement the various provisions and reservations for the underprivileged during his tenure in the highest positions in government, points out that reservation has been limited to employment in public services while its impact has been in education especially higher education and professional courses. He also points out that the Muslims have been grossly under-represented in both public services and educational institutions. Reservation will give them more opportunities. According to an estimate, Muslim students will get 150 seats in medical courses, 3800 in engineering, 1300 in MBA and MCA, and 300 each in pharmacy and law. Education is the accepted road to economic prosperity, supporters of reservation point out.
However, Muslim experts and leaders admit that the ‘creamy layer’ of the community should be excluded from reservation although this layer is extremely thin, as thin as 2 per cent, according to some estimates. The elite or the creamy layer in any case is against identifying itself as “backward”, says Zaheeruddin Ali Khan, editor of Siasat, one of the largest circulated Urdu dailies from Hyderabad. As many as 80 per cent of the community’s middle class are against the tag of BC while 98 per cent of the poor support it, a study done by Siasat reveals.

Siasat does its bit to identify and nurture talent in the community. A training programme on which Siasat spent Rs 50,000 led to eight young men being recruited into the state police. A similar amount spent on training youth for call centres for two months resulted in 60 persons getting jobs. This academic year saw 12 students getting admission to BITS, Pilani, one to IIM, Ahmedabad, seven to IITs, three to IIIT, Hyderabad, apart from several others in other professional courses. All the students are from the poorest of the poor and half of them are girls. The five per cent reservation will multiply this effect several times more, says Zaheeruddin, provided the need for equality is recognised. As Prof Alam says, “This will not divide society on religious lines. On the other hand it will integrate the community with the rest of the society by developing a stake among Muslims for the country and society.” It will also deepen political allegiance to the party that gives them access to opportunities. Provided that there is no scope for misuse of the move, and some political sagacity.

R. AKHILESHWARI

in Hyderabad


Kerala shows the way

Kerala’s experience with job reservation for backward classes has been virtually pioneering since it dates back to the era of the Maharajas who ruled the princely States of Travancore and Kochi in the 1930s and the system introduced by the erstwhile Madras State in Malabar district which later formed north Kerala. Since Muslims constitute a major chunk of the socially and educationally backward sections in the state, they have been enjoying the benefit of reservation in jobs and later, professional education.

However, with reservation becoming a milch cow in modern-day vote-bank politics, Kerala has, of late, been witnessing deep divisions between forward and backward communities on the issue. It began with the Indian Union Muslim League, a dominant partner of the ruling UDF, dusting the Justice Narendran Commission report of 2001 which had found that several communities, including Muslims, had not got their due representation despite reservation.

According to the present norms being followed by the Kerala Public Service Commission which has been conducting recruitment to government and allied services since 1957, Muslims have a quota of 12 per cent in gazetted and non-gazetted posts and 10 per cent in last-grade recruitment. This is only second to the 14 per cent reservation for the Ezhava community in the state.

“There is no doubt that Muslims have come a long way in government service and professional education. But there are serious anomalies in the way the quota system is being implemented,’’ says former Education Minister and IUML State secretary E T Mohammed Basheer. “The Narendran Commission has reported a shortfall of over 7,300 posts for Muslims. We demand special recruitment to cover this gap,’’ he says.

The Ezhava community is not favourably disposed to implementing the report which had exposed the fact that Ezhavas had already exceeded their job quota by more than 8 per cent.

The Nair Service Society (NSS), which represents forward caste Nairs, has strongly warned the UDF Government against implementing the recommendations of the Narendran Commission and going in for a special recruitment.

“If the UDF implements the Commission report, we will ensure that no MLA who supports it sees the legislative Assembly again,’’ says NSS general secretary P K Narayana Panikker. NSS assistant secretary Sukumaran Nair claims that Muslims and other beneficiaries of reservation have progressed by leaps and bounds over the years. He points to a recent news report which revealed that Malappuram district which has a huge Muslim population had come second after Thiruvananthapuram in this year’s Medical Entrance examination by bagging 116 out of the first 1,000 ranks.

NSS warning

The NSS leaders met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and AICC president Sonia Gandhi last Wednesday and urged them to advise the Antony Government against special recruitment. The NSS is demanding, among other things, the setting up of a permanent commission to segregate the creamy layer among the backward classes. Echoing the NSS viewpoint, the BJP feels that though the oppressed classes have a right to claim reservation, it should not go on endlessly. “It is unjust of the Muslim community to demand more and more. There is also a need to reserve seats for the economically backward among the forward castes,’’ says party State general secretary, P P Mukundan.

As part of the “struggle to get our due’’, an umbrella of Muslim organisations, including political parties like IUML and INL, has taken the lead to convene a congregation of backward communities enjoying reservation at Kochi on August 3. Though the timing of the IUML’s demand to implement the report (the Narendran panel report was published in 2001) is ascribed to the ongoing cold war between the Antony-led Congress and the IUML in the ruling UDF, the report has put the focus back on the issue of reservation in jobs and higher education.

R. GOPAKUMAR

in Thiruvananthapuram


No need, says Jaya

Tamil Nadu has 69 per cent reservation for Scheduled Castes and Tribes and Other Backward Classes, the highest in the country. But it has no reservation for religious minorities. Successive Dravidian governments have found it difficult to sustain this 69 per cent reservation in the face of the Supreme Court ruling in the Mandal case that the overall percentage should not exceed 50. What is happening since the Mandal judgement is a farce of sorts. Each year, the government fills seats in colleges on the basis of 69 per cent reservation and then increases the offtake of meritorious students from forward communites under the apex court directive, thereby bringing the effective percentage back to 50.

Since the quota is already above the limit fixed by the apex court, there is no question of any government increasing the percentage to accommodate more groups, religious or otherwise. Chief Minister J Jayalalitha has categorically ruled out reservation for religious minorities. She has said: “Muslims are not the only minority in this country” and if their plea is conceded, it will lead to similar demands frome Christians, who are equal in number. In any case, “minorities already have privileges under the Constitution which are not available even to the majority community”.

Provoked by Ms Jayalalitha’s stand, the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam has announced it will picket her residence and hold state-wide demonstrations soon. The TMMK president, Prof M H Jawahirullah, describes as equally “horrendous” the statement by former Prime Minister A B Vajpayee that reservation for Muslims would inspire religious conversions. There has been no such conversion rush in Karnataka and Kerala which have have had reservation for Muslims for many years, he argues.

Prof Jawahirullah points out that the New Educational Policy (NEP) released by the Union Government in 1986 has declared that Muslims and Neo-Buddhists, are, educationally the “most backward" across the country. “In fact, with respect to some variables, Indian Muslims fare much worse than the Scheduled Castes and Tribes,” he says.

Also, the Gopal Singh Panel, appointed by the Centre to ascertain if the benefits of government fiscal policies reached the minorities, Scheduled Castes and Tribes and other weaker sections of society, has candidly admitted that “there is a common belief that Muslims in general have remained largely unaffected by the economic development in the country despite successive five year plans” and their economic condition “is becoming worse”.

Dalit Christians in Tamil Nadu have been agitating for reservation for years. Bishop Ezra Sargunam, a prominent Christian leader in Tamil Nadu and president of the ‘Social Justice Movement of India’, says the “cunning Brahmin lobby” had “craftily” inserted a clause in the Constitution through a Presidential order in 1950, stating that “no person who professes a religion different from Hinduism shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste” for the purpose of reservation. “With this, the Dalit Christians, who once enjoyed preferential treatment alongside the other Dalits, were quite unethically deprived of it. This right must be restored to them.”

S MURARI

in Chennai
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