More on Ummid: International l National Regional l Politics Sports Religion l History l Culture l Education

 

 

MP bags South Asia’s E-governance Manthan Awards

Bhopal to host Urdu teachers training workshop from today

Justice Syed Rafat Alam sworn-in as Chief Justice of MP High Court

India’s services sector grew at faster pace in first seven months

'Scrap Presidential order discriminating SC/ST on basis of religion'

Gujarat makes voting compulsory in civic elections

UK Muslims most patriotic in Europe

Christian groups demand implementation of Misra Panel Report

Mainstream schools to admit autistic children: Sibal

 

Minorities’ welfare and UPA government initiatives : An analysis: For the welfare of minorities Late Prime Minister of India...... Read Full

A New Muslim identity emerging in different regions and social classes: VP

The side of Indian Muslims Sachar Committee missed in its Report

Maharashtra Govt. approves Legislators' Committee to monitor development of minorities: Finally, Maharashtra .... Read Full

Kerala Govt. says NO to legislation against forced conversion

   

Ram and Rahim as Good Neighbors: The leak and tabling of Liberhan Commission report has created a big turmoil in the country. While most of the sides have .... Read Full

2009: A year of Congress triumph and MNS rise: It was a 'double triumph' for Congress in Maharashtra in 2009 as it not only decimated the BJP-Shiv Sena combine in the Lok Sabha .... Read Full

Time to nail the Iraq lie: How right Edward Gibbon was when he said history is little more than the register of crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind. But perhaps no register is enough to chronicle.... Read Full

'US backing to Israel reason for the Middle-East crisis':  Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said that US backing for Israel gave the Jewish state the option of not making peace. In an interview published .... Read Full

   

More on ummid

 

After LS and Assembly, Congress loses Mayor election in Malegaon: Amid high drama and contrary to widely publicised speculations, the Indian National ..... Read Full

Goa blast: Prime accused linked to two more Hindu groups: The Goa Home Ministry has said Malgonda Patil, prime accused in the Margao blast, was also .... Read Full

Indian professor Germany’s youngest university chief: Joybrato Mukherjee, a 36-year-old professor of English whose parents immigrated from India, became Germany’s youngest chief executive of a university..... Read Full

Ghettoes in the making: As per the report in a section of media recently (November 2009) UK based Muslim charities have warned the Muslims living in the relief colonies set .... Read Full

Thackeray’s sick mind unable to accept Muslim as PM of India: SDPI: The Social Democratic Party of India, (SDPI), has taken strong exception to the Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's statement about Rahul Gandhi .... Read Full

Delhi Sanskriti School pulled up for bias: Taking serious view of the fact that Sanskriti School in the capital was following discriminatory policies, the Delhi High Court asked the well known school to explain its criteria for admission.... Read Full

 

 

Reservation will not help Muslims, will only open Pandora's box

 

Monday, December 21, 2009 01:07:46 PM, Firoz Bakht Ahmed IANS

'Reservation should not kill the competition': The Ranganath Commission panel, which recommended reservation for Muslims and other minorities in government jobs, has said that it should not be used to "kill" competitive..... Read Full

AP Govt. launches welfare schemes for minority Christians

Rangnath Commission Report tabled in Parliament, VHP threatens stir

Christian groups demand implementation of Misra Panel Report

'Scrap Presidential order discriminating SC/ST on basis of religion'

The way to hell, we are told, is paved with good intentions.

 

The Ranganath Mishra Commission report, tabled in the winter session of parliament, recommends 15 percent reservation for all minorities in government jobs, education and welfare schemes, of which 10 percent quota is for Muslims - the largest minority in the country.

 

Be it Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, Muslim Dalits or other so-called minorities for that matter, reservations are a menace for the entire system. On the otherwise secular and composite fabric of India, reservations are a thorn in the neck.

 

Reservations will not help Muslims.

 

Rather they must tell the government to open more schools in their areas than police stations. Instead of fighting over smaller slices of a small pie of the national income, what is needed is the expansion of the national pie which would help everyone to get their rightful and bigger share. The oppressed and the marginalized people need expansion of opportunities rather than favours from the state.

 

As a law abiding Indian Muslim, I feel that words such as reservation, minority, majority be deleted from the Indian Constitution in the context of quotas based on caste or religion. Umpteen reservations including the minorities, SC/ST, Kashmiri migrants and army personnel have already affected the consideration for going in for merit.

 

I want the minorities to have an honourable place by having to stop looking at charity in the form of quota and accept the challenge of a competitive life.

 

That some politically motivated scholars are in favour of reservations is shocking in the sense that they want the Indian Muslim community to go in for the begging bowl rather than to compete and make a dent in the field of merit.

 

Those advocating Muslims' reservations must note that ostrich mentality is never going to help Muslims. If they accept quotas, whatever merit we see today, too will wane as nobody would like to work hard and compete. They have to perform or perish!

 

It would be worth examining as to what the founding fathers say about reservations. Interestingly, both Sardar Patel and C.

Rajgopalachari did vehemently support the charter of providing political safeguards to the minorities according to articles 292 and 294 of the 1949 draft constitution, but five leaders out of seven, namely Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Maulana Hifzur Rehman, Begum Aizaz Rasul, Hussainbhoy Laljee and Tajammul Hussain opposed it.

 

Fact remains and history has proved it that reservations on communal lines are not in the interest of national unity and integrity as it might start a chain reaction among other religious groups as well. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, while addressing on democratization in an important session of the Constituent Assembly on May 26, 1949, said, "If you seek to give safeguards to a minority, you isolate it... Maybe, you protect it to a slight extent but at what cost - at the cost of isolating and keeping it away from the main current."

 

The problem with this kind of lop-sided reservation is that the real beneficiaries of reservation may be the economically well-off "backward community" members who generation after generation reap the benefits at the expense of the real needy from the general sections as has been seen in the case of the 22.5 percent quotas in the institutions of higher education like the IIMs, IITs etc. The government needs to put a stop to such abuses.

 

Opines lawyer Meenakshi Lekhi, "I am not against reservation but I am against this type of reservation. Reservations should not be based on caste. Indeed government has a duty to provide education equally to everybody but when the government is asking for reservation in education, it is actually showing its inability to give education to everybody within the present educational infrastructure."

 

K.R. Malkani, former BJP vice president, wrote in his treatise on Indian Muslims that according to the United Nations, the group that's identified as a minority is one that by religion, language, ethnicity or culture constitutes less than 10 percent of the population of a state.

 

As per this statute, the Muslims were a minority decades ago but now they are not. In fact, they are the second majority. Malkani also states that nowhere in the 52-odd Muslim countries or, for that matter, anywhere in the world where Muslims are a majority, do non-Muslims have the privileges, protection and rights that India offers to the minorities.

 

It is time that we Indians give up this ghettoized minority-majority mindset. Voices of reason demand that educational standards and qualifications should be uniform, whatever the language, religion or region.

 

So far as the Muslim community is concerned, the reservations' process will be wrought with imperfections as the community is divided into umpteen castes and sub-castes, a system that has percolated in them through their Hindu neighbourhoods.

 

Muslims have four major caste divisions, namely - Ashraf at the top (Syed, Sheikh, Mughal and Pathan), Atraj, the second rung (Rajput, Tyagi, Thakur, Jaat etc), Azrab, the third rung (Julahe, Kunjre, Darzi, Mirasi, Qasab, Naiee, Mahigir etc), and Azlab, at the lowest rung (Halalkhor, Chamar, Lalbezi etc).

 

If the Muslims as a minority, are given the reservations, the Ashraf and Atraj would be deprived of it, which would again create a virtual pandemonium. Fact is that in many cases amongst Muslims, as also in Hindus, the lower rung people are fairly well placed in comparison to the ones belonging to higher castes!

 

My suggestion is that financial aid be granted on the basis of performance instead of seat reservation.

 

20-12-2009-Firoz Bakht Ahmed is a commentator on social and educational issues. He can be contacted at firozbakhtahmed07@gmail.com


 


 

 

 

  Bookmark and Share

Home | Top of the Page

  Comment on this article

Name:
E-mail Address:
Write here...
     
     
 

 
 
 

Ummid.com: Home | Contact Us | Disclaimer | Terms of Use | About Us | Feedback

Ummid Business: Advertise with us | Careers | Link Exchange

Ummid.com is part of Awaz Multimedia & Publications providing World News, News Analysis and Feature Articles on Education, Health. Politics, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, Industry etc. The articles or the views displayed on this website are for public information and in no way describe the editorial views. The users are entitled to use this site subject to the terms and condition mentioned.