January31, 2010
Sachar to Ranganath
Cannibalizing Hindu society
By Sandhya Jain
Racism is a child of colonialism. When White Christians went to other
lands and enslaved people (Africa) or colonised them, the
discriminatory relationship between the 'Master Race' and the
colonised was called 'Racism'. Based mainly on colour consciousness,
it held that the enslaved/colonised were inferior human species,
worthy of subjugation.
The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance has, in successive
incarnations, been determined to give Muslims and Christians
extraordinary precedence and weightage, with a clear long-term
objective of driving Hindus out of public spaces.
The writer has always maintained that Secularism was imposed upon an
unsuspecting nation solely to ensure the negation and erosion of the
Hindu ethos in the nascent Republic. In contrast, minorities were
empowered to maintain their separate identities and pursue their
separate agendas. Initially they enjoyed political weightage as a
vote-bank of the dominant Congress party, but as they began to
experiment with other 'non-communal' parties to increase their
communal powers, the UPA has sought to buy their loyalty by offering
economic precedence as well. Hence Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's
fatuous declamation that 'Muslims have the first claim' on national
resources!
The UPA's accidental ascent in 2004 proved to be a boom-time for
minorities, even though the Italian-born Roman Catholic Sonia Gandhi
failed to become Prime Minister. She became UPA chairperson mentor,
leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party, and enjoyed Cabinet rank
as head of the National Advisory Committee (till the office of profit
controversy forced her to resign).
Sonia Gandhi moved to implement her minority agenda with alacrity.
Pope John Paul II had previously called for planting the Cross in
Asia; in America, President George Bush, Jr., had launched the Joshua
Project 2000 for conversion of the unreached masses world-wide. It is
within this paradigm that we must view UPA's setting-up the Rajinder
Sachar Committee and later the National Commission for Religious and
Linguistic Minorities, headed by Ranganath Misra, retired judge,
Supreme Court.
Given India's current demography, it made sense to promote the 13 per
cent Muslims at the expense of the Hindu majority. But as we have seen
in Indonesia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and even Srinagar, evangelists
target Muslim communities as determinedly as they target Hindus and
other non-monotheists. Christians (already believed to be 7-8 per cent
per cent of the population) are confident of using minority provisions
to further their interests, and eventually overtake Muslims in making
conversions to the 'true' faith.
The Sachar Committee, set-up to evaluate the social, economic and
educational status of Muslims, in its report in 2006, called for
path-breaking efforts to include Muslims in the national mainstream
and address supposed inequities experienced by them. It recommended
creation of an Equal Opportunity Commission, modelled on the UK Race
Relations Act, 1976, to look into the grievances of religious
minorities. This fallacious but vicious attempt to equate Race with
Religion is now on the anvil, and can only add to inter-community
strains.
Racism is a child of colonialism. When White Christians went to other
lands and enslaved people (Africa) or colonised them, the
discriminatory relationship between the 'Master Race' and the
colonised was called 'Racism'. Based mainly on colour consciousness,
it held that the enslaved / colonised were inferior human species,
worthy of subjugation. Racism is a pervasive western reality
(currently experienced by Indians in Australia) and cannot be equated
with strains among peoples of different faiths. Moreover, how can
faiths that conquered and ruled India - Islam and Christianity -
suffer poverty, ill-education, or other forms of discrimination!
The Equal Opportunity Commission will make normal life impossible. A
Muslim unable to buy a house at a favourable price can level
allegations of discrimination against the seller; a bad employee
cannot be dismissed if hailing from a minority group. The fight
against terrorism will become virtually impossible, as every police
officer can expect to be arraigned before this Commission.
True, Sachar does not recommend reservation in education and jobs for
Muslims, as that would be ultra vires of the Constitution and liable
to be dismissed in court. But it coyly seeks "multifarious measures,
including reservation" for Muslims with similar traditional
occupations as Scheduled Castes, and wants such groups designated as
Most Backward Classes, with reservations disguised as 'affirmative
action' (an American catch-phrase) so they cannot be constitutionally
challenged.
The report reflects preconceived notions: the Muslim community shows
"deficits and deprivation" in almost all aspects of development;
Muslims rank above SCs/STs but below Hindu OBCs, Other Minorities and
Hindu upper castes; and Muslims are most backward in States with large
Muslim populations, such as West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and
Assam.
Sachar suggests specific initiatives to address educational, career
and political deprivation among Muslims: free and compulsory
education; institutionalising the process of evaluating school
textbooks to better reflect community-specific sensitivities;
setting-up quality government schools, especially for girls, in areas
of Muslim concentration and providing primary education in Urdu where
the language is widely used.
The Ranganath Misra Commission, which submitted its report in 2007,
recommended 15 per cent reservation in education and government
employment for minorities; 8.4 per cent out of the existing OBC quota
of 27 per cent for minorities; and inclusion of Muslim and Christian
Dalits in the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe list for reservation
benefits.
In the 2005 winter session of the Parliament, UPA pushed a Bill
extending SC, ST and OBC reservations to all educational institutions,
including private schools, excluding minority institutions though
education and conversion are both lucrative industries! UPA reacted
sharply when a division bench of the Allahabad High Court concurred
that the Aligarh Muslim University is not a minority institution as it
was created by an Act of Parliament, and hence cannot reserve 50 per
cent seats for Muslim students. Congress also tried to subvert the
Andhra High Court decision striking down five per cent reservations
for Muslims in State employment.
UPA-I pushed for caste-based reservations in the private sector, till
Wipro chairman Azim Premji expressed corporate India's dislike of the
measure. The Right to Education has made reservation in education
irrelevant. The Centre annually collects Rs 6,000 crore as education
cess; setting-up the required number of schools will achieve cent per
cent literacy in one decade.
Reservations to converts are a ruse to finance conversions through the
public exchequer. Soon evangelists will demand access to SC/ST seats
in the Parliament and the State Assemblies - political reservations by
the backdoor!
The critical issue is 'Caste'. The British realised caste was the iron
curtain which frustrated attempts to convert the population, and hence
attacked caste. But evangelists realised that the best way to increase
their numbers was by gaining access to caste-based reservation
benefits. After Mandal Commission listed some 'Muslim castes' among
OBCs, Christians began to press for SC/ST benefits for 'Dalit
Christians.'
But can those who have renounced their Hindu identity, and ended the
so-called social stigma associated with Hinduism, justly receive the
benefits of a caste identity equated with being Hindu? Christianity
and Islam cannot be allowed to use caste to undermine Hindu society
from within. Nor can they mistreat converts and garner reservation
benefits in their name!
Clearly, larger issues are at stake than can be dealt with in the
course of an article. Hindu society must view any move to extend
special political, economic or educational privileges to minorities as
an assault upon India's native religion and culture, its demographic
balance, and its civilisational ethos. The Sachar Committee and
Ranganath Misra Commission are state-sponsored assaults upon the unity
and continuity of Hindu dharma in India, and must be seen as religious
persecution on the part of the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA.
(The author is a senior columnist.)
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