Author: Balbir K. Punj
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: January 16, 2006
Two "Acts" promulgated by the Indira
Gandhi government with an eye on the Muslim vote bank - the AMU Amendment
Act (1981) and the IMDT Act (1983) - have been struck down by the Allahabad
High Court and the Supreme Court respectively as "unconstitutional."
Yet, it is generally believed that the UPA government, in collusion with its
"secular" allies, would conjure up some kind of "Constitutional"
trickery to override the court judgments.
Union HRD minister Arjun Singh said that the
government would take all the necessary steps to preserve the "minority
status" (read, Islamic character) of AMU, even after the Allahabad High
Court recently quashed the government's review petition to that intent. Similarly,
the Andhra Pradesh chief minister, Y.S.R. Reddy, after the Supreme Court refused
to stay an Andhra Pradesh High Court judgment quashing the state government's
five per cent quota to Muslims, said that his government would still do everything
possible to defend its move. The Congress, with little respect for the judiciary,
has a history of overturning court verdicts with impunity, viz. bank nationalisation,
Privy Purses, imposition of Emergency, Shah Bano case etc.
The Congress, soon after being returned to
power in Andhra Pradesh in 2004, announced five per cent reservation for Muslims
in education and employment. It breached, in the process, an unwritten clause
in post-partition India - no reservation on religious grounds. The Separate
Electorates, implying political reservation, introduced by Morley-Minto Reforms
of 1909, had proved to be a milestone in the achievement of Pakistan. Our
Constitution-makers were prudent enough to do away with the system of Separate
Electorates in independent India. With the "secularists" working
overtime to turn the clock back, the buck has been passed on to the judiciary
to defend civil society from jihadi "secularism."
On August 10, 2005, a three-judge bench of
the Supreme Court, while turning down a petition for notifying the Jains as
a minority community, recommended that the list of notified minorities "is
gradually reduced and done away with altogether." Justice D.M. Dharmadhikari,
in the judgment, observed, "Such claims to minority status based on religion
would increase in the fond hope of various sections of people getting special
protections, privileges and treatment as part of constitutional guarantees…
Encouragement to such fissiparous tendencies would be a serious jolt to the
secular structure of constitutional democracy."
The latest in the pursuit of minority appeasement
is a 15-point programme prepared by the ministry for social justice and empowerment
which envisages resolving the budget allocation in different social welfare
schemes along communal lines. The plan earmarks reserving 18.4 per cent of
the total budget outlay in the social sector for the minorities, equivalent
to their population share in India. This would be further split state wise
for each minority community in every state (UPA's plan for minorities: we
will fix government spending as per their population share, Indian Express,
January 8, 2005).
A new Cabinet Committee on Minorities has
been proposed to monitor the implementation of the programme. This programme
would extend across Integrated Child Development Services, Anganwadi Centres,
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojna, Grameen Rozgar
Yojna and National Slum Development programme funds. But which particular
"minority" the programme has in mind is evident from the fact when
it speaks of Central assistance for hiring Urdu teachers, strengthening madrasa
modernisation programme, more grant to Maulana Azad Education Foundation,
and special consideration for minorities in recruitment in state and Central
police forces, as well as railways, banks and state-run enterprises.
This time it has not taken the Supreme Court
to inform the UPA government about the legal and constitutional incongruities.
According to the report, the Union law ministry has categorically stated that
the plan violates the Constitution. The UPA government's motive, under the
veneer of "secularism," is to widen the Hindu-Muslim divide as it
was in the British time. Minorities in India have been a euphemism for Muslims
alone. The "Majority," on the other hand, is an amorphous and unspecified
entity.
The "Majority," it is generally
assumed, is "Hindu," who should have all liability and responsibility
but no privilege or protection. But this "Hindu" is far from a constitutional
monolith, being fragmented into castes and categories, each with a political
constituency. But the Constitution of India has stopped short of giving Hindus
the sanctity of status - the core religion of India. The distinctiveness of
India is due to its Hindu-ness; and co-existence of religions is actually
an outflowing of Hindu ethos. Thanks to the "secularists," while
"Indian" is a much played up term, "Hindu" is branded
as "communal." But the fact is that friends and enemies of India
across the world view it as a "Hindu" country.
The ancient Persians mispronounced "Sindhu"
as "Hindu" and termed those living by the side of the legendary
river as "Hindus." The ancient Greeks (Greek does not have "H")
turned "Hindu" into Indus and Indians. While today all people living
in India are not Hindus, still it is Hindus who represent the core of its
identity and historical continuity. The legitimate interest of Hindus can't
be left to providence or God with esoteric belief in the indestructibility
of Sanatan Dharma.
The Congress establishment in the name of
"Kashmiriyat" has built up "Islamiyat," with disastrous
results for Kashmiri Pandits. By resettling Bangladeshi rice-cultivators in
Assam in droves it has made Assam half-Bangladesh. Now through such ill-conceived
gestures the clamour for proportional representation on communal grounds is
about to break out.
The UPA government seems to take us back to
the days of the Bengal Pact. The Bengal Provincial Congress Committee, under
the inspiration of C.R. Das, approved a Hindu-Muslim Pact in respect of Bengal
in 1923. Its main provisions were: a) representation in Legislative Council
on the basis of population with separate electorates; b) representation to
local bodies to be in proportion of 60 and 40 in every district - 60 to the
community which is in majority and 40 to the minority; c) 55 per cent of the
government posts should go to the Muslims. Muslims should be annually recruited
till this proportion is reached; d) no music should be allowed before a mosque;
e) there should be no interference with cow-killing for religious sacrifices,
but the cow should be killed in such a manner as not to wound the religious
feeling of the Hindus.
Thankfully, the Bengal Pact, which was taken
up for heated debate in the Subjects Committee of the Congress, was defeated
by a vote of 678 and 458 in the Congress. Many in the Congress felt that a
written pact of compromise would be suicidal to nationalism. It is important
to note here that the Congress, while it was struggling for independence of
India, was doing so in the name of Indian nationalism. It bent over backwards
to wash off the "Hindu party" stigma attached to it by the Muslims
who largely remained aloof from the freedom struggle. But while compromising
with Muslim leaders, it was posing as Hindu, assuming that the Hindus have
enough resources to bear the cost. Had Pakistan not been created, it is almost
sure, Hindus and Muslims would have had to enter into a Constitutional agreement
over proportional representation in legislative bodies, administrative posts
and armed forces. But the UPA government seems to be hell-bent on bringing
upon India the worse fate it escaped earlier.
Balbir K. Punj, a Rajya Sabha member and convenor
of BJP's Think Tank, can be contacted at bpunj@email.com
