The Economist Article on Job Quotas and Indian Muslims

This article published in the Economist (March 4, 2010) highlights the poor socio-economic situation and educational backwardness among the majority of Muslims, the largest religious minority in India. Relying upon the Sachchar Committee’s Report and Ranganath Mishra Commission’s findings, both of which it does not name, the article stresses on the fact that that the situation of most of the India’s 160 Muslims is as bad as Dalits. It also quotes the Commission on why the Dalit Muslims and Christians are also entitled to reservation, as they too, like their Hindu brethren are ‘deprived.” The article blames the politicization of the entire issue by the mainstream political parties for electoral gains as one of the major reasons for lack of any concrete action.

Although the article recognizes the importance of reservation in social upliftment, it expresses doubt about the same being panacea for all ills. To support the same it point out a large section Dalits despite having the benefit of the quota based affirmative actions for the last six decades still continues to be social, economically and educationally backward. At the same time it notes that “‘unlike that downtrodden group, do Muslims lack inspiring torchbearers. They already dominate Bollywood and include many sports stars. Above all, India’s Muslims need better schools and better jobs, as do most poor Indians.”

This article forms another piece in the series of articles in the recent days that have sought to analyze the problems plaguing the Indian Muslims and the political reasons for inordinate delay/inability to take credible action bring the community into mainstream. Earlier posts on the blog have also discussed the feasibility of extension of quota-based reservation to socially and educationally backward classes among religious minorities.

EPW Editorial on Reservation for Muslims in West Bengal

February 20, 2010 issue of Economic and Political Weekly carries an editorial ("Editorial") comment (available here) on the recent judgement of the Andhra Pradesh High Court that struck down reservations for Muslims in Andhra Pradesh as unconstitutional, inter alia, on the ground of absence of correct mechanisms to identify the beneficiaries and the fear of religious conversions.  This blog has previously commented on the Andhra Pradesh High Court here.

The Editorial comments that in view of the strict approach of the West Bengal Government to have more sharp policy for identification of backward Muslims, it is unlikely that the logic of the judgement of the Andhra Pradesh High Court can be extended to a similar action taken by the West Bengal Government. 

The Editorial also contains comments about the Report of the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities ("Justice Ranganath Misra Commission Report") and says that some of the recommendations such as proportionate reservation for Muslims directly contradicts express provisions of the Constitution. 

Identification Question and Reservation for Undeserved : Andhra Muslim Quota fails Equality Test

A Seven judge bench of the High Court at Andhra Pradesh a majority of 5:2 has struck down the A.P. Reservation in Favour of Socially Educationally Backward Classes of Muslims Act, 2007 (“the Act”) as unconstitutional describing the Act as “unsustainable” and “religion-specific”. The judgment is available here. Amongst other reasons, the Court reasoned that the Act potentially encourages religious conversions. Zoya Hasan in her book “Politics of Inclusion” has suggested that fear of religious conversions (though not supported by statistics) is a major factor inhibiting extension of affirmative action to minorities.

The majority judgment was delivered by Chief Justice A R Dave. Justice T. Meena Kumari gave a separate and concurring judgment allowing the writ petitions for different reasons. B. Prakasha Rao, J. and D.S.R. Varma, J. provided the minority view.

The Act provided four percent reservation to certain backward sections of Muslims by introducing an additional “E” group in the existing Backward Classes enjoying reservation, first through an ordinance and then the legislation. The Court severely criticized the report of the A.P. Commission for Backward Classes (“APBC”) which formed the basis of the government action for its procedural errors and glaring irregularities. The Commission failed to come up with definite criteria to identify the backward classes among Muslims.

The High Court further held that the quick survey and the fast track method employed by the APBC Commission was faulty and in substance, amounted to a ‘hit and run method’ and therefore cannot be approved of. The Court said that it was deplorable that the Commission was not even aware of the population of the groups of Muslims selected for inclusion in the E category among the Backward Classes and the government to provide and objective basis for its action. I
As per Justice T. Meena Kumari, “the APBC Commission has acted in a hasty manner and without any scientific survey, I am of the opinion that the data collected is not sufficient for the Government to come to the conclusion that specific classes of Muslims can be classified as ‘backward class’ for the purpose of Articles 15(5) and 16(4) of the Constitution of India. The Commission has not proceeded on correct lines to assess the social and educational backwardness as indicated in other cases or has followed any criteria for such assessment. In the absence of any such material, it has to be held that the State Government has utterly failed to discharge its onus of proof to establish that the reservations are for socially and educationally backward classes of citizens and that the enactment is based on sufficient material to support the classification. If the court perceives that the identified classes exist, then the Court will uphold such law for the purpose of doing social justice, but in the instant case the exercise of identifying specific group of backward classes is not rational; therefore the Court cannot uphold the law made by the State. The same has to be struck down for want of sufficient material or appropriate data.” Therefore, it appears that where the State Government is able to discharge the onus of proof, reservation for socially and educationally backward Muslims may not be unconstitutional. However, what remains uncertain is the extent of burden of proof required to be discharged, especially given the Sachar Committee findings.

It was the third attempt on the part of the Andhra Pradesh Government to provide a quota for Muslims which has been repeatedly struck down by the High Court as unconstitutional. The Andhra Pradesh Government has decided to file a Special Leave Petition against the judgment in the Supreme Court.

Politics of Inclusion: Caste, Minority, and Representation in India (Book Review)

In her recent book- Politics of Inclusion: Caste, Minority, and Representation in India, Zoya Hasan has presented a strong case for revamping the affirmative action policies in India to include socially and economically backward classes that fall outside the majority fold. Admittedly, affirmative action in India is based on theory of reparation that aims to set right the centuries of historic injustice meted out to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. 

Relying on Sachar Committe Report , she has argued that there is no need for historic exclusion and discrimination against Muslims and Christians to become beyond repair before it can be set right. To quote her, "... focus on discrimination and disadvantage in official policy in India has been disproportionately on the past and not enough on the discrimination in relation to present disadvantage. The remedial goals that are required must include giving careful attention to current discrimination also.... However the real tasks are, first, to ensure that this important challenge of broad-basing affirmative action policies, so as to include in their ambit focus on groups facing disadvantage and deprivation in the present context, becomes compelling political issue; and second to initiate a reasonable debate on it" (@237) . 

Amongst other issues, there is an interesting analysis of electoral system in India, party politics, implications of reservation politics in electoral outcomes. A book review of her book is available here. 

On a similar note, EPW Editorial in its current issue discusses the issue of reservation for reservation for religious minorities.  Zoya Hasan's article on the same issue is published in Seminar is available here.

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