HVK Archives: Muslims' demand for reservation gains momentum
Muslims' demand for reservation gains momentum - The Observer of Business & Politics
Sahid K Abbas
()
31 December 1996
Title : Muslims' demand for reservation gains momentum
Author : Sahid K Abbas
Publication : The Observer of Business & Politics
Date : December 31, 1996
The Muslim politics is graduating from the
Masjid politics to socio-economic issues with the Muslim leaders, one
after another, stepping up the demand for reservations for their
community in jobs, education and also for women in Parliament and state
assemblies.
The quota campaign gained an added momentum on Monday with Insaf Morcha
convener Syed Shahabuddin urging Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda to notify
the Muslims as a backward class and provide them with a 9 per cent quota
in the Central government jobs.
"Little benefit is going to achieve the community if it is trisected and
then bracketted into the OBCS, SCs and the high castes," he said in a
letter to Mr Gowda.
Demanding a quota, based on the Muslim population and their relative
backwardness, as given to them in Karnataka and Kerala, the letter,
which was made public to the Press on Monday, said if the dispensation
in other two states is constitutionally valid, it should be adopted by
other states also.
"Reservation is not a question of constitutionality or legality but one
of political will and social commitment," he said in his letter to the
Prime Minister.
It may be recalled that the recently concluded two-day Janata Dal
national camp at Surajkund, had ended with a stamp of discontent after
the minority members expressed serious reservations over the party's
poor handling of the minority issues.
Demanding the setting up of a review committee to find the means and
ways to win back the confidence of the minorities in the Hindi
heartland, Janata Dal's Minority Committee chairman Irfanullah Khan had
asserted that except in Bihar, the minorities who intially constituted
the mainstay of the party's vote-bank are fast alienating from the
party.
Rajya Sabha member and Janata Dal Parliamentary Party general-secretary
Qamrul Islam and the Lok Sabha member M A A Fatmi emphasized that the
party should press for the accordance of the reservation to the OBCs and
the minority women in the proposed 81st Constitution (Amendment) Bill,
seeking to provide 33 per cent quota to women in the Lok Sabha and state
assemblies.
Moreover, Mr Khan, who urged the Centre to take up seriously the
petition filed in the Supreme Court challenging the Article 30 of the
Constitution - which accords the minorities the right to run their own
educational Institutions - pointed out that since the tension type
situation had eased up, the party should now address itself to the other
basic problems of the minorities, including that of education, job and
food security and health.
He cited the example of the Congress, which the minorities tolerated for
the past 40 years and then outrightly dumped it after the party failed
to upkeep itself to its promises.
Mr Khan also asked the party to constitute a manifesto committee to
coordinate with the government to ensure the smooth implimentation of
the promises made to the minorities in the party manifesto.
Mr Islam requested human resource development minister S R Bommai to
increase the budgetary allocation to the Maulana Azad Foundation from
the current Rs 30 crore to Rs 100 crore. He said due to the inadequate
funds, the management of the Foundation does not take the risk of making
major investments and had to survive on the interset of the budgetary
allocations.
He furthering on he said one cannot undermine the fact that the
strong-arm tactics of the Congress and the apprehension of a negative
fallout from the UF constituents, particularly the JD and the SP, that
Mr Gowda was forced to put off the listed announcement of the 4 per cent
reservation to the Muslims in the Central government jobs, education,
from his Independent Day speech.
The Prime Minster who had made up his mind to make these announcements
from'the ramparts of the Red Fort on the Independence Day was prevented
from scurrying through the issue under the pretext that it would have
serious fallouts and may prove counter-productive on the eve of the UP
assembly polls.
Mr Gowda's contention, that job reservation for Muslims was a successful
experiment in Karnataka was countered by the argument that the situation
in the North was not with at par with that of the South and was more
prone to communal tensions and polarisation,of the society on trivial
issues
Back
Top
|
