Author: KR Phanda
Publication: Daily Pioneer
Date: January 4, 2005
While piloting the Minority Educational
Institutions Bill in the Rajya Sabha on December 21, the Union Human Resources
Development Minister, Mr Arjun Singh, is reported to have observed that
the NDA Government had been "trampling upon the rights of the minorities"
as enshrined in the Constitution (The Pioneer, December 22).
Whether the NDA Government did trample
upon the rights of minorities is a matter of debate, but what is certain
is that the rights given to the minorities under Articles 29 and 30 of
the Constitution have reduced the majority community into second class
citizens in their own land. How many people are aware that these rights
were introduced in 1946 in the Constituent Assembly at the instance of
Jawaharlal Nehru to dissuade the Muslim League from insisting on division
of India? It is unfortunate that these rights were allowed to stay on in
the Constitution even after the creation of Pakistan in 1947.
This policy of appeasement of Muslims
is nothing new. Mahatma Gandhi was the first Congress leader who openly
sacrificed the Hindu interest to win the favour of Muslims. He initiated
his political career in India by leading the Khilafat movement, a patently
anti-Hindu and an anti-national act. Before he got killed, he had threatened
to go on fast unto death to pressurise the Government to release Rs 55
crore to Pakistan. The Government has withheld the amount because Pakistan
had invaded Kashmir.
Those who talk about the need to
provide additional rights to Muslims conveniently ignore the fact that
it is the same minority of 10 per cent which killed and plundered the Hindus;
demolished their culture and civilisation and sold their women and children
in the slave markets of Damascus and Baghdad during Muslim rule for seven
centuries in India. It is the same minority which is still in occupation
of the holiest places of the Hindus. Is it not the same minority which
ultimately forced the British before their departure to create a separate
homeland for the Indian ummah in 1947?
Even after independence, this minority
has more rights and privileges than the majority. Hindus were treated as
dhimmis and paid jizya to survive during the Muslim rule. With the British
advent, Hindus were brought on par with Muslims as equal subjects of the
British empire. After independence Hindus are again asked to pay jizya
in the shape of contribution to Haj subsidy; the running of madarsas and
the continuance of wakfs. Hindus have a right to ask: Under which provision
of international law have the Indian Muslims been given a separate homeland?
Under which provision of international law have the Muslims been allowed
to stay on in India after the creation of Pakistan? Muslims, for example,
are a minority in Germany, France and England. Do these countries provide
special privileges to the Muslim minority? Recently, France has disallowed
the use of head scarves by Muslim girls in Government schools. No masjids
are allowed to be constructed without the prior approval of the local Government.
Nowhere in the world has a minority been allowed to trample upon the character
of the majority, as in India.
In a truly secular State, a Muslim
should have no advantage which a Hindu doesn't have. Indian democracy functions
on the basis of one-man, one vote. Only an Islamic State distinguishes
and discriminates between residents on the basis of religion. In India,
"Minority is to be no justification for privilege and majority is to be
no ground for penalty"
