Salman Khurshid’s gimmick an insult to Muslims

Union Law Minister and Congress leader Salman Khurshid believes that defying the Election Commission is the best way to promote minority rights. The promise of sub-quota for minorities in the OBC quota in the midst of an election campaign is simply a gimmick. This contemptuous opportunism can easily be construed as insult to the intellect of an ordinary Muslim.

Despite the fact that the Congress has ruled the country — barring a few years the party has always remained in power — the plight of Muslims has remained unchanged. The reasons for Muslim backwardness are historical; the Partition is the primary source of scourge. Remaining hostage to the past hardly serves any purpose. However what makes history a festering wound is the fact that the (disgusting) present also does not invoke much confidence. The Justice Rajinder Sachar committee, a well-appreciated step of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was set up in 2005 to ascertain the ‘Social, Economic and Educational Status of Muslim Community in India’. Its report bares all facts: the low socio-economic status with higher poverty, lower literacy and educational attainments, higher unemployment rates, lower availability of infrastructure and lower representation in civil services including the police, judiciary and in elected bodies among Muslim minority.’

The National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities headed by Justice Ranganath Misra further reveals that ‘among minorities, about one-third Muslims are living in kutcha houses, which lack basic facilities like drinking water, toilet, etc’. Justice Sachar presented his report in 2006 and Misra in 2007. What has the government done all these years to improve the socio-economic conditions of Muslims? For how many years has Salman Khurshid now been the minster of minority affairs? Instead of stirring a hornet’s nest in the name of reservation what practical steps has his ministry devised to alleviate Muslim backwardness?

The Congress’s 9% or for that matter the Samajwadi Party’s 18% Muslim quota pledge are merely enticing election slogans. In any situation, these promises are highly improbable suggestions. What is more frustrating is the fact that Rahul Gandhi, the new age leader, too has fallen trap to caste and religious vote bank politics.

As a matter of principle, the idea of reservation needs to be relooked afresh; it basically encourages affirmative discrimination. Whatever the historical reasons, the continuation of reservation only reflects the system’s failure to ensure equality and justice in the society. Muslims in India require justice and fair distribution of resources as equal and confident citizens of the society and not the charity of reservations.

Muslims in India are as diverse a group as India itself; the concept of a Muslim vote bank is a myth. Still, if the political dispensation believes that Muslims, transcending different socio-political persuasions and overcoming a wide range of economic divisions, vote en-bloc, this will only mean that even after 65 years of independence, Muslims in India have not been able to overcome their profound sense of insecurity. Indeed, Indian Muslims are faced with a deep identity crisis. Urdu is banished allegedly for creating Pakistan, it is now not even taught in its birthplace. The Babri Masjid demolition is a psychological blow from which Muslims have not fully recovered yet. The so-called war against terrorism has fully terrorised the Muslim community across the country. It is easier to implicate an innocent Muslim youth in terrorism-related crimes than to prove his innocence. The long incarceration of innocents in the Mecca Masjid and Malegaon blasts and the case of the recently-released Delhi boy, Amir, mocks the credibility of the criminal justice system. What is more disgraceful is the fact that Muslims in India for no fault of theirs have been made hostage to the situation in Kashmir; it’s a common refrain that if Kashmir secedes, Indian Muslims will pay the heavier price.

Last Friday, getting late for prayers, I was hurriedly climbing the stairs of the Jama Masjid in Delhi, when I heard Imam Ahmad Bukhari’s wailing tirade against the Congress. Immediately, the recent photograph of the habitual election time party-hoper cleric with Mulayam Singh Yadav, pledging his support to the SP, flashed in my mind. The clergy, instead of working for the uplift of Muslims, for its own petty interests has historically enforced the besieged feelings, mainly contributing to the making of a victim mentality. Why not? Only a victim mentality can best serve the cause of a vote bank politics.