dna edit: Surge of concern for minorities

Close on the heels of the Communal Violence Bill — which has suddenly got a shot in the arm after years of hibernation in Parliament — comes the Mehmood-ur-Rahman committee’s recommendations to the Maharashtra government. The committee set up by the Congress-NCP government five years ago has proposed a slew of measures to put an end to gross discriminations against the Muslim community. With the general elections few months away, the timing of both the bill and the committee’s advice smack of cynical manipulation of the minority vote-bank. What political parties across the spectrum fail to realise is that Muslims are no longer a homogeneous entity with allegiance to a single party. Their wide-ranging concerns at the local, regional and national levels dictate the choices of parties and elected representatives.

However, in the same breath, it must be said that any decisive action benefitting the exploited Muslim community must be hailed in the spirit of secularism and equality. Like the crackdown on Naxalism, the war on terror too has claimed thousands of innocent civilians. Thousands of Muslims are detained in Indian jails for years on mere suspicion, without any hope for a trial or compensation. Every terror attack brings in its wake a wave of arrests of mostly hard-working Muslim youth. The police, administration and the different arms of security and investigative agencies act in utter violation of human rights. The true-to-life portrayal in the film Shahid of the struggles of human-rights lawyer Shahid Azmi who was murdered in 2010 gives us a glimpse into the manner the State views and acts against a certain section of its own people, especially when they are vulnerable.

On the other hand, time and again, the inability of the states and Centre to protect the minority from Hindutva  violence, forces one to question the intent of governments. The violence in Muzaffarnagar is part of a series of attacks on minorities in UP, which the Akhilesh Yadav government has consistently failed to address. After so many years, the wounds of the 2002 Gujarat pogrom refuse to heal, even as the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi talks of inclusive politics and development at public rallies. In fact, the Congress’s surge of concern for Muslims can be seen as a design to counter the rising Modi magic.  

But to blame the BJP, the Congress and the SP, and leave the Left untouched would be unfair. Especially since the so-called champions of the Muslims did little in their 34-year-rule in West Bengal. They, too, have brazenly exploited minority sentiments, giving them false hopes year after year, and doing little to create education and employment opportunities for them.

The recommendations of the Mehmood-ur-Rahman committee for the Maharashtra government, asking for 8 per cent reservation for Muslims in government jobs, education and housing sector, an anti-Discrimination Act similar to the laws protecting the interests of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes should have been implemented long back. It has also emphasised on keeping one-third of the share of reservations solely for the community’s women, thereby voicing the needs of empowering women to bring the community forward. One only hopes that the state government doesn’t follow the Centre’s example of inaction on the Sachar committee’s recommendations.