Negative perception of Muslims a cause of concern, says an official committee

Lack of development and insufficient exposure to amenities, the negative perception of minorities particularly Muslims building up over recent past is an added worrisome trend, feels an official committee assigned to evaluate the implementation of the recommendation of Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee report and the prime minister's 15 point programme.

Recognising that its minority related programmes were going haywire, previous UPA government at its fag end had constituted an eight-member committee of eminent social scientists and administrators under Prof. Amitabh Kundu to assess their impact and to recommend corrective measures.

The new government under prime minister Narendra Modi continued with the committee, whose recommendations will now form a corner stone of its policies towards minorities. The committee members handed over their final report to the minority affairs minister Najma Heptulla here on Thursday evening.

Prof Kundu, who refused to share contents of the report, however, told dna that unlike its previous avatars Sachar committee or Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission, they have stayed away from recommending reservations system a solution to raise the lot of Muslim community.

"Reservations based on caste and religion always takes a political turn and raises hackles. Therefore, we have found a way to recommend reservations on the basis of similar profession," he said.

Explaining, he said wherever Dalits and Muslims share occupation; say if they are both employed as sweepers or in similar lower stratagem professions, both of them should enjoy reservations. This will entail not more than 2-3% additions in the existing quota of reservations.

Further the committee has recommended a diversity based index intervention to build an inclusive society. Not only the government department and public sector units (PSUs) be monitored and encouraged to give employments to religious communities across the board, a system of incentives and disincentives could be formed for the private sector as well.

"If a company employs persons of a particular religion, caste and gender only. It should be given a lower diversity index, which should be taken into account at the time of given any government contract or any other benefit to the company," Prof Kundu told dna. The index, he said should also apply to housing societies, who in sometime refuse to lend houses or flats to Muslims.

Though, findings of the report were not available, sources say, it has depicted a worrying picture of Muslims in urban and non-metro cities, while expressing satisfaction on their condition in rural areas. The committee while assessing conditions on the basis of consumption pattern found Muslims a notch higher than SC/STs in rural areas, but still 10% below national average. But in urban areas they were far below than even SCs/STs.

The report has found that despite much announcements of the previous UPA government, the poverty amongst Muslims continues to work out to be twice the general poverty. Muslim OBCs have also reported higher poverty than their Hindu peers, both in rural and urban areas. "Percentage of poor among the Muslim OBC is higher than the Hindu OBC by 50% in rural and 100% in urban areas," the report said. 

The committee has also recommended an anti-discriminatory law in line with the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities Act) to end discrimination Muslims face in their lives. The committee members argue that the suggestion has come in view of noticing increased discrimination cases being reported in educational institutions, hospitals, by police, housing markets and by employers.