Gujarat govt’s double standards on minority kids

The state government headed by chief minister Narendra Modi keeps reiterating that it’s non-partisan. That it doesn’t distinguish between Gujratis on basis of minority-majority. And so it justifies denial of pre-matric scholarship to the minority students. But when it comes to post-matric scholarships, it happily goes distributing the same to the minority students.

The reasons for these double standards are either best known to it or wrapped in red tape. But, the unfair practice has deprived some 88,842 students benefit from the Union government's financial aid in 2011-12. Of these, 82,400 are Muslim children. The scholarship is meant for enabling educational assistance to children from minority communities. 

Incidentally, both pre-matric and post-matric scholarships are Centre-sponsored schemes. However, there's a catch. In the pre-matric scheme, the state government is supposed to foot 25% of the fund while the Centre provides the remaining 75%. But, in case of the post-matric scholarship, it is funded entirely by the Centre.

While Gujarat has been recognized as one of the states where the number of student drop out among minorities is increasing, there is an economical dimension to the problem as well.

In one of his Sadbhavana Mission speeches, CM had said that his government gave benefits neither to minorities nor to majorities. His government provides benefits to all the citizens of Gujarat without making any discrimination along religious lines. However, this seems farthest from the reality. "The CM claims that his government is not showing any partiality on basis of religion.