Human, not minority rights

A judge of the Allahabad high court decided last week that Muslims were no longer a minority community in Uttar Pradesh. He was immediately excoriated for his audacity.

The Tamil Nadu chief minister, M Karunanidhi, made a whimsical announcement the other day that Muslims and Christians need job quotas, never mind that the courts have repeatedly rejected religion-based quotas as unconstitutional.

Protecting minorities and minority rights has become such an article of faith with our political unworthies, that nobody bothers to understand where this right comes from.

For what it is worth, let me repeat the cliché — there is no minority smaller than one. All rights, of minorities or majorities, derive from the basic right of the individual to live a life of freedom and dignity, subject only to reasonable limits.

In India, minority rights have been expanded to mean any right that a religious (or linguistic) group arrogates to itself on the basis of its own definition of rights.

To get better educational and job opportunities, Muslims have no need to lobby as Muslims — they are entitled to the same rights as individual human beings. By lobbying for jobs and schools as though they are distinct Muslim rights — a tendency the Sachar committee has unfortunately encouraged — even secular issues are being communalised.

I have no doubt Muslims face discrimination in India on many counts — but this could be true of many communities. Dalits, OBCs and women can claim the same. Even Hindus see themselves as discriminated against in J&K and some states of the north-east. The upper castes can claim that education and job quotas discriminate against them.

Let’s be clear: there is no such thing as a perfectly just society. The only thing societies can attempt to do is to consistently try and improve things for everybody so that, over a period of time, no one is too badly off. This is beginning to happen in India.

A report in The Economic Times, using NCAER data, shows that Muslim households are not significantly worse off than Hindu ones at the macro level. Average annual household incomes for Hindus and Muslims are Rs 61,423 and Rs 58,420 respectively.
If the Sachar report still paints a picture of ‘discrimination’ against Muslims, we need to seek answers elsewhere.

One major reason is that Muslims are concentrated in the worst managed states of India, from UP and Bihar to Assam and Bengal. The last two states face an additional problem — a huge illegal influx from Bangladesh,  substantially Muslim. In the better administered southern states, there is practically no economic handicap faced by Muslims.

If you want Muslims to fare better, you don’t need Sachar but improved governance in UP and Bihar — and a fence around Bangladesh.

Secondly, Sachar offers a rear window view of Muslim backwardness. I believe Muslim problems are largely a thing of the past because of the new dynamics of a market-oriented, private sector-led economy. In a competitive marketplace, only two things matter — competence and diligence.

The fact that Muslims didn’t get into government jobs in the past is actually a boon in today’s growth environment, where self-employment and entrepreneurial behaviour provide the best avenues for betterment of one’s lot.

Nearly 60% of the economy is in services, and this is substantially outside government control. I suspect that Muslims hold a higher share of jobs in the services sector than in manufacturing, and this is fortuitous.

My last reason for optimism on the Muslim economic scenario is the change in psyche the community has witnessed. Two events, Babri Masjid and Gujarat, have conclusively proved to the Muslim masses that depending on the government has been a big mistake.
It can neither save them from communal elements nor provide them with the means to improve their economic condition. Only improved education and personal effort will deliver the goods.

If I were a Muslim, I would invest all my efforts in educating myself and my children, ignoring the political cacophony for reservations and special treatment. Sachar is perhaps the last concerted effort by a phony secular establishment to drag Muslims back to the era of overdependence on crooked politicians and vote bank politics.

Email: r_jagannathan@dnaindia.net