New Delhi, Nov. 24: A commission has recommended a sub-quota for minorities in OBC reservations, mooting the quota on the basis of caste irrespective of religion.
The weaker sections among Muslims and Christians — the two religions do not formally endorse the caste system, though some latent segmentation exists — are at present not eligible for reservation in all states. Some states have declared quotas for the minorities.
If the recommendation of the Justice Ranganath Mishra commission is accepted, the weaker sections among Muslims and Christians across the country will be eligible for reservation even in central government jobs. The commission’s report has not been tabled in Parliament yet.
The recommendation by the national commission for religious and linguistic minorities has been made on the premise that castes exist irrespective of religion.
But it sets the ultimate goal of granting backward class status only on educational and economical yardsticks and not on their caste and religion.
“We recommend that since according to the Mandal Commission report, minorities constitute 8.4 per cent of the total OBC population, in the 27 per cent OBC quota, an 8.4 per cent sub-quota should be earmarked for the minorities with an internal break-up of six per cent for Muslims (commensurate with their 73 per cent share in the total minority population at the national level) and 2.4 per cent for other minorities,” according to the report, a copy of which is with The Telegraph.
“Minorities should be treated as backward whose counterparts in the majority community are regarded as backward under the present scheme of things,” the report added.
It recommended that all classes, sections and groups among the various minorities generally regarded as “inferior” within the social strata and societal system and those communities — whether called “zat” (a caste among Muslims) or known by any other synonymous expression — should be treated as backward.
“We recommend that all those social and vocational groups among the minorities who but for their religious identity would have been covered by the present net of Scheduled Castes should be unquestionably treated as socially backward, irrespective of whether the religion or those other communities recognise the caste system or not,” the commission said.
Recognising that social and economic backwardness emanates from educational shortcomings, the commission has recommended measures for advancement of Muslims and neo-Buddhists.
Janata Dal (United) MP Ali Anwar Ansari, himself a Pasmanda Muslim from Bihar, raised the issue in Parliament and asked the government to table the report like the Liberhan commission report.
The report states that since the minorities especially the Muslims are very much underrepresented and sometimes wholly unrepresented in government employment it recommends they should be regarded as backward in this respect within the meaning of that term as used in article 16 (4) of the Constitution. It recommends that 15 per cent of posts in all cadres and grades under the central and state governments should be earmarked for them within the 15 per cent or 10 per cent for Muslims and remaining for other minorities.
The report comes at a time the UPA government is trying to win back Muslims across the Hindi belt.
The commission has recommended that para 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950 be deleted. Para 3 had originally restricted the Scheduled Caste net to Hindus but later opened it to Sikhs and Buddhists. But it still excludes from its purview Muslims, Christians, Jains and Parsis.
“All those groups and classes among Muslims and Christians whose counterparts among the Hindus, Sikhs or Buddhists are included in the central or state scheduled castes lists should also be covered by the Scheduled Castes net,” the report recommended. It added that if such groups of Muslims and Christians are on the OBC list, they should be transferred to Scheduled Castes.