By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net,
Mumbai: While the Mahmoodur Rahman Committee, set up by Maharashtra government, has submitted its interim report calling measures for educational and economic uplift of Muslims in the state, the community is not pinning much hope on it given the past record of such committees.
To know the social, educational and economic conditions of Muslims in the state, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh constituted the surveying committee on 9th May 2008, on the pattern of the Sachar Committee. Former Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University Mahmoodur Rahman was nominated its chairman.
The committee visited several Muslim-dominated areas in Malegaon, Bhiwandi, Nasik and Mumbai and after assessing their social, economic and educational backwardness presented to the chief minister a 100-page interim report on 30th June.
The report has focused on 17 important issues related to the Muslim community. The committee recommended establishment of more Urdu schools with Marathi as mandatory subject, establishment of a textile engineering technology institute in Malegaon and Bhiwandi, and technological upgradation of the power loom industry.
Despite all these good-sounding recommendations, the Muslim community in general is not much hopeful that the committee could be able to leave any imprint on the ground. Rather, as usual with every report on minorities, this report, too, has caused ripples in the social and political circles in the state.
Ordinary Muslims, intellectuals and social workers are taking the committee and its recommendations with skepticism. They question the very timing of the formation of the committee.
Talking to TwoCircles.net, Sayeed Khan of Muslim Youth of India said the Sachar Committee has already done the work. It has assessed the socio-economic conditions of Muslims in India, and made some very important recommendations. The Mahmoodur Rahman Committee is not going to make any ground-breaking development, Khan said. He further said that the decision by the Congress-NCP alliance government to form the committee is an election stunt.
He further explains the real purpose of the formation of the committee. “To compensate its negligence in the last three years of the issues confronting Muslims, the Vilasrao Deshmukh government was already planning to do something. But it thought why not try to take maximum political dividends out of the steps to be taken by the government for the Muslims. So it formed the committee,” Sayeed Khan said.
Apparently there is no serious intention of the government to engage with the problems of the Muslims. Had it been serious it would not have nearly ignored the problems confronting Muslims on all fronts for more than three years. It is a lollipop for the Muslims by the Congress party as it fears that the Muslims have no reason to vote for it in the coming elections.
In as much the same way Mumbai-based Salim Shaikh, who is a social activist and works for the minority rights, gets agitated when asked about the Mahmoodur Rahman Committee. Talking to TwoCircles.net he said lots of such committees have been formed in the past. It is on the governments to implement the recommendations of the committees.
The government has made a slew of announcements and counting for the welfare of minorities and Muslims specifically. They include reservation for the minorities in government housing schemes, free distribution of books among the minority students and attendance allowance to them. But the announcements are yet to take shape on the ground, said skeptic sounding Shaikh.
How one can say that the situation is going to change just with the government announcements when it is turning Nelson’s eye to appeals and complaints which we have sent, says Shaikh.
Giving evidence of the government’s apathy towards Muslims, he said the state Commission for Minorities should have 11 members but as of now it has only two members: Abraham Mathai and commission chairman Naseem Siddiqui. More than three years on, the government could not fill the vacant seats at the commission.
The views of Shoaib Lokhandwala, media secretary, Movement for Peace and Justice about the Mahmoodur Rahman Committee are mixed. The committee will submit its final report on 31st December 2008.
He told TwoCircles.net: “The Muslim masses are a bit hopeless about the attitude of the government. They see that there is no long-term policy decisions which the government intends to follow for the sake of their development.” Keeping short-term benefits in mind various committees have been formed for the solution of the problems facing Muslims. Take for instance Ranganath Mishra Commission and Gopal Committee. They made recommendations which were either dumped or forgotten by the very authorities that formed them, Lokhandwala said.
“Be it the Sachar Committee or this committee, the Muslim masses want some concrete results in terms of policy making decisions. There should not be any lip service,” he says.
TwoCircles.net also talked to the Imam (priest) of the mosque in Kalambar village, 20 km from Nanded. What he pointed out is also felt by the entire community.
He asked what would be the purpose of all these committees and recommendations when they are not feeling safe. He refers to the deep penetration of the RSS and Hindutva extremist groups in every government department in the state, be it education, administration or any other field.
Whatever be the recommendation of the Mahmoodur Rahman Committee, one thing appears to be quite clear. The state government needs to have a policy for the minorities which is holistic in terms of its approach. And most important of all, it should be serious in its intention.
It is high time the governments realized that only formation of committees won’t do. The anti-Muslim bias runs through the entire system. Otherwise what else is the reason that when Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray exhorted the activists of the Hindutva group Hindu Jan Jagriti Samiti to become suicide squad and create terror among the Muslims, the Maharashtra administration did not take any action against him?
So there must be a radical change in its approach towards the problems of Muslims.