By TCN News,
Margao (Goa): Popular Front of India’s national campaign for Muslim reservation reached Goa yesterday when PFI’s state unit organized a get-together program at Ravindra Bhavan in Margao wherein the PFI leaders reiterated their demand for full implementation of Ranganath Mishra Report which has recommended reservation for Muslims and other minorities in the country.
After welcome speech by PFI Goa president, Mr. Sayed Iftiyaz, Mr. Mohammed Tahir, State Executive Council Member, Karnataka, introduced PFI and said the organization was formed to uplift all backward classes in India including Muslims. He highlighted the struggle of Muslims in Independent India & also highlighted the struggle of the organization in various facets of the society including but not limited to employment, education & health care.
Mr. Khaleel Ahmed, Member of Popular Front of India, answered various questions in his speech including: What is reservation? Why reservation? What are the provisions of the Constitution of India regarding reservation & Why Muslim is eligible for Reservation as per the Constitution of India?
Where the Constitution in clause 16 (4) tells about the reservation for all people who are backward also has a clause 341 which talks about reservations only for Hindus. This was amended in 1956 to include the Sikhs and later in 1976 to include the Buddhists.
A number of commissions have been formed since independence to study the backward classes by the prevailing states & central governments. Almost all the reports indicate that over 80% of Muslim community is backward.
One of the significant reports happens to be the Mandal commission report which was ready in 1980 but the Prime Ministers between 1980 & 1990 for some reasons chose not to table the report. In 1990, Mr. V. P. Singh, the then Prime Minister tabled and implemented the report which recommended giving 27% reservation to the OBC, which unfortunately did not include the Muslims.
It looked like, this step motherly treatment of the Muslims was going to be corrected by our Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Sigh, with the formation of Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee which studied the state of Muslims in India based on official government records. The finding of this committee was an eye-opener which said that Muslims formed the most backward of all the backward classes. This report highlighted that the Muslim representation in the government jobs was not proportionate to their population with 3% in IAS, 1.5% in IFS, 4% in IPS & 4.5% in Railways when the census in 2001 indicate that Muslims are 13.4% in India.
To uplift the Muslim community which was reported as most backward by the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee, the central government constituted the Justice Ranganath Misra committee to study & suggest the steps to be taken to uplift the downtrodden in the minority communities. The said Committee has recommended that 15% reservation be given to the minorities and 10% exclusively to the Muslims, if separate reservation is given. In case we follow the Supreme Court order regarding the ceiling of reservation, 8.4% of the 27% reservation given to OBCs to be allocated to the minorities & 6% exclusively to Muslims. In this context, it is hoped that the National Campaign of Popular Front will further strengthen the ongoing efforts in different parts of the country by various organizations including the campaign initiated by Joint Committee of Muslims Organizations for Muslims Empowerment (JCMOE).