By TCN News,
New Delhi: To build a consensus within the Muslim community to mobilize political support for implementation of Ranganath Mishra Report that has recommended reservation for Muslims, the National Movement for Muslim Reservation is convening a national meet of Muslim reservation activists on 10th February 2010 at India Islamic Cultural Centre in New Delhi.
“The Meet’s main purpose is to build a Muslim consensus which would contribute towards crystallization of political support for the implementation of the Mishra Report,” said Syed Shahabuddin, ex-MP and diplomat and convenor of National Movement for Muslim Reservation. It is anticipated that the Mishra Report, which was which tabled in the Parliament on 18th December 2009, will be discussed in the House in the early part of the Budget Session 2010.
“Another purpose of the Meet is to formulate the Strategy and Programme of Action to press for the implementation of the recommendation of the Mishra Report which was tabled in the Parliament on 18 December 2009, following multiple representations, Muslim organizations, political parties and prominent opinion-makers since its presentation to the Prime Minister in May 2007,” said Shahabuddin.
The National Movement for Muslim Reservation was formed in accordance with the decision taken by the National Conference on Muslim Reservation organized by Joint Committee of Muslim Organisations for Empowerment in New Delhi on 1st February 2009.
The meet will consider various objections and excuses — and expose their irrationality and untenability — which are being raised to misguide the Muslim community and thus to further delay the implementation of the report, said Shahabuddin.
Since the Delhi conference on Muslim reservation in February 2009, several state and town level conferences and rallies on the issue have been held throughout the country and many national and state political parties have expressed their support to reservation for Muslims and other minorities and to inclusion of Christian and Muslim Dalits in the lists of SCs.
Syed Shahabuddin has urged all Muslim activists who support reservation for Muslims and other minorities and who worked at various levels for the last one year to attend the meet.
“The NMMR appeals to all Muslim political & social workers, irrespectively of party/NGO affiliation, particularly the Muslim youth, to participate in the Meet in order to carry forward our democratic battle for Dignity & Social Justice at this critical juncture,” he said.
The decision to call the national meet in coming February was taken at a special meeting of Joint Committee of Muslim Organisations for Empowerment (JCMOE) and National Movement for Muslim Reservation (NMMR) on 17th December 2009 in New Delhi, with the patron of JCMOE Saiyid Hamid in chair. Prominent persons who attended the meeting included Syed Shahabuddin, Convenor, JCMOE and NMMR, Dr Zafarul Islam Khan, President, AIMMM, Mujtaba Farooq, Secretary, JIH, Abdul Khaliq, LJP, K. Danish Ali, JD (S), Ekhlaq Ahmed, Convenor, JCMOE, Bihar, Dr. K. Abdus Sattar, Convenor, JCMOE, Tamil Nadu.
The participants agreed that the JCMOE should, on the question of reservation, work under the banner of NMMR which should co-sponsor meetings and rallies. Such meetings etc should be held in each district/town as well as capitals of states of Muslim concentration, particularly in UP, West Bengal & Assam and that every effort be made to get the support of the Muslims in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu & Kerala.
The participants also agreed that to these meetings and rallies, the local conveners should invite all Muslim Jamaats and secular parties and forces which support the cause of reservation, apart from the Muslim intelligentsia, like Ulema, academicians and legislators.
While the participants welcomed the decision of the Central Government to table the Mishra Commission Report in the Parliament, they expressed their regret that despite the passage of more than two and a half years, no ATM was forthcoming from the Government on the lame excuse that the Commission had not been established under the Commission of Inquiry Act, conveniently forgetting that the Government had tabled an ATR on the Sachar Committee Report which had been constituted under a notification by the PMO.
The meeting also concluded that Muslim Community must demand expeditious implementation of the recommendations of the Mishra Commission on the Scheme of Reservation for the Minorities and the inclusion of Christian and Datlit Muslims in the list of SC’s and must reject the idea floated by the Government to carve a separate sub- quota out, of existing 27% OBC quota, for the OBC Muslims as this would be too small to satisfy the Muslim OBC’s far less the entire Community which had been found to be a Backward Class by both the Sachar Committee as well as the Mishra Commission to make it eligible for reservation under Articles 15(4) & 16(4).
It decided that the Movement must emphasize that there was no contradiction between the Backward Muslims and other Muslims, and that Muslim unity is essential for the success of the cause, and that the Backward Muslims shall enjoy preference & priority in the Muslim quota.
[Photo by TribuneIndia]