By Kaleem Kawaja,
Honorable Minister Khurshid
Many thanks for taking time out of your very busy schedule to read my writeups, to send me your responses and to show your concern about the backwardness of India’s Muslim community that the community leaders have spoken about.
India’s Muslim community is very keen to be fully integrated with all other Indians, to contribute to nation building in India and to be first among equals in all walks of life in India’s mainstream, entirely within the democratic and secular fabric of the nation. Unfortunately for a variety of factors the extraordinary educational and economic backwardness of a majority of Indian Muslims does not let them fulfill their vision. We appreciated the Indian (UPA) government when it set up the Sachar Committee to document the backwardness of the community and when in 2007 it pledged to implement definitive schemes to remedy the findings of backwardness in the community in various though not all arenas.
Indian Muslims agree fully with your suggestion that for Muslims it should be: “integration with equality’ (described somewhat inadequately as mainstreaming) rather than ‘equitable but separate”.
Muslims are not looking for any help schemes that may either ghettoize them as a community or give the impression that they are being given special treatment. Because as you rightly pointed out that may harm the community in the long run. Within the Indian minority religious spectrum where Muslims constitute about 72% of the population, again Muslims are not looking for better treatment than other minorities. All they are looking for is fair assistance to bring them up gradually and put them on a level playing field with others.
We applaud your suggestion that an Equal Opportunity Commission be set up in India to ensure equal educational and economic opportunities to all Indians regardless of religious or ethnic backgrounds.
However, now four years after the publication of the Sachar Committee report, the solemn statements from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, HRD Minister Sibbal and yourself in the parliament that the UPA government is making definitive timeline-bound plans to implement (rather than have further debate) the programs to uplift the Muslim community, your statement in Chennai is casting a shadow on the credibility of the UPA government on its previously stated commitment in this regard.
We appreciate your statement that within the Indian Government cabinet you are trying to bring about coordination to overcome hurdles and build a path forward for the speedy implementation of the said Muslim community uplift programs. In that spirit we appeal to you that you now debate the modalities and details of the said uplift programs with the Planning Commission, the HRD ministry and the Finance ministry to make them most effective, and not whether these uplift programs may “ghettoize and separate Muslims from other Indians”. We realize the political difficulties and hope that the UPA government can overcome them in this direction.
Please allow us to state that a very large number of non-Muslim Indians too wish to see the large Indian Muslim community uplifted, just as they support the uplift of the similarly backward Dalit-Hindu and OBC-Hindu communities
We thank you for your attention and your assistance to all backward communities in India including the Muslims. With best regards.
Kaleem Kawaja
Association of Indian Muslims of America
Washington DC
[email protected]