By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: For fifty years after Independence, Muslims had not demanded reservation. But after 1980 India’s largest minority community started slipping from the level of other minorities. Now that they have realized it, they are demanding reservation to come at least to the level of 1980 status, and so their demand is genuine, said former Chief Justice of India and presently Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, Justice A M Ahmadi.
He was delivering presidential speech at the book launch program for “Readings on Minorities: Perspectives and Documents, Vol. IV (Freedom of Religion), edited by late M Iqbal Ansari. The book and its earlier three volumes have been brought out by Institute of Objective Studies. The program that featured stalwarts of the legal fraternity – besides Ahmadi, Justice V N Khare, former CJI, Justice Rajendra Sachar, former Chief Justice, Delhi High Court, and others – was organized by IOS at Constitution Club in New Delhi on January 6. The book was released by Justice V N Khare.
Justice A M Ahmadi urged the government to go beyond the measures of tokenism and take some affirmative action to uplift the minority community.
Earlier, K Rahman Khan, Deputy Chairman, Rajya Sabha, in his speech called upon the society to seriously think about remove misgivings and misconceptions about freedom of religion – the theme of Ansari’s book.
“Minorities are suffering discrimination in India. When minorities are discriminated on the basis of religion, we should find its resolution not only in the Constitution but also outside through dialogues. Society, human rights activists and social activists should come to remove misgivings and misconceptions about freedom of religion,” Khan said.
While negating that there is any big clash between majority and minority, Justice Rajendra Sachar, former Chief Justice, Delhi High Court, said a civilized society is where the rights of minorities are safe.
R-L: Dr Manzoor Alam, Chairman, IOS, Justice A M Ahmadi, Justice V N Khare, Syed Shahabuddin, Z M Khan, Secretary General, IOS
“There are no big clashes between minority and majority. There are some edges that should be removed. If minority in a society feels secure and satisfied about their rights then it is a civilized society. Minorities should be recognized by the society,” Justice Sachar said.
He also rejected the propaganda that Islam spread in India with force, and that the religion is a threat to the society today. “Islam did not spread in India with force, and it is not a threat to the society,” Justice Sachar said.
Recalling the late author Iqbal Ansari, Syed Shahabuddin, IFS (Retd) and ex-MP said: Iqbal Ansari was a scholar on minorities and showed his great knowledge of India and the world. He was proud of India being a democracy but he felt that our democracy is slowly but steadily turning into a majoritarian democracy.
Siddharth Vardarajan, senior journalist and Chief of Bureau, The Hindu, expressed his views on various burning issues related to the minority.
While downplaying the demand of reservation for Muslims as a community, Vardarajan said all marginalization and discrimination should be removed by legal provisions, and reservation is the least important measure towards the goal.
“Reservation is just tokenism. It is the least by a government on which the minority community is spending the most. All marginalization and discrimination should be removed by legal provisions,” he said. Rather, Equal Opportunity Commission should be made a robust body with power. There should be targeted fiscal policy to uplift the minority community, the veteran journalist said. “When Manmohan Singh said Muslims have the first claims on resources of the country, he was true and he must not have lowered down his voice. If marginalized sections of the society will not have first claims on resources, then who? asked Vardarajan.
He, however, demanded removal of discrepancy in the Constitution that denies reservation to Muslims belonging to the categories of SCs and STs. “Muslim SCs and STs are not getting reservation. The constitutional hurdle should be removed.”
He also demanded political reform to ensure more representation of Muslims in politics.
“There is need to reform the political system so that marginalization of Muslims in politics could be removed. Today only wealthy people can think about entering politics.”
Siddharth Vardarajan demanded changes in the Communal Violence Bill to fix responsibility of law enforcing authorities.
“The Communal Violence Bill does not solve the problem in the system as it is not fixing responsibility on law enforcement authorities. Without this, the bill will work just as tokenism,” he said. While demanding one yardstick for compensation to riot victims, he stressed on the need of modern laws to deal with genocides.
“Readings on Minorities: Perspectives and Documents, Vol. IV (Freedom of Religion) discusses the complex relationship between the secularity of the Indian State and the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion. The volume III was published in 2002 while volume I and II in 1996.
Late Prof. Iqbal A. Ansari (Feb. 1935-Oct. 2009) had served as professor of English at Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Hamdard and Jamia Millia Islamia. His publications include “Political Representation of Muslims in India: 1952-2004 and “Communal Riots, the State and Law in India.”