To
The Editor,
Times of India,
23-A, Shivaji Marg, Najafgarh Road
Moti Nagar, New Delhi, Delhi 110015

Sir,
 This is with reference to your editorial ‘Promises Galore’ on 26.3.2009 commenting on the Manifesto of the INC for General Election 2009. It notices that the Manifesto has promised reservation for the minorities.  This is nothing new.  In 2004 the Congress Manifesto had promised reservation to Muslims on the model of Kerala and Karnataka.  Today several State Governments including Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh and Tripura, to the best of our knowledge, have provided reservation to the Muslims.  In addition, under the Mandal dispensation nearly all states have included Muslim baradaris as OBC’s in the scheme of reservation.  The main drawback from the Muslim point of view is that the Muslim backward classes have been pitted against the relatively advanced non-Muslim Backward Classes and thus they fail to get their due share.  In accordance with the Sachar Report and its suggestions our demand is that more Muslim sub-communities which are found to be backward and have been left out should be included in the OBC List. 

Also the Sachar Committee has pointed out that the Muslim community as a whole is almost as backward as the SC and ST and more backward than the non-Muslim OBCs. Considering all aspects of the matter Justice RN Mishra Commission has recommended 15% reservation for the minorities, or which exclusively 10% for the Muslims plus the unutilized part of the 55% to other minorities. It is another matter that for political reasons the government has decided to put the report in the freezer, just as Mrs. Gandhi had kept the Mandal Report and the Gopal Singh Report for 8-9 years.

In these circumstances, we do not see why doing justice to the Muslims should become a political hot potato. As compared to 1994 when the first Convention on Muslim Reservation was organized, today we have more than 8 recognised political parties which support reservation in principle. Therefore, both spatially as well as politically the idea of reservation for Muslims has gained ground.

You have stated that the poverty and inequality are community neutral. But a perusal of the Sachar Report will convince you that it is not quite so and that there are wide difference in the level of poverty and deprivation among different social groups. This explains why there is a rising demand for the categorization of the SC/ST and OBC quotas so that the groups which are at lower end of the scale are not deprived of their fair share competing against more advanced groups.

Perhaps you are not aware of the fact that the Arjun Sengupta Report has brought out that 84% of the Muslims fall in the zone of extremely poor, very poor, poor and vulnerable, just above the SC, but higher than the Non-Muslim OBCs or Upper Castes. Muslim do not want any special schemes for their exclusive benefit but would like to ensure that in all schemes of social development, rural or urban, the Muslims living in the zone of operation get proportionate benefits, through a separate sub-quota.