On Reservation for Muslim Woman in Legislature
Letter to Shri Veerappa Moily Minister of Law and Judiciary June 19, 2009
I have gone through The Constitution (One Hundred and Eight Amendment) Bill, 2008 on reservation for women in Legislatives. It appears that since women belonging to SC & ST cannot have double representations in the Legislature, as a member of the SC & ST, within the existing quota of 15% and 7.5%, as well as women within the proposed 33% quota, women belonging to SC & ST are to be accommodated within the existing quota of SC & ST. The net reservation for women will then be 33.3 22.5/3 i.e. 25.8%. Now the Muslims claim that since they constitute nearly 13.5% of the total population, their women should have a quota of 4.5% within 25.8%. No one has worked out the quota for non-Muslim OBCs, but this may be of the order of about 13.3%, if the average national population of non-Muslim OBCs is taken as 40%. This will then leave only 8% for women belonging to high castes, etc. I see an intolerable gap between the categorization of quota for women belonging to SC & ST, the non-Muslim OBCs and Muslim, and the aspirations of the rest.

As Muslims are already under-represented in the Legislature by more than 50%, in case 33% quota has no space for them, their deprivation may rise to about 70 75%. On the other hand, the other religion minorities already have a representation in legislature, higher than their population, their situation is different for them.