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Misra panel wants quota for Dalit converts
J Gopikrishnan | New Delhi
UPA in a fix, fails to table report in Parliament despite lapse of more than two years
In a report that requires the Government to take a tough political call and has the potential to create serious social divide, Justice Ranganath Misra has recommended extension of SC/ST reservation benefits to those Dalits and tribals who embraced Islam and Christianity.
The Ranganath Misra Commission report says, “None of its recommendation mandates amendment of the Constitution and simply requires legislative or and administrative action.”
The report, still pending with the Government, urges that the reservation enjoyed by the persons belonging to Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes should not be stopped on the basis of religious conversion.
“To be more specific, we recommend that all those social and vocational groups among the minorities, who, but for their religious identity would have been covered by the present net of Scheduled Castes should be unquestionably treated as socially backward, irrespective of whether the religion of those other communities recognise the caste system or not,” said Ranganath Commission in its recommendations.
“We also recommend that those groups among the minorities whose counterparts in the majority community are at present covered by the net of Scheduled Tribes should also be included in that net; and also, more specifically, members of the minority communities living in any tribal area from pre-independence days should be so included irrespective of their ethnic characteristics,” added the commission.
The commission, which felt that education is a crucial factor for development and enhancement of social and economic status, told the Government that “the focus has to be not only for extending the education facilities for all, but also ensuring the quality of education.”
Commenting that the lists of the SCs, STs and OBCs have “not been scientifically prepared either on the basis of proper survey or reliable data on socio-economic status” of a particular caste or class, the panel urged the Government for a complete overhauling of the lists.
“Therefore, the entire system of reservation, including that for the SCs, STs and OBCs needs to be overhauled. Reservation as available to SCs and STs is open-ended as it is available to ensure participation in the programme by all children belonging to religious minorities, SCs, STs and OBCs so that the facilities are equally shared and dropout rates can be contained,” the commission recommended.
Making clear distinction between religious and linguistic minorities, the commission said: “In our opinion, the concept of backwardness is to be confined in its application to religious minorities as it has no relevance for the linguistic minorities. The latter may be facing some other problems like discrimination and denial of constitutional rights in practice, but no linguistic group may be regarded as backward by itself.”
Urging the Central Government to maintain maximum reservation up to 50 per cent, the commission “strongly” recommended that, “by the same analogy and for the same purpose, at least 15 per cent seats in all non-minority educational institutions should be earmarked by law for minorities.”
Out of these, the commission recommended 10 per cent to Muslims, with minor adjustments, if candidates are not available.
The commission insisted that, no majority community will be entertained, in this reserved quota and urged to distribute it among other minority communities.
“We are not suggesting any amendment in the Constitution — as we are fully convinced that none of our recommendations require for its implementation any amendment of the Constitution — and that each of these can be fully implemented by legislative or and administrative action.
The National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM), headed by the former Chief Justice of Supreme Court Ranganath Misra, was constituted on March 15, 2005. The commission submitted the 168-page report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on May 21, 2007, with the dissenting note of commission’s Member Secretary Asha Das not yet tabled in Parliament.
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