Contents
  • Introduction
  • Some Concerns
  • Solution is not legislation but education
  • Majority-minority distinction must be based on socio-economic status

 

Introduction

May I be permitted to use this occasion to pay humble tribute to the memory of a noble and kindly soul, heroic and honest, quick-witted and compassionate, who is no longer with us in person-- Rajiv Gandhi, who appeared on our political horizon as a bright light instilling new hope in those who craved for a statesman radically different from the usual type of politicians.

When our nation became politically independent 47 years ago, Rajiv was a three year old lad. And what kindled hope was the fact that while belonging to the post-independence generation, he was politically unsullied despite his ancestry, when he was thrust into power in 1984 following the heart-renting national tragedy of Mrs. Gandhi's assassination. Alas, the equally infamous Sriperumbudur tragedy took him away from us less than four years ago. May God grant rest to his soul!

I must also pay tribute to his noble widow, Smt. Sonia Gandhi, who has also shown her mettle by declining to accept to be President of the Congress Working Committee to which post she was unanimously elected in May 1991.

At this point, on behalf of the minorities, I want to pay tribute also to the memory of Shri Jawharlal Nehru who more than anyone else succeeded in making the national minorities feel secure in independent India. The minorities of this country are grateful also to the Supreme Court of India for consistently upholding the fundamental rights of the minority communities.

We feel grateful to the Congress Party in so far as it seeks to maintain that noble Nehruvian tradition in protecting these minority rights.

We would also like to thank the present Government for setting up in 1992 a National Commission for Minorities as a statutory body with civil adjudicatory power. Perhaps a word of appreciation is due to the commission and its Chairman Justice Mohammed Sardar Ali Khan, for their efforts to deal effectively at the grass roots level with the communal tensions which arose in the wake of the Ayodhya and post-Ayodhya debacle.

Some concerns

I must, however, express my perplexity at the fact that the Welfare Ministry in declaring the Muslims, Christians, Sikhs Buddhists and Parsis as the five national religious minorities, chose to leave out the Jains, who are indeed   a national religious minority. The arguments for their exclusion fail to carry conviction. I hope this anomaly would soon be rectified.

I must also venture to express my   pessimism about the incorruptibility, impartiality and efficiency of the newly set up Central Minorities Development and Finance Corporation to which the Prime Minister has pledged 500 crore rupees as share capital.

We are indeed grateful for Welfare Minister Sitaram Kesari's pledge

a) to provide financial assistance for modernisation of Muslim  madrasas, and to make special efforts to promote education, especially women's education, among the minority communities;

b) to eliminate communal bias and ensure objectivity in the contents of educational textbooks;  

c) to implement the scheme to grant financial aid for pre-competitive Examination Coaching for Weaker sections based on Economic Criteria;

d) to provide financial assistance for competent studies leading to a reliable database on the present socio-economic and educational status of national minorities;

e) to promote self-employment ventures for the minorities and

f) to provide financial assistance for children of victims of communal riot.

These are to be welcomed; equally important is the prompt and effective implementation of the 15-point programme for the minorities evolved by the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1983 .

Perhaps it is appropriate for me to express my continuing distress at the Presidential Order of 1950 (1950 Scheduled Caste Order No. 3) which decreed as follows:

 "notwithstanding anything contained in paragraph 2, no person who professes a religion different from Hinduism shall be deemed to be a member of a scheduled caste.''

Why should benefits accruing to a scheduled caste person in a Secular society be based on his or her professing a particular religion, especially the majority religion? This is indeed discrimination against the minority religions of this country. It no way fits our noble tradition; it should be urgently removed from our statute books by another presidential Order.

I shall not use this occasion to give utterance to the complaints of the Christian Minority about infringements of their freedom in running educational institutions, including appointment of teachers and admission of students. The matter, I understand, has been most recently referred by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, to the chief Justice, with the request to convene a larger bench to consider the questions formulated by the Constitution Bench. As lawyers F. S. Nariman and Soli Sorabji argued in Court, Articles 29 and 30(1) of our Constitution did not bestow any concessions or privileges on the minorites, but were meant to protect the fundamental rights of minorites to run and administer their own institutions, and Government should not restrict these rights in any way. I will leave that matter there.

Solution is not legislation but education

I want to raise two rather significant points here, which apply to all religious minorities as well as to the majority community.

The first is a rather simple point. No amount of legislation can solve the minorities problem in our country It calls for radical changes in the basic attitudes, and in the content of religious teaching, of so-called minority and majority communities. The law of course has a didactic function in educating people and making them aware of crimes which they often tend to overlook. The abolishment of untouchability and the opening of the temples to all Hindus, though done by legislation have fulfilled an educative function in changing the attitudes of people. But we know that a law for example, against offering or taking bribes will not by itself remove bribery from our government system. Implementation of such a law by exemplary penalties would go only as far as the implementation itself is effective and cannot be circumvented by further bribes to the implementing officers.

Education is of course the key. But who will educate? Who will educate the educators? The government? Judging by past experience, I have some hesitation. I would propose a three-pronged approach consisting of committed non-government organisations, the religious leadership of both the majority and minority communities, and certain government agencies not too much bothered about vote-banks, working in tandem with each other. All three groups stand in need of furthering their own education regarding minority right in a secular democracy. There should be an immediate effort to bring these three groups together, without media presence at least in the beginning for extended sessions, as a national educational process, a) to explore the basic principles which should govern minority and majority community attitudes and conduct towards each other and towards the unity and integrity of the nation; and b) to formulate a fundamental code of attitude and conduct in this matter for both majority and minority communities. I hope the Minorities Commission can take an initiative soon in this regard.

Majority-minority distinction must be based on socio-economic status

The second brief point is to reflect once again on these notions of majority and minority based on religious affiliation. Why should my primary self-identification for myself in India today be in terms of my belonging to a minority religious community? Am I not an Indian as much as anyone else? Why should anyone see me primarily as a member of a minority community? Why should my Hindu friends in turn think of their identity first in terms of their belonging to the majority community rather than in terms of their being Indian first?

I emphatically reject the oft-repeated dictum that religion is a matter of individual choice and is entirely personal, to be kept out of the public realm.   Religion, as any sociologist can tell you, is neither individual nor private; it is by nature corporate and public, belonging to the beliefs and practices of a community; one individual does not create his/her own religion, except in the fantasies of some of our semi-litterati; religion is, I repeat, by nature corporate and public. Still we should put religious belonging in its proper place.

My own religious commitment is rather deep and basic for me; but out of it also comes my commitment to the whole of humanity, and to all my fellow-Indians. I believe a lesser commitment would not be worthy of a great religion. It is my religious commitment which will not let me regard the interests of my own religious community as somehow more important than the just interests of other minority and majority religious communities.

Since I am not a constitutional Fundamentalist, may I here make the affirmation that the constitution of a secular state should not think in terms of religious minorities and majorities in its fundamental legislation.

The constitution of a secular state should provide for communal harmony and pluralism in religious practice; should guarantee religious freedom for all, subject to the general consideration of morality and the welfare of the whole citizenry; should legislate against privilege and discrimination on the basis of religion; should not support one religion over against the others; should delineate clearly what the Government can and cannot do in the protection and administration of the property and institutions of majority and minority religious communities (e.g. Devaswom boards, Temple Trusts, post-Ayodhya settlements). It should not however make people think of themselves in terms of religious majority and minorities.

In providing for positive discrimination in favour of religious minorities, the Constitution should discontinue reservation of electoral constituencies on the basis of religion, as the Constitution itself demands. It should have so ceased in 1989, 40 years after the Constitution came into force.

The 62nd amendment of 1989 has extended the period till 1999; five years is hardly enough time to start a national discussion on this and come to some sane conclusions; but the issue is such a hot potato that political parties shy away from it. The minorities themselves should reflect on how they can get adequate representation in the political process without the religion-based reservation of seats.

In the case of admission to educational institutions and special scholarships, social/economic criteria rather than religious affiliation should be in the forefront of consideration. Again a great deal of joint reflection by the majority and minority communities needs to be started now on how this provision for positive discrimination on a religious basis can be eliminated and still justice secured for the economically and socially backward communities.

My main concern is that we should as Indians desist from the very bad habit of thinking in terms of religious majority and minorities. In our country the sufferers are the majority, the victims of our unjust system, who come from all religious and non-religious communities, from the religious majority community as well as from the religious minority communities. Disability does not come from belonging to any particular religious community; it comes from a socio-economic system in which the beneficiaries are the minority and the disadvantaged constitute the majority. It is this system that needs to be overhauled, and towards this end the majority community and the religious minorities should work together. This is the challenge before the nation, and in this even the privileged socio-economic minority in the country must work together with the sadly marginalised majority whose interests are remembered only in political speeches. That really is the majority-minority issue in our country.