The Congress-dominated UPA-II did not present the Equal Opportunities Commission Bill, 2011 in any session of Parliament, but may now set up this communally divisive body via the Ordinance route to harness Muslim votes in the forthcoming general election. The Union Ministry of Minority Affairs recently finalised the decision in this regard on the basis of the recommendations of the Justice Sachar Committee on Social, Economic and Educational Status of Muslim Community in India, and the Union Cabinet approved the same on 20 February 2014. Initially, the EOC was to bring the private sector within its purview, a move that is certain to meet with strong resistance from corporate India; hence this proposal may be dropped at this stage.
The Justice Sachar Committee, appointed by UPA-I in March 2005, asserted that Muslims constitute 18.5 per cent of the population and their representation in bureaucracy is about 2.5 per cent. He mooted the EOC to look into the day-to-day complaints of Muslims against non-State agencies. Thus, any minority person feeling discriminated by an employer can complain to the proposed body, thus making it almost impossible for any government or public (or private) sector office to function, as each and every recruitment or promotion is potentially liable to be disputed before the EOC if a Muslim candidate is overlooked.
This is one of the most invidious ploys of the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi. Just as Louis Mountbatten misused his position as Governor General to assert that India would conduct a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir and misguided Jawaharlal Nehru to take the issue of the Pakistani aggression to the United Nations and thus prevented its resolution, similarly Sonia Gandhi has exploited her position as UPA chairperson to poison inter-community relations in India.
The very mandate of the Sachar Committee – to establish the ‘backwardness’ of the Muslim community and link the same to institutional discrimination at social, political and economic levels – is malicious, pernicious, and violative of the spirit of the Indian Constitution which prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion. Despite this, the EOC revolves around communal identity and limits individual identity to religion. As a smokescreen, the Union Cabinet recently included the Jain community in the list of national minorities to blunt the edge of the criticism against its pro-Muslim legislation.
The EOC entitles a minority citizen who feels that he/she was discriminated against to approach the Commission on grounds of institutional discrimination against his/her group. Even the Urdu media has pointed out difficulties with this approach.
But the real problem with the EOC – should it ultimately become a statutory body, as is the ultimate plan of the UPA – is that it will indirectly create communal reservation in the government and public sector enterprises. The long-term plan is also to extend this to the private sector; this is why Union Minister Salman Khurshid once proposed that Muslims as a whole be brought under the category of Backward Communities and the corporate sector be cajoled (read forced) to give reservations to minorities in return for tax rebates. A standard argument of the EOC lobby is that there must be a ‘numerical balance’ between religious communities regardless of qualifications; in other words, employment in proportion to population, in each and every government and public sector office, and eventually also in the private sector. And each time a department rejects a minority candidate for employment, or promotion, a suit can be generated at the EOC and the authorities will have to explain that the particular applicant was rejected on grounds other than religious identity! One can expect this to engage more than 50 per cent of their official time.
The Sachar Committee tried to prove the preconceived notion that Muslims are socially, educationally and economically deprived, but it was not able to substantiate that Muslims are exclusively deprived vis-à-vis non-Muslims. Nor could it prove institutional prejudice on the part of the State. Its greatest lacuna was lack of data: ‘there are hardly any empirical studies that establish discrimination [of Muslims]. Research in this area needs to be encouraged…’ Sachar overcomes this gap by giving the ‘public perception’ about Muslims the status of empirical data: Muslims need to prove on a daily basis that they are not ‘anti-national’ and ‘terrorists’; Muslims complain they are constantly looked upon with suspicion. The committee report claims that the markers of Muslim identity – burqa, purdah, beard and topi – cause concern in the public realm; ‘every bearded man is considered an ISI agent.’ (p. 239) In other words, Sachar’s drawing room gossip has become part of an official report funded by the Government of India, a sad commentary on the state of affairs under the domination of Sonia Gandhi and her non-accountable colleagues at the National Advisory Council (NAC).
The Equal Opportunity Commission is an illegitimate child of Sachar Committee as it is beyond the scope of its terms of reference, which were limited to assessing the condition of Indian Muslims. It has instigated Muslims to have a permanent sense of grievance against all other communities, which does not bode well for the unity and integrity of the nation.
Organiser weekly, 9 March 2014
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