India's Minority Policy Is Anti-National
I do not use that word lightly but with full responsibility and seriousness out
country was partitioned on the basis of religion. Muslim League want it's
special rights for Muslims but Congress preferred division of country rather
then giving into blackmailing by Jinnah, after 7decades later we're slowly going
back to the square one.
So, Here are the 10 reasons why it is a big fraud:
- Our Constitution does not define that who is minority or who is
majority. However, all schemes run by minority affairs scattered to the six
recognized minorities i.e., Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Brahmans, Jains and
parse's. As no one seems to know why this is so?
- It is not really a minority policy but a Muslim policy, scholarships
worth thousands of crores are given to the 6 minorities, but not based on
merits but on population which means that Muslim minority will get more then
the 80% of allocations
- The minority policy does not primarily serve the smallest minorities as
the scholarship budget allocation shows smallest minorities like Jains,
Sikhs, Paresis or Buddhist get the least share of pie.
- Hindus are All benefits under minority schemes. Even in the state where
they are in minority. The Supreme Court in 2002 in the TMA Pai case, held
that the minority cannot be defined at the national level because our
constitution also talks about only linguist And since, they can be
determined only at the state level then the Religious minority should also
be defined statewise,But this recommendation has been thrown in the dustbin.
- India's minority policy flies in the face of all logic and
evidence, Its advocates say its minorities are socially backward and need
government support for their upliftment. Since education is the best tool to
overcome these challenges, special initiatives for their education are
required.
But according to 2011 census:
Literacy rate of Hindus is 63.61% which is much lower than minorities. How
can then this Indian Justify giving an educational scholarship, let's say
Jains with the literacy rate of 86.7% while denying the same to Hindus who
have literacy rate of only 63.61%.
Even Muslim literacy rates have slightly lower than that of Hindus.
Similarly, Let's look at the National Monthly Mean Household Consumption and
Expenditure, The difference between Hindus and Muslims is almost negligible
while other minority committees are far ahead seeing these figures how can
anyone justify giving scholarship to poor children's of 1 committee and
denying it to those of others..?
- Minority policies justifying saying they are small in number. Hence they
feel insecure and need extra protection. But then why don't the smallest
minorities such as Sikhs, Persis, Buddhists feel insecure. But the global
majority is Muslims and Christians do?
Clearly feeling insecure and being a minority are not related.
- Some who supports the minority policy, saying that:
Muslims are backward because of the discrimination against them, but it's
simply not true.
51% Muslims live in the poorest states, i.e., UP, Bihar, Assam and
Bengal While these states house only 32%, India's total population. So
naturally, on average, the Muslim community comes out as poorer and after
that huge family size makes matters worse.
woman's aren't allowed to study, most of the children Attend madrasas all
this adds to their misery.
- Minority policies are champion by saying that these communities needs
state help like SC's & ST's as data shows except Muslim, all other minority
are ahead or at par with Upper Caste Hindus On both the economy and
education parameters.
Comparing Muslims with SC's & ST's is wrong the constitution makers provided
special concession to that Letter based on their historical position not
only economic criteria.
- Take a look at how the India's state regulates it's educational
institutions, if Amar, Akbar & Anthony open schools at the same neighborhood
teaching exact same subjects, having same syllabus & same book they are
going to be treated different by law.
While Hindu education institution weather aided or unaided by the state are
forced to reserve quota for the poor and the backward classes Including for
minority students, Minority education institution both aided or unaided are
exempt from such social responsibility even for their own community members.
- It is also the same for the administration of religious institutions.
Temples can be taken over by the state and treated as the state property,
with money being taken from them and use for secular causes, On the other hand
the Indian state is designing schemes to give money for the development of
school and hospitals on WAQF property Which enjoys unparalleled autonomy the
makers of the constitution were careful Not to burden the term minority with the
Static And unchanging definition, which is why they kept it open to
interpretation. Accordingly the constitution speaks of minority rights In the
spirit of conserving the diversity of the country by ensuring that a minority
group say, Speaker of Sanskrit in today's India are encouraged to Preserve their
way of life. However, the polity has failed the spirit of constitution by
hijacking the purpose of these rights to cater to vote bank politics, it has
essentially put minorities on a higher pedestal than the Hindu majority in the
eyes of law, Not acceptable.
Minorityism- Sectarianism in education system
Mukhtar Abbas Nabbi The minority affairs minister had put forward 9 minority
schemes exclusively for minorities:
- Pre-matric scholarship for Class 1 to 10.
- Post-metric scholarship for Class 11 to PhD.
- merit-cum means based scholarship scheme for professional and technical
courses.
- free coaching an allied scheme for competitive exam
- Free coaching an Allied scheme for competitive exam.
- Moulana Azaad National Fellowship an M. Phil and PHD.
- Support for minorities for clearing prelims exam.
- Padho Pradesh for overseas studies.
- Nai manzil by PM Modi, for students of madrasas
- Begum Hajrat Mahal National Scholarship for 11th & 12th
Now if you go to Minority Affairs Ministry website, These are the reasons they
give for running these schemes:
Article 46 – The state shall promote with special care the education and
economic interests of the weaker sections of the people and in particular of the
schedule cast & schedule tribes, and Shall protect them from social injustice
and all forms of social exploitation.
Here, you would think that maybe the government gives for SC's and ST's some
scholarship at par with the minorities if not more, but according to data (if
you see the data) by Hari Prasad he runs a blog secure core blog , He has done
data analysis and come to this conclusion. Compared all the minorities scheme
with scholarship schemes that are run for all the Schedule casts and schedule
tribes.
minority gets more than double the scholarship then what an SC student will get
for almost the exact same parameters
A minority student who is a discolor gets 5,900 per year but in SC gets. 2,250
per year.
Similarly, a minority hosteller gets 11,900 per year, but SC hosteller gets
4,500 only.
Now- OBC
Post matric scholarship- Rs. 1,261/Yr.
Whereas, for minority students it is -Rs. 6,040/yr., and similarly in other
schemes also. So, these are the sectarian schemes these guys are running.
By law, a Hindu cannot be a member of National Commission of minority education
institution it is only religious minority. There are no defined linguistic
minorities in Constitution only six national minorities have been declared.
What were the courts doing?
The UPA government pre-empted the courts by four years this act was passed in
2009 the UPA government passed a Constitution Amendment in 2005 (93rd), That
specifically Excluded minorities from any law that it will in future pass. If
you think we can get rid of RTE act also after this amendment then we are ok,
but there's another shocker you are not.
(Going back to the pre-arty era before 2000- from 1957-00 we will see a
history and pattern, that how minority schools have always been on higher
putting than non minorities schools)
Article 30(1)- All minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have
the right to establish, and administer education institution of their choice.
So, here are also only two kinds of minorities, only religion or linguistic
minorities have right to establish an administrative education institution of
their choice.
So, if you think that RTE can be applied to everybody then, I will show you it
cannot.
Now over the years from 1957, Kerala Education Bill case to
St. Stephens college
v. Du.,
The courts have given there freedoms to minority education institutions:
- It doesn't matter, if institution set up before constitution came into
force ( It will enjoy the protection of Article 30.)
- It doesn't matter if set up by foreigner with help of local Minorities.
- The state, while applying any regulation to minority educational
institution, must follow two tests.
- Regulation must be reasonable.
- Conductive to making the institution an effective vehicle of education
for minority communities or other persons who reserved to it.
- Freedom to choose Medium of instruction of their own.
- Recognition/Affiliation, they have given them rights.(That you cannot put such
conditions for regulation and affiliations that destroys the very nature of the
minority institutions.)
- State cannot take over the minority institution unless it itself offers
to surrender unconditionally
- Very much free in cases of appointments, Services, conditions,
disciplinary, etc.
- Aided up to 95% by government.
- Do not have to follow teachers quota for schedule, casts and schedule
tribes
- No restrictions on hiring non minority faculty.
- Determine their own criteria for admitting students like St. Steven
College.
These were the freedoms given before RTE was even on the horizon.
Now the courts in deciding that who is a Minority Institution
- In Kerala Education Bill they said that:
Only a sprinkling(Did not define it, but generally it is less than 50%.) of non
minorities you can do.
- St. Steven college V. University of Delhi.
The judges said that they can reserve not more than 50% seats for minorities.
Article 29(2) No citizen shall be denied admission into any educational
institution maintained by the state or receiving aid out of state funds on
grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them.
They said as St. Stephan's is getting funded by government, so no citizens
should be discriminated against, Everybody has the right and you are doing that
on basis of religion.
According to the judge:
the fact that article 29(2) applies to minorities as well as non minorities does
not mean that it was intended to nullify the special right guaranteed to
minorities under article 30(1)
So, They have put Article 30(1) At higher pedestal then 29(2) (This is the kind
of protection they enjoyed.)
So the issue here was:
What kind of education Minority institution can impart?
There were two views:
First view- where any minority will establish their institution to preserve
their culture, their script, language that's the main objective otherwise what
will be the difference between minorities and non minorities.
Second view:
So, the second view was that i.e., No, article 30 says of their
choice they can setup any kind of institution they want, not just for their own
people.
This second view was prevailed in the court, the court said: No, they have full
right to establish, whatever they want to teach , whatever kind of institution
they want.., they have full rights (I have red more then 10 judgements on this)
Now because of these two:
1st.The Kind of education they impart, And
2nd. Who is minority?
No, if you consider two schools. One for minority and 2nd for non minority.
A minority institution having 10% minority students and non minority, let's say
has 15%. Here also the non minority Institution has more minority students then
that and teaching the same subjects. Now who is chattering to minority
institution?, Who is serving it well?- non minority right?
But who the courts will apply the #RTE to: The non minority. So this is what is
happening.
If you read the judgement of
K Hamid v. Polytechnic case,
came into the Bombay High Court. They said the government's order to reserve a
certain % of seats for SC and ST students cannot be made applicable to the
minority institutions as it violated article 30(1)
So, those who say that RTE act, can be/should be applicable to all schools
irrespective of religion of the owner, well this is what is going to happen,
they are going to strike it down
Now you would ask, if already there was so much freedom to minority
institutions, why the government came up with RTE act?, why 93rd constitutional
amendment specifically saying that those minority institutions are exempt?, Why
did they do that?, because in 2002 brilliant thing happened
TMA Pai Foundation case judgement came, the case was decided by the 11 judges
constitutional bench.
they have given some kinds of freedoms to the Hindu run schools some freedoms
were given to non minority institutions (you must read the judgement once to
understand)
In that, They said maximum autonomy has to be with management like any other
private institution (now under RTE it is not)
And address the very important question that whether the non minority
institutions have the right to stablish and administer education institution in
the same manner and to the same extent as minority institutions?
So, basically the question was whether the non minorities have the same rights
as the minorities?
The judges said, Yes, The right to stablish and add minister educational
institution is guaranteed under the constitution to all the citizens
under article 19 (1) (g) and 26 to minorities specifically under article 30.
They said, education is not a business but it can be an occupation so, only
reasonable restrictions can be applied (like law and order and all that).
This was historic and put non minority institution almost at par with minority
institution. Then the UPA government came in 2004 and there changed the
constitution they added the clause in article 15 which was clause 5 in which
this specifically target sub-clause (g) of clause (1) of article 19, which the TMA
Pai Foundation had given right to non minority schools, and exempted aided or
unaided by the state, other than the minority educational institutions,
they exempted minority institutions.
now this feels so revolting right? Such a discrimination is embedded in the
constitution and it was passed in the loksabha and rajyasabha with fine colors
Now the constitutional validity had to be upheld in the court, so the court said
we will not decide whether this is constitutional or not unless the government
passes a law. Well, 4 years later, the government passes the law and the RTE
act came into force which was exactly based on this article. Then again the
matter when to courts, as there was one big issue that in RTE act it was not
mention that whether it will be applicable to minorities or non minorities
institution (because there was no need the actually done that 4 years before).
Then the court said, in case of unaided private schools of Rajasthan V. Union
of India:
They said, ….we hold that 2009 act is constitutionally valid qua aided minority
schools
So, does minorities schools who are funded by the government, RTE act will be
applicable to them.
Well the UPA government could not even tolerate this kind of parity they
changed the RTE act they brought in section 1 (4).
Then a speech was given by Kapil sibal: he said, we have said that aided
institution will not be covered by this amendment and so in a sense we have
moved two steps further to protect the interest of the minority institutions.
So, even those institutions which were funded by the government even these
institution the exempted from it.
Then the final word case of RTE whether it is constitutional or not, came in
Pramati judgement a very disastrous judgement it said their right
under article 19 (1)(g) to start an occupation it is damaging it To a very
limited
Now, can any sane person say that reserving 25% seats for free is reasonable to
a very limited extent?, And consider this, this 25% is totally random they can
tomorrow make it 49% and you can do nothing about it (it is very random). This
judgement came 10 day before 2014 elections (6th may)
Now, what we can do about?.
Certainly, it is very clear that first we have to repeal the RTE even when it
doesn't solve the problem at all like clearly we have to repeal the 93rd
constitutional amendment which I don't see happening but let's say for the sake
of argument we have to do that. Then still i've shown you there is no parity we
have to change either
article 30 which gives these protections to minority
schools which I am guaranteeing you nobody can ever, even with 450 seats you
cannot do it. What else you can do is we can add a new section/clause in article 19 say to that no government will have regulation on this section or
only very reasonable regulations can be made.
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