Trapped between bigotted enemies and short sighted friends

[Dr. John Dayal]

JOHN DAYAL

An absolutely hate-filled and lunatic analysis of terrorism by Janata
Dal leader and lawyer Subramanian Swamy, and a well meaning but myopic
policy paper by the redoubtable former IAS officer and National
Advisory Council member Harsh Mander show how minorities in general,
and micro minorities in particular, can face political and
developmental disenfranchisement at the hands of foes and friends.

Writing a column on Terrorism in the Mumbai edition of the DNA daily
newspaper, Swami says Hindus cannot accept to be killed in a “halal
fashion”, continuously bleeding every day till the nation finally
collapses. Painting a scary scenario to hold readers’ attention, he
says, “There will be no doubt about Islamic terror after 2012” when he
expects a Taliban takeover in Pakistan and the Americans to flee
Afghanistan. “Then, Islam will confront Hinduism to complete
unfinished business.

The lawyer, who has so far made the Congress and Sonia Gandhi his main
targets, says the Hindu leadership has not united the people against
the victimisation of Hindus in Kashmir, Mau, Melvisharam and
Malappuram. “If half the Hindus voted together, rising above caste and
language, a genuine Hindu party would have a two-thirds majority in
Parliament and the assemblies. Muslims of India, he says, are being
programmed by a” slow reactive process to become radical and thus
slide into suicide against Hindus.”

“Hindus must collectively respond as Hindus against the terrorist and
not feel individually isolated. If one Hindu dies merely because he or
she was a Hindu, then a bit of every Hindu also dies. This is an
essential mental attitude, a necessary part of a virat committed
Hindu”, he says. Swamy forgets that in Kashmir, Mumbai and Gujarat, a
very large number of people killed in terror actions have been
Muslims, as also the occasional Sikhs and Christians.

For Swamy, what is required is a “collective mindset as Hindus.”If any
Muslim acknowledges his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept
him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj (greater Hindu society)
which is Hindustan. Hindustan is a nation of Hindus and others whose
ancestors were Hindus. Others, who refuse to acknowledge this, or
those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration, can
remain in India but should not have voting rights (which means they
cannot be elected representatives).”

Swamy’s arguments take the discourse back to Guru Golwalkar, Savarkar
and the other founders of the RSS and thier theology of a Brihat
Bharat in which there would be no place for followers of the so-called
non-Indic religions, unless they agreed to a second class, vote-less
position. Living in the dream world of a Larger India, Swami says
“however small the terrorist incident, the nation must retaliate
massively.”

His other remedies are ones repeated by the RSS every week in the
Organiser and the Panchjanya, their official organs: “remove article
370 on Kashmir,”, “clear the mosques adjacent to Kashi Vishwanath
temple and the 300 masjids at other temple sites, device a Uniform
Civil Code, rename India as a Hindu Rashtra in which non-Hindus can
vote only if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were
Hindus, name the land as Hindustan, stop attempts to “change India’s
demography by illegal immigration, conversion, and refusal to adopt
family planning,” and of course, “enact a national law prohibiting
conversion from Hinduism to any other religion , re-conversion will
not be banned.”. [ http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/comment_analysis-how-to-wipe-out-islamic-terror_1566203-all]

Swamy’s last sentence gives away his game again. It is not just
Islamic terrorism and fundamentalism he is against. Many a Muslim, and
most Indian Muslim organisations, has denounced terrorism and
fundamtnlaism. Swamy is against all non-Hindu minorities. He is
against Churches and pastors preaching there, he confesses, as much as
he opposes the Constitutional freedom to convert to another religion.
All conversions, he stresses more than once, can only be to Hinduism.
Those who do not know Swamy’s mindset may feel surprised at the
outburst of the former Union Commerce Minister, because he is married
to a Parsi lawyer, and one of his daughters is married to a Muslim.

Unlike Swamy, Harsh Mander positively loves the religious minorities.
The Indian Administrative Service officer was working for Action Aid
on a sabbatical when he resigned from government service denouncing
the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. Since then, he has done
wonderful work to ensure justice for the victims, himself rising to be
made a member of the National Advisory Council headed by United
Progressive Alliance chairperson Mrs Sonia Gandhi. In the NAC, Mander
is in charge of issues concerning religious minorities, specially the
Communal and Targetted Violence Prevention Bill, which is now nearing
completion, and the Food Guarantee Bill, which has been completed. A
major input in the Communal Violence prevention bill is the
recognition that it is not just Muslims who are victims of such
actions, but also Christians, and therefore the Bill has provisions to
help Christian victims.

It is therefore frightening, no less, to read a long report written by
Mander on why government’s affirmative action must be openly targetted
only at Muslims. Christians would be right in presuming that Mander
does not want the grants diluted by being passed on to the Christians
or the Buddhists.

As reported in the Times of India of 21 July 2011, Mender’s Centre for
Equity Studies prepared report dubs the Centre's minority welfare
schemes and the Prime Minister’s 15-point programme as non-starters,
blaming government's timidity in declaring the schemes as Muslim-
oriented for fear of opposition campaign of minority appeasement. “The
diffidence on the Muslim-word led to schemes being dubbed as
"minority" or "area based", thereby diluting targeted community
approach. “

He asks the government to openly resolve to improve the lot of Muslims
by making a dedicated 14 per cent budgetary allocation for the Muslim
community on the lines of sub-plans for SCs and STs. With the findings
raising an alarm, NAC has sought a "detailed response" from the
minority affairs ministry on the study.
Mander’s r report questions the efficacy of schemes launched with
fanfare for amelioration of minorities — in education, self-employment
and infrastructure among others. He dismisses UPA's minority outreach
as tokenism. The Ministry for Minority Affairs is the target. Mander
says it lacks institutional and political authority to ensure
compliance of its objectives from other arms of government. He says
the anxiety over appeasement charge led to Multi-Sector Development
Programme for Muslims morph into one for "minorities" and ultimately
to an "area-scheme" — aiming to improve infrastructure in 90 districts
with over 25% Muslims.

Mander’s Centre for Equity Studies, which publishes his report, terms
the allocations for minorities as small — 19 per cent of population
got 5 per cent budgetary allocation, with per capita allocation of a
mere Rs 797. It recommended that the PM’s 15-point programme
implemented by various ministries be turned into an independent
minority sub-plan having earmarked funds in each ministry and monitors
to check their use.
While Subramanian Swamy’s rantings are easily dismissed as the
delusional outpourings of a demented Hindutva fundamentalist, Mander’s
report seems to hit at the very basis of constitutional guarantees to
“all” religious minorities, and may aggravate and empower the Hindutva
forces.

Not many know that the very formation of the Ministry of Minority
affairs by the UPA in 2006 two years after it came to power after the
rule of the BJP-dominated NDA has been challenged by anti-minority
forces.
There have been several court cases against the ministry, challenging
its very existence. One argument, facile as it may be, is of course
that why are separate ministries, Plan and budget components and
other affirmative action required at all when the Constitution
guarantees every citizen equal rights and equal protection. Why then,
it is argued, should we have special provisions for Scheduled Castes
and Tribes, for instance, or for women in terms of reservations, and
certainly whey for religious minorities when the nation is secular and
the movement holds all religions in equal respect. This argument flies
in the face of the fact that three thousand years of a religion-
sponsored hierarchy has created situations which have kept Dalits and
Tribals, even women, and certainly several religious groups outside
the pail of development, denying them equity in national progress.
It, perhaps, is not widely known that that Ministry has been made
party in Writ Petition no. SCANO No. 2245/2008 of Vijay Harish Chandra
Patel in the High Court of Gujarat, Writ Petition (PIL) 84 of 2008 of
S. G. Punalekar in the High Court of Bombay and Writ Petition no.
(298/08 and WPC No. 9569 of 207) in Delhi High Court.

One Vijay Harish Chandra Patel challenged the Prime Minister’s New 15
Point Programme and filed a public interest litigation challenging the
steps taken by the Union of India and the Planning Commission to
utilize the national resources in favour of a particular minority
community, which according to the petitioner is discriminatory,
arbitrary and violative of various constitutional provisions.

Chief Justice K. S. Radhakrishnan ruled that “funds used to minimize
inequalities among minority Communities by adopting various social and
welfare activities like public safety, health, slum development,
improving the deficiencies in civic amenities, economic opportunities,
improving standard of education, skills and entrepreneurship
development, employment opportunities, eradication of poverty etc.,
would no way violate the constitutional principles of equality or
affect any of the fundamental rights guaranteed to the members of
other communities.”

S. G. Punalekar in the High Court of Bombay also challenged the
scholarship schemes of the Ministry of Minority Affairs including PM’s
New 15 Point Programme for the welfare of minorities in the public
interest as violative of Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution of
India. The High court recently dismissed this PIL.
In Delhi, the petitioners said that Muslims of India could not be
treated as minority community that the treatment of Christians,
Buddhists, Sikhs, Parsis and Muslims as a “minority” is irrational
from a constitutional point of view. The High court is yet to pass a
judgment on this PIL.

Sources in the Union government say the Ministry of Minority Affairs
has been able to win some cases and sustain their argument because of
the approach adopted of not focusing on any particular minority but on
all the identified minorities and that the disadvantaged and
economically deprived amongst them.
Harsh Mander’s report denies this well settled and sound government
policy.

The All India Christian Council and the All India Catholic Union have
been struggling with the Union government to set up a Justice Sachchar
Commission to assess the economic and development infirmity in the
Christian community, especially among the Tribals and the Dalits, the
boatmen, fishermen, landless labour and other deprived communities.
This campaign started when the government first set up the Justice
Sachchar committee after decades of campaigning and advocacy by
Muslims groups. The data in the Sachhar committee report has greatly
strengthened the Muslim cause and has given a tool to NGOs and
community leaderships to strengthen the struggle for their rights in
the development pie.

Unfortunately, the government has not given heed to the Christian
demand, partly because the Church leadership has not been as vocal in
its interaction with the government, remaining satisfied with minor
crumbs.
If the government were to listen to the Mander report, it would
entirely undo whatever little headway has been made towards the
empowerment of the poor in the Christian community through the
advocacy in the Working Group on Minorities of the Planning Commission
now involved with the 12th Five Year Plan Document. A minority sub
plan, which Mander suggests, will be feasible only if it covers all
minorities and is not confined just to the Muslim community. Our
argument in the working committee has been that the major budgetary
and plan allocations for minorities have not percolated to the
Christian community, whatever be the reason, and whether the fault
lies with the government or with the church leadership.

Another danger if the government were to accept the Mander
recommendations is the threat to secular unity, and giving additional
ammunition to people like Subramaniam Swamy. At present, the dialogue
between Christians and other minorities is very little. The formal
dialogue is limited to casual and occasional contact by the Catholic
Bishops Conference of India and its equivalent federations in the
protestant churches meeting once or twice a year with sundry Maulanas
and Granthis, RK Mission, the Bahais and the Brahmkumaris for some lip
service to common issues of peace and brotherly love. There never has
been a serious political dialogue between minorities on issues of
development and demands to the Union and State governmetns.

The result has been that Christians have had to chalk their own
destiny or accept whatever little may come out of, on a pro rata
basis, from government’s plans for the major minority community, the
Muslims. Christians have therefore felt discriminated and isolated,
feeling that Muslims have taken away all the development booty
earmarked in the Budgets. This in a way creates a distance between
Muslims and Christians and shatters whatever element o unity could be
created.

The government would do extreme damage to micro minorities such as
Christians if it goes by the Mander thesis, without making adequate
provisions on a pro rata basis for the uplift of the Christian
community. The government must acknowledged that islands of gross
underdevelopment occur in all religious minorities, and specially in
Christianity where the Dalit Christians and other groups are not even
officially acknowledged, and millions of believers are not even
counted in the Census as Christians. Their needs have to be addressed.
Therefore an “inclusive” thesis, which will ultimately save the
government from the charge of “appeasement” or “vote bank politics”