Experts have questioned the need for a separate commission when there are already recommendations by two panels in this regard. Both the panels – the Rangnath Misra Commission and the National Commission for Minorities survey – had, in 2007, recommended Scheduled Caste status for Dalits who embraced Christianity and Islam. But both were rejected by the UPA government with Dr. Manmohan Singh as prime minister. Experts believe that appointing a new panel on the same issue is a futile exercise that is “less social but more political” while keeping the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in view. Experts believe the motive behind the new national commission for Dalits is “more political than welfare”.
By M N Khan
NEW DELHI—Christian and Muslim activists have said that the Narendra Modi government forming a panel to study the social, economic and educational status of Dalit converts to Christianity and Islam was more a “political exercise and less welfare”.
The government announced to form the panel after the Supreme Court heard a bunch of petitions seeking reservation benefits for Dalit converts to Christianity and Islam, and asked the government to submit a report in this connection.
During the hearing of the petitions recently, the top court said that the time has come to decide on issues having social ramifications and ordered the Centre to do so within three weeks.
The issue is whether or not to include Dalit Christians and Muslims in the scheduled caste list.
Only Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs are currently recognized as Scheduled Castes under the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950.
Earlier, the Rangnath Misra commission appointed by the UPA government led by the Congress government had, in 2007, recommended Scheduled Caste status for Dalit converts to Christianity and Islam. A study conducted by the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) in 2007 also made a similar recommendation. But the UPA government ironically rejected the proposals saying they lacked sufficient evidence based on fieldwork.
Raising concern about the announcement to form a panel, Abusaleh Shariff, Executive Director at US-India Policy Institute, Washington and Member Secretary, Sachar Committee, said, “First and foremost: how will government identify them; while officially Muslims are not allowed to state and record ‘caste’ status in Census, NSS Surveys and any of the government documents. This, at the moment, is a ‘‘rhetorical’ proposition. Also, the SCs and STs will raise their most vociferous protest against it.”
“The new effort to identify SC/ST origins amongst Muslims is a ploy of current ruling dispensation to split Muslim votes in the hope of electoral gains in 2024,” opined Shariff.
Noted human rights activist John Dayal, while sharing his perspective on the issue, said, “There is aggressive opposition not just from the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party or from the upper caste men of Congress party, but also from Hindu Dalits both within and outside the ruling groups. Upper caste Hindus see the Dalit issue as an existential threat. Over the years, they have convinced the Dalit leadership across the political spectrum that any concessions given to those now professing the Christian or Muslim faith would cost them dearly. Dalits who remain Hindus – and Sikhs and Buddhists are also deemed to be Hindus or “Indic” for this — get a 15% reserved quota in seats in Parliament and state legislatures, government jobs, and education. The cake, they have been convinced, is not large enough to share with Dalits worshipping different gods in the land.”
Dayal added, “The Congress does not make Dalit Christian rights a part of its election planks. The BJP, which now rules, is sharp in rejecting the demand. And former law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, as spokesman in the Upper House of Parliament, had said, “Dalits, who had shunned their faith and converted to Islam and Christianity, would not be permitted to contest parliamentary or assembly elections from constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes and will not be allowed to claim other reservation benefits.” Scheduled Castes is the official name for Dalits.
“Though untouchability has been officially abolished since the Constitution was enacted in 1950, it remains very strong on the ground, not just in the villages. In fact, as seen in recent court cases from university towns in the US, Indians have taken it with them to foreign lands in modern times. Moreover, privileged castes dominate the country’s political, academic, social, political, and military, apart from the law and order and judicial system,” said Dayal.
Commenting on the Modi government to set up a panel on the issue of Dalit converts to Islam and Christianity, Satish Deshpande, a professor of sociology from the University of Delhi, said it was “intriguing” why the Modi government wants to appoint a commission to study the Dalits who have embraced Islam and Christianity. In an article in The Indian Express on September 21, Deshpande said it was hard to imagine why this government might want to (or even want to appear as if it wants to) include these “alien” religions in the reservation policy when they were explicitly excluded from the Hindu Rashtra by V D Savarkar, the founding father of Hindutva.
Former member of Delhi Minorities Commission A C Michael, sharing his reaction on the issue, said, “In the last two decades retired CJI Ranganath Mishra Commission, Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee, and a high-powered committee led by Prof Satish Deshpande have already gone into these issues, and the government has reports of these studies and all of them said that all Dalits, irrespective of their religious status, deserve to be treated at par. And there should be no discrimination against those Dalits who have converted to Christianity and Islam. So I want to ask: Is there a need for another commission to sit on it? I think it is a tactic to delay the process in the Supreme Court.”
“I don’t think that setting up this panel will culminate in extending reservations in the SC category to Muslim and Christian Dalits. It is difficult to understand what the government aims to achieve with the panel but extending reservations to Muslims and Christians, which previous governments have always stayed away from, is unlikely to be changed by this one,” said Amir Ali, Assistant Professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Almost all experts have referred to the Ranganath Misra Commission and the government’s approach earlier. On October 29, 2004, the Indian government established the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities, also known as the Ranganath Misra Commission, to investigate several matters about linguistic and religious minorities in India.
The Misra commission, in its report in May 2007, recommended that Dalit converts to Christianity and Islam be given reservation benefits under the Scheduled Caste reservation quota. But, surprisingly, this was not implemented by the UPA government led by Congress though the UPA government itself had constituted the panel.
Other Misra Commission recommendations included a 10 percent quota for Muslims and 5 percent for other minorities in government jobs and seats in all the higher educational institutions (graduation and above). It also recommended an 8.4 percent quota, out of the existing OBC quota of 27 percent, for religious minorities, mainly Muslims,
Experts have questioned the need for a separate Commission when there are already recommendations in this regard. They believe it is a futile exercise that is less social but more political, keeping in view the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Experts believe that the motive behind the new national commission for Dalits is more political than welfare.
