Reservation for the Muslims

The controversy on granting reservation for the OBCs at the institutes of higher learning has hardly died down. There is a new controversy going on about granting some reservation for the Muslims. It is not yet clear where and how much. I mean is the reservation going to be in scools and colleges, or in govt jobs or somewhere else?

There is no doubt that Muslims are lagging behind average Indian in every sphere of life.

The reservation policy, however, is not going to work. Even more so for the Muslims. There are several reasons why a reservation for the Muslims is not desirable:

1. Catapulting into some institution is not of much help, as the student, terrible underequipped compared to his classmates, will struggle with the course. Neither is reservation in jobs anything of help. The unskilled man/woman will struggle with his/her own job, let alone going back and helping his/her people. I have noticed that people, who get into places where they do not deserve to be, when asked for help, are generally not helpful to others. I believe this comes from insecurity.
2. Mostly the rich and powerful among the Muslims (the so called creamy layer) are going to benefit from such policy.
3. The right wing parties will use it( footnote 2) as another pretext to sow discord among Hindus and Muslims. They will be more venomous in this case compared to the one of SC/ST/OBCs, because atleast the SC/ST/OBCs are mostly Hindus. We shall see further confrontation of the Muslim and the Hindu society.
4. It may be unconstitutional( footnote 3).
   

The solution does not lie in this. Rather I think the urge and effort has to come from within the Muslims. More organisations like BIFT has to come up. Tegore once said "(a person's) need is a lot stronger than (another's) sympathy."

The government too can do a lot (not by something like offering reservation) by some assertive actions like building up more schools in Muslim dominated areas, granting scholarships to needy students through the Waqf board and by including Urdu in the list of languages offered in good goverment schools like DPSs, KVs and others( footnote 1). There is a clear trend of many government school administration denying admission to student from Muslim muhallas. The govt can take action against such administrations. And it should stop trying to rob the few Muslim institutions their special status. They are like oasis for the Muslims.

A very important thing that the goverment can do is to clear the Waqf of the corrupt people it has got. If they do that, the situation is bound to look up within some time.

Related read:
1. TEHELKA DEBATE
2. Under-representation of the Muslims in India and Their Upliftment: Some Thoughts
3. Muslim quota? The debate is on

FOOTNOTE
1. It is not that they don't offer Urdu, but many schools don't and even in some that does, there is shortage of teachers.

2. A recent news points out that the BJP does not like the idea of granting reservation for the Muslims. That is quite expected. It is not from good will twards Muslims, but because of their policy of hatred.

3. Few days back a supreme court order has declared reservation on the basis of religion as unconstitutional, in response of Andhra Pradesh government's decision to grant reservation for the Muslims.