Sachar Report :Reports & Reports but no Results

[KashifAsrar]

From William Hunter to Rajinder Sachar

Reports & Reports but no Results

By Syed Tahir Mahmood

The Milli Gazette

`Where there is a will there is a way', says an old English axiom.
And, `where there is no will there is a survey' seems to have been the
case with the officially sponsored studies of the problem of
under-representatio n of Muslims – the second largest section amongst
the Indian citizenry – in the educational institutions and employment
under government control. Though surveyed and studied again and again
by various government-appointe d agencies – individuals, committees and
commissions – the problem remains largely unresolved till this day.
Under-representatio n of Muslims in the educational and employment
sectors in the country has been as consistent all along as, indeed,
the official inaction in the matter.

Far back in 1870s at the behest of the Viceroy, Lord Meo, Sir William Hunter had studied the causes of Muslim unrest in the country.
Published in 1871 under the title Our Indian Musalmans, the study
included some authentic data on the number of Muslims in government
jobs – especially in the Muslim-concentratio n province of Bengal where
the city of Calcutta was then the seat of the government. Among its
findings were the figures "assistant engineers (three grades) : Hindu
14, Muslim 0; sub-engineers & supervisors : Hindu 24, Muslim 1;
overseers : Hindu 63, Muslim 2; accounts department : Hindu 50, Muslim
0; registered legal counsel : Hindu 239, Muslim 1…", and so on. The
study lamented that "there is in fact now in Calcutta hardly any
government office where a Muslim can hope to get anything more than
the job of a guard, peon or attendant." There is, however, nothing on
record to show that any concrete steps were ordered by the Viceroy to
correct the imbalance and injustice prevailing in the government
offices in respect of employment of Muslims as revealed by this study
made under official patronage by a respectable Englishman of the time.

Having inherited from the British this legacy of social injustice to
the Muslims and official inaction in the matter, independent India
seems to have maintained it till this day. A Minorities Commission was
set up in 1978 by the first non-Congress government at the Centre.
Side-stepping it on returning to power, the new Congress government
appointed in 1980 a separate `high-powered panel' to study the status
of minorities and other backward classes as beneficiaries of
government's fiscal policies and welfare schemes. Initially chaired by
the late Dr VA Sayid Mohammad, on his appointment as the Indian High
Commissioner in London barely four months later the panel was placed
under its senior-most member Dr Gopal Singh – a former MP and diplomat
– and eventually came to be known as the `Gopal Singh Committee'. Its
secretary, Khurshid Alam Khan, on his elevation to the Union Ministry
was replaced by the late Dr Rafiq Zakaria. The 10-member panel
submitted on 14th June 1983 a 118-page `Report on Minorities' with 205
pages of annexures containing extensive data on the `participation and
performance' of minorities in education and employment, their share as
beneficiaries in rural development and place in the industrial sector,
and the role played by financial institutions in respect of their
welfare. Painting a rather dismal picture of the position of Muslims
in all these, the panel made a large number of recommendations for its
improvement through various short-term and long-term measures. For an
unduly long period the Gopal Singh Panel report remained a closely
guarded secret despite demands for its release; and no action was ever
taken on its recommendations when at last these were made public.

In 1995 the National Minorities Commission collected data on the share
of minorities in police and para-military services and, finding that
their presence, especially of the Muslims, in that sector was
"deplorably disproportionate to their population in various states," had made some important recommendations for the improvement of the situation. The report submitted on 6 May 1996 by the Planning Commission's 12-member Sub-Group on Minorities chaired by NCM member S Vardarajan provided detailed data on minority presence in central
services and banking sector and concluded that "the representation of
minorities, especially Muslims, in the State and all-India services is
very low and bears no relation to their population, and there has been no purposeful action to remedy this imbalance." Observing that "as even fifty years after independence there are serious imbalances and
inequities in respect of the representation of minorities in all
public employments, top priority should be given to the adoption of
measures to rectify this situation," the NCM report for 1998-99
specifically recommended that "in all public employment under central
government there must be at least 15% representation of the minorities
with a break-up of 10% for the Muslims and 5% for the other minorities
taken together; and this should be ensured by adopting suitable
measures and issuing mandatory guidelines to all governments,
public-sector undertakings and concerned recruiting authorities. " Both
these reports too, like that of the Gopal Singh Panel, are still
awaiting a response from those who matter.

In March 2005 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointed a new
`high-powered' committee chaired by a former judge to evaluate afresh
the educational and socio-economic status of the Muslims. Now
generally known as the Sachar Committee, it has faced some unsavory
controversies. Surprisingly, anti-Muslim elements in the society did
not cry foul on the setting up of the committee – perhaps due to their
preoccupation with something even more important than their favourite
pastime of Muslim-bashing. But when as part of its assigned job the
committee sought data on the Muslims in armed forces, and overlooking
the need of confidentiality in the matter somebody made it public,
they did raise a great hue and cry. Initially given a time-span of
fifteen months and attached to the PMO, the Sachar Committee was later
given some extensions and placed under the newly created Ministry of
Minority Affairs. It has at last completed its work and submitted its
report to the government. Its findings on the terrible
under-representatio n of the Muslims in government jobs across the
country , however, already became public – a long article revealing
its findings was serialized in a leading English daily. And,
expectedly, there has been a great hue and cry once again. An
innocuous statement made by the Prime Minister on 2nd November in his
inaugural speech at the meeting of the State Minorities Commissions –
that the minorities should get their due share in
government-controll ed jobs – is being linked with the presumed
recommendations of the committee and seen as a precursor to
reservation for the Muslims – an all-time dreaded scenario for the
those votaries of communal politics who use "appeasement" as a
euphemism for ensuring human rights. In recent months the government
has repeatedly declared before the apex court that it does not favour
religion-based reservation; but who bothers?

The Sachar exercise is obviously nothing novel or unprecedented – it
only offers an updated account of the educational and socio-economic
status of the Muslims who undoubtedly are the worst sufferers among
the various minorities of the country. It will be appropriate for the
government of the day to consider in the right earnest its report and
recommendations along with all other similar reports and
recommendations of the post-independence era. It is high time some
remedial action was taken to at least partially undo the inequalities,
injustices and inequities which the second largest section of the
Indian citizenry has been facing since the advent of independence.

Professor Dr Tahir Mahmood is Expert-Member, Government of India's
National Commission for Religious & Linguistic Minorities; Amity's
Ambassador for Interfaith Dialogue; Founder-Chairman, Amity
University's Institute of
Advanced Legal Studies & School of Religion and Law; New Delhi, India
and can be reached at syedtahirmahmood@ hotmail.com