Govt affidavit on dalit minority quota
After avoiding filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court for several years enunciating its stand on the prickly and politically volatile issue of reservations for dalit Muslims and Christians, the government is likely to do so in the next few days. It’s being forced to do so after the apex court set a deadline for the government asking it to do so.
Highly-placed sources told this newspaper that the affidavit, “in a sense” will explain the government’s stand on quotas for dalit Muslims and Christians, a long-standing demand from members of both the communities.
Whatever the government may say on the matter of reservation for dalit Muslims and Christians, it will most certainly queer the pitch with Assembly elections in four states and a Union Territory already announced. Besides, any stand that the government may take will also have a bearing on the caste census slated to be held between June and September 2011.
The Supreme Court is hearing a bunch of petitions seeking the striking down of a 1950 presidential order which had limited reservation to the dalits among Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. The demand for reservations among dalit Muslims and Christians grew shriller after the Ranganath Misra Commission too said they should be given quotas in employment and education when it gave its report during the UPA-I’s tenure.
The National Commission for Minorities (NCM), which has for long been urging reservations for dalit Muslims and Christians, wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as recently as January making a strong pitch for these quotas. NCM vice-chairman, then officiating as chairman, H.T. Sangliana wrote to the PM on January 19, “Since Christian dalits and Muslim dalits have no superiority in their economic and social standing by becoming followers of their new religions, denying them similar enabling and empowering facilities due to no other reasons than political compulsion will only delay their overall inclusive progress along (with) others.”
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