Affirmative Inaction: Lack of Reservations for Muslims

Abstract

After independence, the core ideology of the nascent nation was articulated in the Constitution itself. New instrumentalities were created to plan for the disadvantaged groups. Quota based seats for Scheduled Castes and Tribes in educational institutions, legislative bodies and public offices were an acknowledgment of discrimination that placed the excluded community in a disadvantaged position. The policy of reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was a means of bringing these disadvantaged sections into the social and political mainstream. However, as theoretically there is no discrimination on caste grounds in Islam, large sections of socially and educationally backward Muslims were excluded from the special provisions of reservations. How much or to what extent the policy of reservation has helped in alleviation of poverty among SC's is debatable, yet ,lack of such positive discrimination measures for Muslims could be a cause of perpetuation of poverty among them. Poverty and illiteracy form a vicious circle. If law is considered as an agency of social change, the very process of inclusion of certain categories for positive discrimination has resulted in exclusion of Muslims. The process of inclusion and exclusion, is not neutral, rather these are complex processes laden with serious social and political consequences. The inclusion of SC's in the schedule of the constitution for Positive discrimination was a defining moment in the history of our nation & how law became an instrument to bring hope and social change for certain sections of communities and also an instrument of perpetuation for the 'other community', that is Muslims, who were excluded by the very process, remains to be seen. The real issues may remain unheard of in the rhetoric of 'equality' and 'secularism' and 'unconstitutional.' The Ranganath Commission recommended 10% reservations for Muslims in government jobs. When the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh announced 5% reservation for Muslims in educational institutions as well as in jobs, the Andhra Pradesh High Court struck down the ordinance providing for 5% reservation to Muslims as unconstitutional. The courts articulate and sustain ideological hegemony. In such circumstances, wherein issues cannot be resolved in a simple manner given the complex historical complex of the Muslim community, the need is to move away from State -centred nature of law and development towards what Upendra Baxi calls social action litigation which would neccessitate a more populist use of the legal system wherein the poor, or atleast those sponsoring the cause of the poor can participate in the process of inclusion and exclusion to achieve the ideal of the inclusive society wherein rhetoric equality, secularism, unconstitutionality would not be used to perpetuate ideological hegemony.