SACHAR COMMITTEE REPORT
Congress is ready with implementation roadmap, BJP with roadblock

While the debate is still heating up, the government is already chalking out the methodology and logistics of making the recommendations a reality

By Shahid Faridi

The debate over the Sachar Committee’s findings and recommendations is heating up, with the ruling Congress—after failing to initiate a discussion on the report in Parliament—promising to make provisions in the next budget for the targeted development of Muslims, and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) targeting the government for “appeasing the Muslims”.

The government has made quick moves to implement the recommendations of the committee. Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh was the first off the block. He set up a 13-member committee under the chairpersonship of his minister of state, M A A Fatmi, to study the education-related recommendations made by the Sachar Committee and chalk out, before January 31, 2007, actions needed to be taken by his ministry.

The Fatmi committee—comprising, among others, former vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) Saiyid Hamid, Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Zoya Hasan, chairpersons of the University Grants Commission, the NCERT and the CBSE, and secretaries in charge of higher education and elementary education in the Union human resource development ministry—has already had two rounds of meetings with Members of Parliament and representatives of non-governmental organisations working in the field of education.

Speaking to Realpolitik, Fatmi said that the committee he is heading has received suggestions, based on which it will prepare its report that is likely to be submitted to the HRD minister on January 10, 2007.

“We would want the recommendation by our committee and the HRD ministry to be taken up by the Planning Commission and be reflected in the next Union Budget,” Fatmi said.

He said that in the meetings called by his committee, suggestions were made for setting up schools and pre-school anganwadis in Muslim-dominated blocks, four campuses each of the AMU and Maulana Azad Urdu University across the country, residential schools for girls on the lines of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas, and scholarships for needy Muslim students to help them pursue higher education.

The Fatmi committee is likely to forward all these suggestions to the HRD ministry through its report. Parliamentary Affairs and Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Das Munshi confirmed the government’s intention to come up with a financial package for Muslims. “In the Budget Session [of Parliament], there would either be some legislative measure or targeted budgetary allocation,” said Das Munshi when he was asked why the report had not been discussed in the Winter Session of Parliament when it was tabled.

Meanwhile, the Planning Commission is working on providing a quantum jump in the fund allocation for the “empowerment of the minorities” in the 11th Plan. Government sources said that the outlay on this head in the 11th Plan is likely to be raised from a meagre Rs 50 crore in the 10th Plan to a whopping Rs 17,224 crore.

Setting “physical targets” for “faster and more inclusive growth”, the Planning Commission plans to allocate Rs 7,034 crore for education, Rs 9,090 crore for employment generation, Rs 1,000 crore to the Central Wakf Council, and Rs 100 crore to voluntary organisations engaged in the socioeconomic development of minorities.

Out of the allocation for education, Rs 1,250 crore may be earmarked for scholarships to the students of minority communities, with special focus on the girl-child. The Planning Commission also plans to enhance the corpus of the Maulana Azad Education Foundation, which works for the education of Muslim girls, to Rs 500 crore.

Underlining the tardiness in the implementation of Centrally-sponsored schemes, Rs 10 crore will be set aside for monitoring the implementation of minority-related schemes, including the Prime Minister’s 15-Point Programme for minorities.

Union Minorities Affairs Minister A R Antulay, meanwhile, announced that the government would not only “implement the recommendations of the Sachar Committee but also its observations”. On the sidelines of a Dalit-Muslim conference here, he said, “The Sachar Committee’s report will be implemented in toto in 2007.”

Antulay said that the Union government was also working on giving more teeth to the Central Wakf Council by amending the Wakf Act. This amendment, he said, would help clear trespassers from Wakf properties worth thousands of crores. The amendment in the Wakf Act is likely to be made in the Budget Session.

Antulay also favoured providing reservations for Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians. He said that the Dalits who convert to Islam or Christianity should be allowed to avail of reservations in the Scheduled Caste category.

“When a Dalit changes his faith, his social and economic backwardness doesn’t automatically change. There is no reason why they should not be allowed to continue to avail of the benefits of reservations,” he said.

The BJP, however, is against allowing Muslim and Christian Dalits to take benefit of reservations in the Scheduled Caste category. In a political resolution adopted by its National Executive at Lucknow recently, the BJP said that it would resist all attempts to provide religion-based benefits. Calling the move to help Muslims develop educationally, socially and economically “votebank politics”, the BJP resolution said that this would give “special citizenship” status to Muslims that would “pave the way for a second Partition”.

Seconding the party’s political resolution, moved by former Union minister Sushma Swaraj, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh urged his party members to create a “volcano” that would “burn” and “kill” Muslim appeasement “forever”. The BJP’s political resolution has clearly spelt out the party’s strategy to deal with the government’s affirmative action with regard to Muslims.