Implement Sachar panel’s suggestions
The UPA governmenty should immediately implement a sub-plan for the minorities.
This is the best way to counter the BJP’s communal agenda in the wake of the Gujarat elections and move forward on
the path to inclusive growth
Responding to the growing demands for the implementation of the Sachar Committee recommendations and coming under pressure for the delay of nearly one and a half years after the Cabinet decision, the UPA government has finally outlinedits new 15 point programme.
While the points relating to prevention of communal riots and provision of relief to the victims of such riots find an important place, the focus is on issues intimately connected with the social, educational and economic uplift of the minorities. Only time will tell us how efficiently these programmes will be carried out.
The CPI(M) had been demanding from the UPA government that it announce and implement a sub-plan for the minorities, on the lines of the already existing sub-plan for the tribals. Though the word `sub-plan' is not used, this new fifteen point programme ends with the following:
"Care shall be taken to ensure that wherever applicable, there is separate earmarking of the physical and financial targets for the minority communities under each of the programmes/schemes, preferably in the ratio of the all-India population of each minority community. Thereafter, these targets shall be further split state-wise for each minority community in the ratio of the population of the minority community in each state. This will ensure that the benefit necessarily reaches the target group in the proportion of the population of the group in each state."
Reiterating the CPI(M)'s stand, the West Bengal chief minister declared that the state government had decided to implement a sub-plan for the welfare of the minorities and called upon the centre to do likewise.
On the eve of this NDC meeting, the BJP president had directed all its chief ministers to oppose this programme for minority welfare dubbing it as "communal budgeting". Accordingly, this attack was led by Narendra Modi in the NDC meeting. Vehemently opposing this plan, he said that such a programme is not "in the interests of maintaining the social fabric of the nation". He further said that such a programme will not help in taking the people of India, "on the path of development".
The BJP is essentially articulating its communal ideology by talking of India's "social fabric" exclusively in terms of the majority Hindu community, completely in line with the RSS vision of converting the secular democratic republic of India into a rabidly intolerant fascistic `Hindu Rashtra'.
The Sachar Committee findings have comprehensively nailed the lie of the BJP's vicious campaign of "minority appeasement". Thus, despite one of their important planks of communal polarisation being exposed, the BJP is now opposing any measure to improve the welfare of the minorities by advancing, once again, the very logic of minority appeasement. Clearly, the BJP is seeking to rouse communal passions by such an opposition.
This must be seen as a part of the larger strategy being employed currently by the RSS/BJP and its affiliates, i.e., the return to the basics. The anointment of L K Advani as their future prime minister (presuming that they are ever able to win a general election), is central to this strategy. The BJP's hardcore Hindutva campaign in the recent elections in Gujarat led by Narendra Modi and the venomous speeches of their leaders...
As the next general elections draw closer, such aggressive communal polarisation will be on the rise. The façade of `coalition dharma', frequently articulated under the Vajpayee government, will increasingly take the back seat. Apart from the fact that the BJP's allies in the NDA would be thrown into a state of high discomfort, this aggressive return to the basics by the RSS/BJP does not auger well for the future of India's secular democratic republican foundations. India and the Indian people need to unitedly rise to face this challenge to safeguard our social fabric and to move forward on the path of inclusive growth.
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Plan funds for the poor, not minorities
The UPA is planning a communal divide, a poisonous ploy to separate 15 per cent of Plan funds exclusively for minorities. The flow of funds for social welfare should be based on socio-economic criteria and not on the minority status of beneficiaries
The BJP-ruled states blasted the Centre for incorporating a special 15-point programme for minorities in the draft paper for the 11th Five-Year Plan claiming it amounts to budgeting on communal lines. A day after the BJP high command asked party-ruled states to oppose the "communal budgeting" factor that the UPA government was trying to incorporate in the Five-Year Plan, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi demanded a review of the programme that stipulates earmarking 15 per cent of targets and outlays under various schemes for minorities.
Narendra Modi along with other BJP Chief Ministers strongly opposed 15 per cent of targets and outlays proposed to be included in PM's new 15-point programme in the draft of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, under various schemes for the minorities and said that this should be reviewed in the interest of maintaining the social fabric of nation. Such discrimination, amongst the eligible beneficiaries, for flow of funds, based on minority status, will not help the cause of taking the people of India together on path of development.
The correct criteria for flow of funds for various schemes and programmes should be based on principle of equity by taking only socio-economic criteria alone, and leaving the implementation of such schemes to the states. This new concept of "communal budgeting" introduced by UPA government should be reconsidered in national interest, Modi demanded. Vasundhara Raje, Chief Minister of Rajasthan, stressed that Gadgil-Mukherji formula should be revisited to make it more progressive; and reservations in schemes or jobs should be for the poor, not for any particular group.
The views of Vasundhara Raje were endorsed by Chief Minister of Orissa Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Raman Singh. They moved a resolution seeking constitution of a committee under the co-chairmanship of a Senior Chief Minister and Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission with adequate representation of Chief Ministers to examine the full gamut of issues involved in central assistance to states. Modi criticised the Eleventh Plan document since there is no focussed strategy for the tribals of India. He said that tribal population are the poorest and they are the most deprived section of the society from the point of view of all developmental parameters.
This neglect of tribal areas has led to spread of Naxalism in these areas which the Prime Minister himself had described as the single-most internal threat being faced by the country. In spite of this realisation, there is no focussed strategy or time frame to improve the condition of tribal population. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan also rejected the proposal saying poor have no caste or religion, hence only the economic criteria should be the basis for allocating funds for welfare schemes. "This is an example of vote bank politics and it is being done only to appease Muslims," Chouhan told mediapersons. Narendra Modi accepted the challenge of 11.2 per cent growth rate given by the Planning Commission to Gujarat for the Eleventh Five Year Plan. This is one of the highest growth rates proposed in the Eleventh Plan for the country. He expressed his confidence to achieve this growth rate and said that Gujarat has made an outlay of 1,07,000 crore for the Eleventh Plan period.
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