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The recently announced Union Budget does not reflect the sincerity and the political will of the Prime Minister insofar as Muslim welfare is concerned.
Not long ago, Dr. Manmohan Singh said in a meeting that “we will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on resources.” Even if it is conceded that Muslims do not have the “first” claim, as equal citizens, they certainly do have a claim on the wealth and resources of our country. But unfortunately the recently announced Union Budget does not reflect the sincerity and the political will of the Prime Minister insofar as Muslim welfare is concerned.
It is ironical that the Finance Minister has ignored the findings of the Rajindar Sachar Committee appointed by his own Prime Minister. This can be seen from the meagre amount allocated in the 2007-08 Budget for minority welfare which is disproportionately lower than the amount earmarked for the SCs and STs.. Mr. Chidambaram announced a total sum of Rs.381.60 crores for the minorities which included Rs 63 crores for the National Minority Development and Finance Corporation, Rs. 108 crores for the multi-sector development programme in districts with a concentration of minorities, Rs.72 crores for pre-metric scholarship, Rs.90 crores for post-metric scholarship and Rs.48.6 crores for merit-cum-means scholarship at the graduate and post- graduate levels.
Whereas, an amount of Rs.7508 crores has been proposed for the welfare of the SCs and STs which include Rs. 3271 crores for schemes benefiting the SCs and STs alone, Rs.17,691 crores for schemes with at least 20% benefit for the SCs and STs ( 20% of Rs.17, 691 crores equals Rs. 3538 crores), Rs.88 crores for students studying M.Phil and Ph.D courses and Rs. 611 crores for post-metric scholarships. Thus, for a combined SC and ST population of 25.09 crores (as per the 2001 census) Rs.7508 crores works out to about Rs. 300 per head. On the other hand, as the Muslims constitute about 68% of the minorities, the Muslim share in the Rs. 381.6 crores allocated for the minorities is reduced to Rs. 259.49 crores or about Rs 18 per head for a Muslim population of 13.8 crores- a mere 6 % of Rs.300 for the SCs and STs. One fails to understand why, despite the Sachar Report, the Finance Minister did not deem it fit to propose schemes that benefit Muslims alone like those announced for the SCs and STs.
It is all the more shocking because the Sachar Report clearly showed that Muslims were worse than the SCs and STs in many cases including poverty and education. The readers may be surprised to know that the government of Andhra Pradesh in its 2007-08 Budget has earmarked Rs. 123 crores for minority welfare, and Karnataka had an outlay of Rs.83 crores in its 2006-07 Budget. Therefore it has to be asked; if individual states could allocate such huge amounts for their minority populations, what prevented Mr. Chidambaram from announcing at least a few thousand crore rupees for the minorities at the national level?
Nevertheless, it is not enough if a few state governments alone show interest in the Muslims. There is an urgent need to implement the Sachar Committee Report, particularly its path-breaking recomme-ndation that 15% of all government funds shoul-d be allocated to Muslim welfare and development under all Central government schemes, and the constitution of an “Equal Opportunities Commission” to look into the grievances of depri-ved groups and for the elimination of anomalies with respect to reserved constitu-encies under the delimitation scheme.
The Central government must also request all states to immediately constitute Monitor-ing Committees (which must include Muslim NGOs and individuals working at the grass root levels) for the effective implementation of the Prime Minister’s 15 point programme. Not just that, a “sub-plan” for the minorities should be formulated in the 11 th Five-Year Plan like that for the SCs and STs.
But the question is; is the UPA government really committed to the welfare of the minorities? The failure of the Finance Minister to provide substantial allocations for the Muslims in his budget, lends credence to accusations that the UPA was negatively influenced by the skein of lies propagated against the Muslims by the Hindutva brigade and therefore, it did not want to be seen “appeasing” the Muslims particularly after electoral setbacks in Punjab and Uttarakhand. This is exactly what the Sachar Committee feared when it remarked that Muslims “carry a double burden of being labelled `anti-national’ and as being appeased at the same time”.
Let it be known that collective conscience of the society would never forgive any government, particularly the one which claims to be sympathetic to the minority cause, if it deprives a large population impoverished people of their rightful share in the country’s wealth and resources for fear of being accused of appeasing them.
(The writer is a Peace Activist & Executive Committee member, Harmony India, Chennai and can be reached at a.faizur.rahman @gmail.com)
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