Opinion Yogendra Yadav writes: Social Justice for Muslims should not be about reservations

If you say yes to both these propositions — as I do — you may appear inconsistent, if not self-contradictory. That’s not your fault. The fault lies with the cramping of our imagination of social justice in contemporary India. As a result, affirmative action has become synonymous with reservation, and that too in government jobs and public education. All battles for social justice turn into battles for and against quota, or quota within quota. Every group that suffers from any form of disadvantage or discrimination or just unmet need asks for reservation — ex-servicemen, sexual minorities, displaced persons. The Indian state is like a surgeon standing at the operating table with just one big knife for an instrument.

No wonder there is a demand for reservation for the entire Muslim community. The demand gained pace ever since the Sachar Committee Report (SCR) recognised Muslims as a “socio-religious group”. Though the SCR refrained from recommending reservation for Muslims, it recorded their severe educational and economic disadvantages, the first official document to do so in a comprehensive manner. In 2007 the National Commission for Linguistic and Religious Minorities recommended a 15 per cent quota for minorities (10 per cent for Muslims) in jobs and education. This demand has found acceptance among many Muslim leaders and intellectuals, as the community finds itself increasingly beleaguered on multiple fronts in recent years. No one expects this demand to be conceded by the present regime, but reservation is held out as the future frame for justice for Muslims.

A recently released report takes us beyond this conventional frame. Authored by Hilal Ahmed, Mohd Sanjeer Alam and Nazima Parveen for the US-India Policy Institute and Centre for Development Policy and Practice, the report, ‘Rethinking Affirmative Action for Muslims in Contemporary India’, pushes this debate forward in three steps.

First, it makes a case for why there is a need for affirmative action for Muslims. Second, it acknowledges that reservation for the community as a whole is not a good solution. Third, and most importantly, it suggests a bouquet of policies to address the real and pressing disadvantages of various Muslim communities. This report provides the right framework to think about this vexed issue in public policy and should prompt serious follow-up research.

The first point should be obvious to anyone with a basic sense of Indian society. Muslims are not just a religious minority under threat from the current political dispensation, they also happen to be a disadvantaged social group in educational and economic terms. The report updates the story documented by the SCR. Using the latest official data, it reminds us that Muslims are comparable to SC and ST communities in educational attainment, and to OBCs in income and wealth. The educational disadvantage of young Muslims is not merely a function of their economic status or even their parental education. Compared to Muslim counterparts with the same level of family income and parental education, “upper-caste” Hindus are more than twice as likely to enter higher education, go to private institutions and opt for engineering and professional courses. That’s a staggering inequality of opportunity. Things are much better in southern and western states and there are signs of improvement in recent times. Yet the huge gap calls for remedial action by way of affirmative action.

There are three reasons reservation may not be the right affirmative action needed in this case. There is a legal-constitutional issue. The Constitution does not explicitly allow a religious community to be recognised as a “socially and educationally backward class”; the judiciary has rejected this possibility. There is a sociological issue: Muslims are not a homogenous community; they comprise hundreds of biradaris whose social, educational and economic profile varies as widely as Hindu castes. And there is a political issue: In the present and foreseeable context, any proposal for reservation for Muslims would be used to orchestrate a country-wide counter-mobilisation, the last thing Muslims need in today’s India.

What, then, is the option to address the socio-economic disadvantage and discrimination that Muslims suffer from? This challenge is different from the security and identity challenges all Muslims face as a religious minority, something they may share with other religious minorities like Christians who do not face educational or economic disadvantage. The report recommends a cluster of overlapping policies, none meant exclusively for Muslims, that could be trusted to help improve their educational and economic condition.

The report suggests an alternative religion-agnostic “quota approach”. One, instead of providing separate reservation to Muslims or including all Muslims in the OBC category, there is a need to ensure that all backward Muslim communities are included in OBC lists. Currently, only half the Muslim population qualifies for OBC benefits. Evidence shows that the educational and economic condition of more than three-fourths of Muslims makes them eligible to be considered as OBC. States like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and West Bengal have started the remedial action of including more Muslim communities; the North Indian Hindi belt needs to follow this path.

Two, instead of one blanket category of OBC, it should be split into at least two lists of “extremely backward” and “backward” communities. The report argues against the temptation to put Muslim OBCs into a separate sub-quota (as has been done in Kerala and Karnataka). Different Muslim communities should be placed in different lists of OBCs depending on the evidence of their backwardness. Third, this religion-agnostic approach would also require that the current ban on “untouchable” Muslim communities from being classified as SC be removed. Dalit Muslims (and Christians) should enjoy the benefits of reservation. Finally, to address institutional discrimination strictly on religious grounds, there is a need for an anti-discrimination law and an Equal Opportunity Commission to monitor its implementation.

The report’s recommendations go beyond reservation and the public sector. One, it backs the “spatial approach” of targeted improvement of public infrastructure in localities with concentration of Muslim population. This has been tried after SCR, moving from identification of Minority Concentration Districts to blocks, localities and villages. There is a need to fine-tune this to guard against gaming the system to benefit only the non-Muslim population in these areas. Two, the report endorses the “sectoral approach” involving substantial state support for enterprises and occupations such as weaving, lock and brass manufacture, carpet and perfume-making and the meat industry that happen to be dominated by Muslim communities. This approach could also involve targeting educational sectors where Muslims enjoy a comparative advantage or where their presence requires a special boost.

Three, the report hints at engaging with the private sector, though its proposals are nebulous at this stage. Any enforcement of a quota may be counterproductive here, but the state can mandate diversity requirements to qualify for governmental subsidies and contracts. Finally, we need to look beyond the state and think of innovative ways to nudge NGOs, self-help groups and community charities to address the needs of local Muslim communities.

None of this is going to happen in the near future under a regime that draws its sustenance from anti-Muslim politics. But someone needs to draw up a blueprint and keep it in a drawer for future use. The approach adopted by this report looks like the smartest feasible option we have for the foreseeable future.

Yadav is member, Swaraj India, and national convenor of Bharat Jodo Abhiyaan