RTI Activist Saleem Baig from Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh has sent a petition to the President of India to draw his attention on the issue of continued deprivation of Muslims in India. [18th December is Minorities Rights Day, as declared by the UN]
BeyondHeadlines News Desk
His Excellency President of the Republic of India,
I write to draw your attention to the grave miscarriage of justice to scores of Muslim in India. I would like to seek your attention on the extreme deprivation and exclusion of Muslims continues despite various promises made by the political party and government.
The misery condition of Muslims in India have brought forward by Sachhar Committee and other researches, government have replied a number of promises specially PM-15 point programme and earmarking budgetary allocations. However, despite all these the promises are proved to be deceived in making Minority development. Various reports and researches have proved that all these development promises are meant to take minority vote during election. The reluctance of government to provide adequate safety to Minority community specially Muslims is exposing the intension of ruling and opposition parties. The recent communal riot in Muzaffarnagar has proved that even self claim secular parties are also not in favor to provide security. The status of Minority Commission, Wakf Board and other agencies meant for safeguarding and developing Minority are made to be toothless at center and state level.
The institutions and development programmes meant for minorities have not delivered much by way of addressing the exclusion of Muslims. Indeed, they have reiterated the bias and discrimination Muslims face on a regular basis. There is complete lack of will and commitment on the part of the government to address these issues.
Apart from faring abysmally on development indicators, Muslims live in an insecure environment where they face targeted and communal violence on a regular basis, coupled with day-to-day discrimination in accessing rights and entitlements. Let us reflect on how the government has responded to that.
Clearly, the fundamental rights of equality and equal opportunity have not been actualised in the context of the Muslim minority in India, where various exclusionary forces are entrenched deep in the systems and mechanisms that have kept Muslims on the fringes of the development process and democratic fabric of this country.
The Indian state, till date, has not effectively been able to protect this minority, which is evident from the widening gap in development indicators, marginal rate of growth (slowest amongst all the social and religious groups), and absence of a strong policy and legal framework targeting the forces of exclusion. These factors have resulted in a high level of mistrust between Indian Muslims and the state. Democracy survives only in an environment of mutual trust between the governance structure and its citizens; clearly this seems to have become eroded in the context of Indian Muslims.
Sir, we were proud to be citizens of the nation of India, we are still proud and we will continue to remain proud of that fact. But, seeing inequality around us, with serious discrimination, deprivation to the largest minority in India ‘Muslims’ made us think ‘ARE MUSLIM A SECOND CITIZEN IN INDIA’.
Your Excellency, Is this some sort of an ethnic cleansing of our nation? Are we going to keep repeating our mistakes?
Mr. President, all we ask for is for the government to respect and abide by the preamble of the constitution that our fore fathers wrote. Nothing more, nothing less. Let merit prevail over political considerations.
Mr. President, we the undersigned people giving this petition, is ordinary people with no extraordinary political power to stop this menace to minority community. We admire you for your achievements, rich background of education and work experience and we know that you have remained a president with a difference all throughout.
We have full faith that whatever actions you will be taking as President of India will be in the benefit of the society in its entirety, without any discrimination against anyone.
Therefore we humbly request you Mr. President, to consider doing the following:
Advice the government to
- Compensation and rehabilitation for the innocent persons implicated in such cases.
- Provision of Special Courts with time bound procedures to settle cases within a year.
- In cases where the court has held that evidence has been concocted or misrepresented by the investigating agencies to implicate innocents, action must be taken against those responsible.
- Increase budgetary allocation for minorities in proportion to their population in the country. (though there is a significant percentage increase in the budget of ministry of minority affairs since it started, in absolute terms, it is way behind the percentage population of the minorities)
- On the line of the Schedule Cost Component Plan and Tribal Sub Plan, the government should have a Minority Component Plan which should be mandatory for all ministries.
- Utilisation of different schemes under ministry of Minority affairs has been way below the targets. There should be a mechanism to monitor the utilisation of the budget and so that the allocated budget is utilised.
- Reasons of under utilisation may also be because the schemes are not addressing the key needs of the minorities. Hence, the government should review its schemes for minorities from this view point.
- There should be some instrumentality for ensuring a regular dialogue between the Ministry and the Minority Civil Society so that the Ministry becomes more effective and participatory. A Joint Secretary can be given this responsibility in the ministry.
- Progress on PM’s much talked about 15- point programme for minorities should be transparently shared with the nation on half yearly basis.
- Removal of Article 341(3), the religion based discriminatory clause. We are in a secular nation, we must strongly disapprove of clause (3) Article 341 and demand its removal (amendment in the Constitution) as soon as possible.
- In a state, where reservation has not been given on the line of Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Kerala, immediate steps should be taken to give reservations to Muslims.
- Safety, Security and Sensitivity towards minorities. Suitable law need to be passed by the Parliament for the protection of minorities by covering them under the Criminal Act, on par with the SC/ST Criminal/Atrocity Act. This will ensure that harassment and profiling of minorities is not done. And in cases of riots, blasts and terrorist activities, even before the preliminary investigations are done, some Muslim names are flashed in media, which not only affects the investigations, but create very negative perception about Muslims in the society. Similarly, in cases of riots, Strict Punishment to those responsible and Deterring Compensation to the victims, (Rs. 25 lacs and jobs to the dependents of the victims), will stop any riots in future.
Above all Mr. President, if the people in the government do not heed to your advice, please do not preside over this injustice meted out to millions of people who form a substantial percent of our population
Thank you Mr. President.
Jai Hind!
Saleem Baig
