On 9 March 2005, the PMO had issued the Notification
for constitution of the High Level Committee for preparation of Report
on the Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community
of India.
The Committee is an independent body of well-known
experts drawn from the fields of Economics, Sociology, Education,
Demography, Public Administration, Development Planning and Programme
Implementation. It is mandated to collect, collate and analyse data to
prepare a Report and submit it to Prime Minister.
In response to the request of the Committee,
information was received from the various Departments of the Central and
the State Governments. On a similar format information was sought from
many other organizations including the Armed Forces. The innocuous
purpose was to know if Muslims were under-represented in some
departments or any other sphere and reasons thereof so that the
Government could take corrective steps. Such an approach is not divisive
but is positive, an essential requirement for impartial and caring
administration in its commitment for instilling confidence in the
fairness of the government’s functioning. Without considering such
information, the Government may not be in a position to take any
corrective action, even with the best of intentions. The Committee
received data from the Navy and Air Force. However, the Ministry of
Defence informed the Committee that it was not possible for it to supply
the data for the Army. It also requested the Committee not to use the
data which had already been sent to the Committee by the Air Force and
Navy. Thus, in the Report, the Committee has not used the data received
from the Armed forces.
During the Committee’s interaction with women’s
groups, some of them seriously articulated a grievance that it did not
have any woman member. The Committee tried to make up for this by
convening a half-a-day meeting with women’s groups during its visits to
the States. In addition to that, women social activists in large numbers
attended all the meetings of all the groups and expressed their points
of view and apprehensions in an open and frank manner. Their input was
intensive and to the point about the various matters like education,
medical facilities, anganwadi requirements etc. The Committee also held
one full day meeting in Delhi in July 2006 exclusively for women from
all over India.
Another issue emphasized before the Committee was
that a number of Parliamentary and Assembly constituencies with
substantial Muslim voter population are reserved for SCs while the SC
population was not high there. Contrarily, constituencies with
comparatively lesser Muslim voter population remain unreserved even
though they have sizeable SC population. It was suggested to the
Committee that it would be more equitable to reserve those
constituencies where voter population of SCs is high rather than those
where it is low and, instead, Muslim presence is high.
This matter is in the purview of Delimitation
Commission. The Committee hopes that it would receive the attention of
the Government immediately because the Delimitation Commission is at
present engaged in this exercise and evidently any suggestion or any
exercise to be done by it has to be undertaken during the current term
of the present Delimitation Commission.
I give my immense thanks to my colleagues on the
Committee for their fullest participation and support in preparing the
Report, notwithstanding their heavy and busy commitments in their
respective fields of work.