Demonstrating the most outlandish and
hilarious facet of the Indian democratic polity, the
BJP President, Mr. Raj Nath Singh has accused the
Congress Party of spreading communalism in the
country. The accusation came in the wake of the
Division Bench of Allahabad High Court, quashing the
minority character of Aligarh MuslimUniversity, and
the Honourable Supreme Court refusing to stay the
operation of the Andhra Pradesh High Court Judgment
that declared as unconstitutional the AP government
decision to make 5% reservations for Muslims in the
state.
Muslims, by and large, would be feeling
sympathetic towards the congress, thinking that for
their sake it is being branded as communal by the
declared communal party. On the other hand, the
hardcore Hindutwa elements who have been getting
disenchanted with the BJP might have developed a soft
corner for it, because it is brazenly engaged in
minority bashing and flaying the policies of the
Congress for its so-called Muslim appeasement. Both
the decisions, i.e. regarding the Muslim University
and the AP reservation policies were forgone
conclusions, and came about along calculated
strategies, but they have proved to be the blessing in
disguise for the Congress and BJP, as both are
attempting to groom their respective electoral
constituencies.
The Division Bench of the Allahabad High
Court could never go against the rationale of Aziz
Basha laid down by the Supreme Court, and
anticipating it well, the Central government compelled
the AMU administration to withdraw the case from the
Supreme Court and preferred the appeal before the
Division Bench. The 5% reservation made by the AP
government was yet another deception played upon
Muslims, as it was legally not sustainable under the
provisions of Article 16 (2) which declares,
No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion,
race, caste, sex, descent ,place of birth, residence
or any of them , be ineligible for , or discriminated
against in respect of , any employment or office
under the state.
Such type of reservation is Constitutionally
permissible under clause (4) of the same article
which provides,
Nothing in this article shall prevent the state
from making any provision for the reservation of
appointments or posts in favour of any backward class
of citizens which, in the opinion of the state, is
not adequately represented in the services under the
state.
Now at this juncture, if the Central
government is serious and wishes to no more mislead
the Muslim community, it may forthwith nullify the
Division Bench verdict of Allahabad High Court
regarding the minority character of AMU through the
parliamentary enactment to be termed as The Aligarh
Muslim University ( Removal of anomalies and
difficulties ) Act, 2006. Similarly, about the
reservation to Muslims, it can introduce an amendment
in the Constitution declaring either the entire
community as backward within the ambit of article 16
( 4), or removing the ground of religion from the
purview of clause (2), in order to make it legally
sustainable, just as has been done recently to
overcome the Supreme Court decision about the
reservation in Private Institutions.
These measures may constitute the minimum to
initiate the reversal of the long chain of wrongs and
injustices that the Muslim community has been facing
through all the successive governments, no matter of
which party. These platitudinous and stereotyped
terms and phrases, like communalism secularism
etc. have become totally redundant. The fact is that
during the last more than fifty years of countrys
independent existence, Muslims have been thrown away
to the remotest peripheries in every sphere, with
their percentage in services having come down to less
than 2%, and the community having witnessed horrible
communal conflagrations at regular intervals during
all the regimes. These terms are used exclusively to
mislead the community and as effective political
tools to keep it under a permanent state of servility
and subjugation.
After all, who can understand and appraise
more authentically the true meaning of secularism
than myself , who has undergone the secular ordeal
for fifteen years simply for writing a realistic
article, namely Secularism vis-à-vis Hindu
Chauvinism, published in Radiance Viewsweekly, Delhi
in 1984. On the basis of this article, the government
of India launched in 1985 criminal proceedings against
myself as writer, Late, Mr. Ameenul Hasan Rizvi as
Editor, and Mr. Iqbal Waraqwala ( Presently Production
Manager in Khaleej Times, Dubai) as printer under
sections 124A ( Sedition) and 505b of Indian Penal
Code. The case continued for fifteen years at Tees
Hazari Courts, New Delhi, and terminated in acquittal
on 25th July, 2000. Having suffered this trauma, I
wrote a book Secular Horror A True Story of
Fifteen Years Ordeal with Indian Secularism published
by Pharos Media, New Delhi. Now I have no hazy
perception or ambiguous interpretation of the
notorious terms secularism and communalism
Dr. Mustafa Kamal Sherwani
LL.M.( Alig.)
LL.D. (Lucknow)
Ex-President, All India Muslim Forum
Dean, Faculty of Law and Shariah
Zanzibar Unviersity, Tanzania
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
--
This is ZESTGlobal. Post articles on international affairs to
[email protected]
If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTGlobal by sending a blank
mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/join/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
