Separate nation?
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Union Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh has set to rest niggling doubts that may still have existed about the true intentions behind his actions ever since the UPA Government came to power a year ago.
By approving the preposterous demand of Aligarh Muslim University's executive council that 50 per cent seats in post-graduate courses should be reserved for Muslims, irrespective of their academic qualifications, the presiding high priest of secularism has demolished one of the very few remaining dykes that kept Muslim separatism in post-independence India within manageable limits.
The disgraceful policy of communal reservations practiced by India's colonial rulers was a major contributor to Muslim political separatism based on the theory that Muslims and Hindus form two distinct nations and cannot co-exist in a single nation state and, ultimately, led to the country's partition. If we as a nation were able to put the days of separatist communal politics that so deranged many a stalwart of the freedom movement, it was primarily because the state did not approve of communal reservations.
The logic was simple: Since the Constitution does not segregate on grounds of religion and faith in public affairs, there is no reason why the state should. A sound principle in keeping with the lofty ideal of separating the temporal from the spiritual which should be the cornerstone of any modern republic.
Hence, although Aligarh Muslim University, whose first graduate was Mahendra Pratap Singh, a Hindu king, was recognised as a "minority educational institution", its doors were kept open to students from all communities. And for good reason, too: Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, who set up this institution in 1920, was fond of asserting "Hindus and Muslims are my two eyes"; his subsequent foray into Muslim separatist politics was as much an aberration as Jinnah becoming the head of an Islamic state.
Disingenuous protagonists of the new communal reservation policy will be quick to point out that Article 30(1) of the Constitution enables Muslims (as much as it does any other minority community in the country) the right to "establish and administer educational institutions of its choice". Even if we were to accept this deeply flawed provision- Articles 25 to 30 are clearly out-of-tune with modern day republican values and should have been deleted decades ago -as sacrosanct and immune to secular interpretation, it does not vest the authorities of such institutions to bar the entry of meritorious and deserving students from other communities
To do so would be tantamount to the creation of ghettoes instead of centres of learning, far removed from the purpose from which they were ostensibly set up. There is another reason, too, that prohibits Aligarh Muslim University from closing its portals to non-Muslim students. As much as 80 per cent of the expenditure incurred by this university, which is now seeking to establish itself as an exclusivist minority institution, is borne by tax-payers, an overwhelming majority of whom are non-Muslims. It is absurd to demand, as Aligarh Muslim University has done, that while it is the bounden duty of all citizens of India to keep its zealots in business, it is their inalienable right to reserve 50 per cent vacancies for Muslims.
This is patently unacceptable to any rational, forward-looking Indian; Mr Singh, the Congress and the Left, of course, have reason to find it entirely acceptable, or else Aligarh Muslim University's outrageously retrograde demand would have been consigned by the UPA Government to where it belongs: The waste paper basket.
Union Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh has set to rest niggling doubts that may still have existed about the true intentions behind his actions ever since the UPA Government came to power a year ago.
By approving the preposterous demand of Aligarh Muslim University's executive council that 50 per cent seats in post-graduate courses should be reserved for Muslims, irrespective of their academic qualifications, the presiding high priest of secularism has demolished one of the very few remaining dykes that kept Muslim separatism in post-independence India within manageable limits.
The disgraceful policy of communal reservations practiced by India's colonial rulers was a major contributor to Muslim political separatism based on the theory that Muslims and Hindus form two distinct nations and cannot co-exist in a single nation state and, ultimately, led to the country's partition. If we as a nation were able to put the days of separatist communal politics that so deranged many a stalwart of the freedom movement, it was primarily because the state did not approve of communal reservations.
The logic was simple: Since the Constitution does not segregate on grounds of religion and faith in public affairs, there is no reason why the state should. A sound principle in keeping with the lofty ideal of separating the temporal from the spiritual which should be the cornerstone of any modern republic.
Hence, although Aligarh Muslim University, whose first graduate was Mahendra Pratap Singh, a Hindu king, was recognised as a "minority educational institution", its doors were kept open to students from all communities. And for good reason, too: Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, who set up this institution in 1920, was fond of asserting "Hindus and Muslims are my two eyes"; his subsequent foray into Muslim separatist politics was as much an aberration as Jinnah becoming the head of an Islamic state.
Disingenuous protagonists of the new communal reservation policy will be quick to point out that Article 30(1) of the Constitution enables Muslims (as much as it does any other minority community in the country) the right to "establish and administer educational institutions of its choice". Even if we were to accept this deeply flawed provision- Articles 25 to 30 are clearly out-of-tune with modern day republican values and should have been deleted decades ago -as sacrosanct and immune to secular interpretation, it does not vest the authorities of such institutions to bar the entry of meritorious and deserving students from other communities
To do so would be tantamount to the creation of ghettoes instead of centres of learning, far removed from the purpose from which they were ostensibly set up. There is another reason, too, that prohibits Aligarh Muslim University from closing its portals to non-Muslim students. As much as 80 per cent of the expenditure incurred by this university, which is now seeking to establish itself as an exclusivist minority institution, is borne by tax-payers, an overwhelming majority of whom are non-Muslims. It is absurd to demand, as Aligarh Muslim University has done, that while it is the bounden duty of all citizens of India to keep its zealots in business, it is their inalienable right to reserve 50 per cent vacancies for Muslims.
This is patently unacceptable to any rational, forward-looking Indian; Mr Singh, the Congress and the Left, of course, have reason to find it entirely acceptable, or else Aligarh Muslim University's outrageously retrograde demand would have been consigned by the UPA Government to where it belongs: The waste paper basket.
1 Comments:
Nation has gone to pseudo-secularists dogs! I wonder if we are going towards another partition in the name of islam. How many pakistan will be formed this time?
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