The Hindu : National : CPI(M) for religion as a criterion for quota

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Friday, Oct 26, 2007
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CPI(M) for religion as a criterion for quota

Staff Reporter

Party favours amendment : Yechury

Kozhikode: Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member and Rajya Sabha MP Sitaram Yechury on Thursday said his party favoured an amendment to the Constitution for including religion as a criterion for providing reservation benefits.

Inaugurating a special convention organised by the CPI(M) on ‘Sachar Committee Report and Kerala’ here, Mr. Yechury said the amendment was necessary to provide reservation above 50 per cent. A political consensus was needed for the amendment. But this was not possible as long as communal forces were strong. So Muslims should be allowed to share the 27 per cent reservation earmarked for Other Backward Classes (OBC) for the time being.

The CPI(M), he said, had submitted a charter of demands to the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre highlighting these issues. Among the measures demanded for Muslims were a national-level sub-plan through the Planning Commission, monitoring of schemes and a proper housing scheme. The charter also sought soft loans for Muslims for self-employment and expansion of education facilities. The most important demand was that madrasas be modernised so that those who qualify from these institutions could get modern jobs and integrate with modern society.

The CPI(M) believed that the hallmark of any society was the speed at which justice was dispensed. There were many cases of communal riots in which the guilty had not yet been punished.

The Sachar Committee report had not been discussed by Parliament because of opposition from the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Though the Action Taken Report on the Sachar Committee report had been released, it paid only lip service to their needs. It did not talk of justice to the victims of communal riots, land reforms, OBC reservation status for Muslims or literacy activities for them.

He called for people’s struggles to complement the struggles of political parties in Parliament for the implementation of the report.

He said if India had to be a vibrant nation, its growth had to be inclusive. Now there were two ‘Indias’ — one that was shining and the other suffering. If the gap between the two had to be narrowed, the condition of Muslims had to be improved.

CPI(M) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan presided. Imtiaz Ahmed of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Abu Saleh Shariff, member-secretary, Sachar Committee, and M. Bhaskaran, Mayor of Kozhikode, were among those who spoke.

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