India - at Cross Roads
The present Seminar on the 'Minority Rights - Political, Social and Economic' has been arranged at the right time when India is at cross-roads and the polarization has been taking place between the vast down-trodden masses on one hand and the upper-caste or the upper level exploitative group on the other. This polarization has been taking place not only in the political and social spheres, but in the economic sphere too.

Minorities and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes - One Group
When we talk about minority, we generally mean-religious minorities and sometimes linguistic minorities also are implied therein. Another point of importance in this regard is that the origins of the majority of the people belonging to Muslim, Christian, Buddhist. and Sikh minorities have been mainly from the Dalit and Other backward classes i.e. from the Scheduled Castes Scheduled Tribes and other Mandal Commission Castes who were the original inhabitants of India i.e. Mulnivasi belonging to Dravid, Nag and other communities before the Aryan Invasion of India. A highly discriminatory and exploitative Varna system consisting of ruling high upper castes and the ruled lower caste multitudes was evolved and the classification was made hereditary and was given the religious sanction. Shudra and Ati-Sudra people whom we call Dalits who were previously called Harijans by Gandhiji were considered to be not only untouchables, but. they were deemed to be even unbearable and useable also, They were completely boycotted religiously, politically, socially and economically and so whenever any religion was found to be on the ascendancy and which was also backed by political power in India, many Dalits got the opportunity of escaping

* Paper read in the national seminar on Minority Rights held at Mumbai under the auspicious of the "Centre for study of society and secularism". Mumbai.

from this terrible exploitation and humiliation by converting themselves to that religion. Thus the origins of many people belonging to religious minorities in India - Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Shikhs are found to be among Dalits e. i. Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes. By themselves, they are also different minorities.

Common struggle
So Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Shikhs and people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and also other backward classes of the Hindu community suffer from political, social and economic discrimination and exploitation by high caste and rich classes and other vested interests. Hence it is pertinent to note that when we talk of minority rights, though we may talk main" of religious minorities, still the struggle will be common by all religious minorities as well as the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward castes. This struggle will be for the restoration of their rights as enshrined in the Indian Constitution and as adumbrated in the U.N. charter of human rights of 1945 and 1948 and for acquiring other safeguards and facilities that are necessary for their survival, development and for maintaining their distinct identity as minorities along with their national identity and human identity.

Fundamental Rights
The third chapter in the Indian Constitute is about 'Fundamental Rights' which are equal for all the citizens of India. The right to live, right to defend ones self and one's honor, freedom of thought, speech and expression and association, equality before Law, the right to encourage one's language, religion and culture and in case of violation of these rights by other individuals, organizations or the government, the right to seek justice in the Court of Law etc. are different fundamental rights. According to Article 13, any law or any part of the law of the State Government or the Central Government which comes in conflict with any of these fundamental rights can be declared null and void by the appropriate Court of Law in India

Misunderstanding about the Nature of Democracy:
Much misunderstanding prevails about the nature of democracy and it is wrongly thought by some people that any law passed by the majority of the Central or State Assembly members is necessarily a democratic law. But this is entirely wrong The test of democracy is equal fundamental rights to be enjoyed by all citizens of India irrespective of their caste, creed, religion, race, colour or sex and specially by minorities and also the government should be working under the Law rather than above the law or against the law as it has been happening many states in India. So the written constitution was found necessary which should contain equal fundamental rights for all the people of the country and also the machinery and the safeguards prescribed in the constitution for the maintenance and protection of these rights. This has been provided in the Indian Constitution by the learned and humane framers of the Indian Constitution led by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and supported by our national leaders.

Rights Only On Paper
Though India is a great democratic and secular country, but it is sad and shocking to observe that the rights of the vast down trodden multitude of people, specially of the minorities and specifically of the Muslim minority and the people belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and recently of the Christian minority have been seriously violated during the last 55 years of the post-Independence era and 52 years of the Constitutional era. So the fundamental rights and other minority rights have remained mostly on paper for minorities and thousands of minority people, specially Muslims have been killed and wounded and their property looted by mobs excited and led by highly communal and fascist forces.

Genocide in Guiarat:
Recently in Ahmedabad, Baroda and other cities, towns and villages of Gujarat, hundreds of Muslim women, children, aged men and young men were burnt alive and the embryos of pregnant women were cut as under by swords and many Muslim women were raped in the open. Two Muslim judges of the Gujarat High Court had to run for shelter and leave their homes, as the police department pleaded its inability to protect them. Even Muslim police officers and other Muslims of different ranks in the police department were not feeling secure and they were afraid of their own colleagues in the department lest they be killed by them and such cases may be then declared as suicide cases.
Mr. Ahsan Jafri, the Ex-MP of the Lok Sabha and the leftist leader who was a strong believer in Hindu-Muslim unity was mercilessly and brutally killed and all his efforts and his wife's frantic calls to get help from the police department failed despite the promises of the police department to come to their rescue immediately and more than 50 Muslims in the Gulberg Society were killed. In Naroda Patia atone, according to one survey, more than 500 Muslims were killed. Totally more than 4000 Muslims have been killed in Gujarat. Many hotels and restaurants and factories owned by Muslims and many Dargahs and Mosques have been pulled down or burnt or badly damaged during this genocide. According to the Election Commissioner Mr. Lingdoh, about 4 Lakh voters were not found to be in their original houses or places and until now, with difficulty, half of them have been traced at other places. Thousands of Muslims were and still are in many relief Camps and thousands have been staying in the houses of their relatives and friends and are afraid to return to their original houses. Police officers who were neutral and non-communal in their behavior during this genocide in Gujarat, they were transferred to inconvenient places. During the times of Partition of India, though innumerable people of both the communities were killed, the height of cruelty that was observed in this genocide in Gujarat was simply unparallel and the worst which reminded of the Massacre of Jews by Hitler in Nazi Germany during the Second World War times and the Massacre of Muslims by Halaku and Changizkhan in the 13th Century. The Massacre of Muslims in Gujarat has been even worse than the Massacre of Muslims in present Yugoslavia.

Assaults on Christian brethren:
Communal and fascist forces have not spared the Christian community also. In Gujarat, Orissa, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and even in the South in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu there have been more than 150 cases of brutal and murderous attacks on Christians and threats to usurp the Church property. In Orissa, Dr Graham and his two sons were burnt alive. Many Christian Churches have been demolished and even the holy Bible was burnt to ashes in many cases.

Controversy on Religion Conversion Law:
In Tamil Nadu, the Government has issued an ordinance (now made the Law by the assembly) to stop conversion of religion. It is argued that it is meant to stop conversion of religion by force or fraudulent means. But nobody is using force or fraudulent means to bring about conversion of religion from Hinduism to Christianity, Buddhism or Islam, so this Law is meant to stop voluntary conversion of religion and to intimidate Minorities and Dalits, as people who change the religion have to convince the police officers, to their satisfaction, that conversion was without force or temptation. Even running schools and hospitals for Dalits and other backward classes may be wrongly deemed as measures of temptation. Thus if the police officers are not convinced, people changing religion can be stopped by force from changing the religion voluntarily. Thus it is not a law to stop conversion of religion by force by other social or religious organizations or individuals, but by the Government for not allowing conversion of religion. Hence, this Law is actually found to be against the fundamental rights of Indian citizens and hence should be declared null and void according to the clause 13 of the Indian Constitution. It is also meant to please Jay Lalita's masters at Delhi so that she can escape safely from corruption charges. The purpose of her foolish and mean vituperative against Sonia Gandhi the President of Indian National Congress is also meant to please the same communal and fascist forces. This ordinance cannot withstand at all in the Court of Law, as it also violates the fundamental rights of the Indian citizens under article 25 of the constitution to believe and preach or convert himself or herself to any religion he or she likes.
Also there are enough safeguards and provisions in our constitution against the use of force or fraudulent means to bring about conversion of religion and hence a separate law by any Indian State is not required and not warranted. So it becomes obvious that any ordinance or bill or law against conversion of religion has got a communal and ulterior motive of snatching away one's religious freedom and to intimidate minorities and the Dalits. These are all terror tactics.
We can understand the pain that the Hindu brethren may feel when some Hindu brethren leave their religion and adopt another religion, If any Christian or Muslim leaves his respective religion and adopts another religion, Christians and Muslims would feel pain. But freedom requires mutual tolerance and control and purification of emotions. There is no other alternative.

Real Factors Behind Conversion of Religion
The main cause of the conversion of religion by the Dalits to Buddhism, Christianity or Islam is the Varna Vyavas a based on the hereditary discriminatory system of the rigid high and low varnas or castes. If it is abandoned by the Hindus, the large scale conversion of Dalits to other religions will stop. So we can psychologically understand the displeasure of Hindu brethren when some of the members of their community opt for change of their religion, but the use of law or force to stop such conversions cannot be at all logically or morally justified and so they should be opposed strongly.

Rights of Minorities:
In India, minorities have been given equal political, civic and social rights as citizens of India alongwith other citizens and specified in the third chapter of Fundamental Rights in the Indian Constitution and also some other rights as minorities under articles 29, 30 and 350 are given to them. But the benefits of articles 29 and 30 can be enjoyed even by the majority community also. Article 350 is meant for the execution of the right of the linguistic minority (though given to every citizen) to get the teaching arrangement made for the children to be taught upto the primary level through their language and for the appointment of a special officer by the President of India to monitor the operations made for the fulfillment of the above mentioned articles. Article 347 provides for a language of the substantial minority of the State to be adopted as the second official language of the concerned State if the President of India gets convinced about its legitimacy when he is requested by the said minority to do so.

Nature of the Subject of the Seminar
So actually, the problem in India for minorities is that these Common and other rights are seriously violated in practice and the government, administration and the police department and even the State Reserve Police force take a partisan attitude and instead of protecting the lives and property of the minorities, they themselves become the violators of the basic rights of the minorities. So, in this Seminar about the minority rights, as I understand, we are expected to discuss the ways and means of actually safeguarding these political civic, and social rights given to all citizens of India including minority members and some additional rights as religious and linguistic minorities given in our constitution.

Econonmic Rights of the Minorities
About Economic Rights, I wish to talk in somewhat great. Detail. Perhaps no government will grant reservation in jobs to Muslim or Christian minority on the religious community basis in Government or Semi-government departments and institutions or reservation in jobs or admission in educational institutions getting govt. grant or aid. But some economically and socially backward castes belonging to all religious minorities including Muslims and Christians can be given reservation in them on the backward caste basis, as insisted by the Mandal Commission Report and as it is given to Baxi Commission Castes in Gujarat and also on the same caste basis in some other States which include religious minorities too.
As for economic rights, religious minorities - Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Shikhs alongwith Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes and other Mandal Commission backward castes (which may in all constitute about 85% of the total population of India) should strive together as a part of the vast movement of all the down trodden people of India for being granted these economic rights to them as the citizens of India.

The Nature of Economic Rights
It is better to clarify here the nature of these economic rights to be given and enjoyed by the common citizens of India who are very poor or unemployed, diseased, illiterate or they are suffering women or helpless children. Fortunately for the movement and unfortunately for the down-trodden people, the religious minorities and the people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and other backward castes who suffer from deprivation of their political, civic and social rights, they also are the main sufferers from dire property, unemployment, illiteracy, diseases, hunger and humiliation. They are all the Mulnivasi who constitute 85 per cent of the total population of India.

Common Political and Social Struggle:
So they all together have to launch a country-wide movement as the movement of all down-trodden people for the restoration of their political, civic and social rights as enshrined in our constitution and their execution in actual practice and for winning the economic rights for all the economically deprived people of India. But what should be the common strategy for getting these rights restored and what can be the nature of these economic rights?
Let me first spell out common economic rights to be demanded by all down-trodden people in the era of globalization, liberalization and privatization and then we shall spell out the Common strategy for restoring and enlivening the political, social and economic rights for all the common people who are the worst sufferers on account of the deprivation of these rights.
Profit-making Public Enterprises should not be Private loss making Enterprises should continue with reservation for backward classes and it should be part of agreement.
Genuine political democracy gives power to the people and hence if people are alert and get organised, they can use this potential power for the betterment of their economic condition and for the improvement of their educational level. But this is found to be woefully lacking at present in India.

Possible Benefits of Free Market Economy :
Just as ideas cross national borders and benefit all concerned, in the same way, goods i.e. commodities and services also cross borders through domestic and international trade and give rise to or support the national and international division of labor and lead to specialization and greater use of non-human and hu-man capital and thereby enhancing the productivity of labor and hence their incomes. If competition is maintained and if there is freedom of entry into industries for all firms, prices of goods will be lower and their quality better. Exploitation of consumers and laborers will be less.
It has been observed in many developed countries that when the market mechanism is allowed to work, the proportion of rent, interest and profit income which is called surplus value by Marxists, diminishes as the percentage of national income and that of wage & salary incomes increases.
Now it is also demanded that there should be free movement of money capital at the international level and private foreign capital and the multi-national companies should be invited to invest and function in our country. They are the alternatives to investment by our Government, of borrowed money - borrowed domestically and internationally. But at present, the Government of India is paying more than one lakh crores of Rupees by way of interest only which eats away about 55 per cent of total tax revenue and even for payment of interest, they have to borrow further money. This is debt trap, which has reached unbearable proportions and many government enterprises have been incurring huge losses and their burden is on the people of India in the form of indirect taxes and inflation which is also a regressive tax. Hence foreign capital and multi-nationals are invited to invest in India, as it is done on a large scale in China also, as the multinationals bring not only foreign exchange, but modern technology and efficient management also and the burden of mistakes or loss is on them and not on the people of India. When multinationals of many countries come here to invest and function, then there is no fear of domination of one foreign country and their mutual competition will do away with their domination. Besides, our multinationals also can function in other countries. So it is not one way traffic. The cry of Swadeshi is meant to perpetuate the economic monopoly of high caste local capitalists who wish to continue to exploit our consumers by selling low quality shabby goods at high prices and pay low wages to our laborers.
National and International free movement of ideas, goods and services and money capital and freedom for private companies to invest in any part of the globe including India are necessary for lessening poverty of the down-trodden people it is necessary as one of the conditions, but not a sufficient condition to remove poverty and enhance the standard of living of the Common people. The policies of globalization, liberalization and privatization initiated by the Congress Government in 1991 have been in the right direction, but they represent only one side of the coin and hence fulfill only one condition which is necessary for lessening of poverty and unemployment of the common people, and thus in imparting economic rights to them. The other side of the coin which will fulfill the other necessary condition is public action based on public policy to which our attention has been seriously drawn by our Nobel Laureate in Economics - Prof. Amartya K. Sen who is considered to be the conscience of Economics. At present, the economic policies of liberalization are followed in such a fashion by the present Government that mostly rich people get the benefit and the poor people suffer. By pubic action, it is meant the policies by the government as well as by the people themselves and their institutions. It is not restricted to only government action though it is very essential, and the participation by the people and their institutions also is necessary along with Government action if the benefits of the free competitive market mechanism and privatization are to be reaped by the common and down-trodden people also which include religious minorities too. It is in this way that minorities can secure their economic rights along with their political and social rights.

Free Market and Public Action -Both are necessary
Prof. A. K. Sen and Jean Dreze have demonstrated by giving empirical examples of China, Chile, Japan, East Asian economic tiger countries and the Indian State of Kerala that when their respective governments had activated their pubic policies to provide elementary education to all their people and taken sufficient public health measures and resorted to effective land distribution programme to poor peasants and landless laborers and developed the transport and the communication system and provided other infra-structural facilities to all parts of the country or of the concerned State and provided at least the minimum social security system including the public works programm to mitigate severe and concentrated regional unemployment, then fruits of economic growth have been reaped by the common people also. Privatization of government enterprises does away with reservation in jobs for backward classes and so LPG policy has no meaning without taking the public measures described here.

Peoples at the Centre of Policy
Thus at the centre of approach is the people; and the government action and the market mechanism are the means. The direct support to the needy and vulnerable people through public action and indirect support through long-term economic growth made possible via globalization, liberalization and privatization both kinds of measures are necessary, as they reinforce each other and the beneficial effects of both of them get multiplied for all the downtrodden people including the minorities. This is the correct harmonious way of securing economic rights for minorities. To have an open economy and open society and to have the government and the pubic action to be at their disposal to direct the process of economic growth into that of economic development and welfare for the common people including that of minorities, is their fundamental economic right.

The Errors of Omission and Commission
The Government of India and the State Governments have been committing the errors, nay, the blunders of omission and commission since long. They were interfering in spheres and handling enterprises for which they were inept and hence had been wasting enormous amounts of pubic money by incurring huge losses in government enterprises and were freezing the economy by imposing all types of control and their consequent burden was borne by the masses of India. These were, the errors or blunders of commission. But the Governments were not serious and not much active except ceremonially in spheres of elementary education, public health, land reforms, provision of pure drinking water, providing infrastructural facilities to remote villages, environmental protection, public works programme to lesson severe unemployment and arranging for other social security measures for vulnerable and helpless people. These are the errors or blunders of omission on the part of the Government. So here we see that finance for taking above-mentioned measures can become available by stopping the errors of commission and diverting this money to avoid errors of omission and adopting the above-mentioned measures. Besides, India and the neighboring country should establish mutually, friendly relations with each other and have no-war pact and reduce defense expenditure and divert the saved resources for the welfare and development of the common people.

Economic development widens the area of choice, but it should do so for the common people also and hence freedom can be defined negatively as well as positively. Freedom in the negative sense means that there should be free and competitive private enterprise economy without undue government interference; and freedom in the positive sense, means providing the above mentioned relief’s and facilities to vulnerable people by public policy and public action. But here care should be taken to avoid the fallacies of commission on the part of the Government as it has done until now in the name of planning.

Not Big, but Strong and Responsible Government Required
Just as Science, Philosophy and Religion prove to be complementary to one another if they are properly defined and their respective subject matter and scope are properly identified or delimited, in the same way if the scope of individual or private initiative and public action are properly defined, they become complementary to each other and reinforce their beneficial effects. That is what is required now if the welfare of the common masses including specially the minorities is to be served and their rights maintained and fulfilled. Big unviable and uneconomic State is not necessary, but a strong State to maintain law and order is required. Minimum state working in the right direction suggested above is essential. But if the State and its entire machinery behave strongly and high handedly towards poor and down-trodden people and minorities, as it happened recently in Gujarat, then we should say that democratically strong and organized people to defend their rights through constitutional means and Gandhi an techniques are also required. So minimum state but strong state and still stronger people with moral equipment are the need of the day. So we have suggested the happy marriage of the market and public action and peoples participation in the marriage ceremony and their eternal vigilance over their activities.

Potential Effectiveness of Muslims of India:
Muslims in India constitute 12 to 15 per cent of the total population of India and in absolute number, they are 15 to 20 crores which shows that they are the largest religious minority in India. Seeing to their population strength, their voting power is decisive and at least for 60 to 70 seats of Lok Sabha, their voice can be final and for other seats also they can be highly effective if they are vigilant.

Both the Communities Responsible for the Partition of India:
The communal and fascist forces have been spreading their poisonous and sectarian propaganda vociferously against the Muslims since our Independence from the British rule. Indian Muslims are maligned by them for the partition of the country into India and Pakistan. But Muslims and Hindus - both of the Indian subcontinent were responsible for partition and specially the Varna system of high and low castes and the discriminatory and prejudicial attitude of Hindu brethren towards Muslims were mainly responsible for the growing distance between these two cominunities. As a result of it, Muslim majority provinces including Hindu, Christian, Sikh and Parsi minorities became a separate State of Pakistan and the Hindu majority provinces with Muslim, Christian, Sikh and Parsi minorities became another separate State of India to solve the minority problem and to make these States real national States.

Jinnah Did Not Believe in Two Nation Theory
Actually Mohammed Au Jinnah did not believe in the two nation theory based on religious grounds. What Jinnah meant was that the Muslim majority provinces of British India along with their non-Muslim minorities can constitute a nation. All the religious Muslim organizations of British India including Jamat-al-Ulema-e Hind, Jamnate-islami of Hind etc. opposed the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. They wanted undivided India. It was mainly educated middle class Muslims who demanded Pakistan on economic and social grounds. It was never demanded in the name of Islam basically by them. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and Mr. Jinnah both became separatists in their later life due to their bitter experiences for their communities. One leader demanded separate religion and the other leader demanded separate State. Dr. Ambedkar also demanded separate villages for Dalits, as he wanted the economy, sociology and politics of some villages in the hands of the Dalits. If in certain provinces of British India, Dalits would have been in majority, Dr. Ambedkar perhaps would have demanded the separate State of Dalitistan and perhaps would not have changed his religion though continuing his struggle against discriminatory caste system.

The Root cause of separatism of Ambedkar and Jinnah
So it becomes obvious that for religious conversion of Dalits into Buddhism, Christianity or Islam and for the creation of Pakistan, the hereditary Varna system of high and low castes of Hindu brethren is responsible and hence it is futile to find fault with Muslims, Christians, Buddhists or Dalits for these separatist phenomena. It is a defensive reaction to Brahminical separatism and discrimination and humiliation meted out to so-called low castes and minorities by them. Hindu-Muslim problem at the root is actually Savarna-Dalit problem. If the Savarna-Dalit problem is solved, Hindu-Muslim problem also will be solved along with it.

Sacrifices of Muslims for Gaining Independence of the Country:
Communal and fascist forces have been distorting Indian history and maligning Muslims by spreading total lies and side-tracking and thereby hiding the great sacrifices that Muslims have given in the struggle for Indian independence. Since 1757, Muslims were fighting against British imperialism. Sirajuddaula laid down his life in 1757 war fighting against them and Tipu Sultan died valiantly on the battle field in 1799 fighting the Britishers tooth and nail. The 1857 rebellion was led by Bahadur Shah Zafar and thousands of Muslims were killed or were hanged by the Britishers. In the further struggle of the people of India for acquiring political independence led by the Indian National Congress, many Muslims from the end of the 19th century to the end of the first half of the 20th century, sacrificed their lives, career and property. Mr. Taiyabji, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, Mohammed Ali - Shaukat Ali brothers, Hakim Ajmalkhan, Maulana Ahmed Husain Madani, Abdul Ghaffarkhan, Zakir Husein and there were many other Muslim leaders and workers in their thousands who sacrificed their all for the independence of our beloved country India. The campaign of poisonous propaganda against Muslims, Islam and Prophet Mohammed {peace be on him) has been launched by the communal and fascist forces who have scarified nothing for attaining political independence of India. On the contrary, they killed Gandhi.

False and baseless Propaganda against Muslims and their Madrasas:
All the Muslims of India are loyal to India and during three wars between India and Pakistan, many Indian Muslims have laid down their lives for the defiance of our motherland India. So it is a total lie to bracket some Indian Muslims with Pakistani Intelligence Agency. It is common sense to observe that Pakistan will employ Hindus in India as their agents and India will employ some Muslims as their agents in Pakistan togather intelligence. Muslims are not terrorists and Islam preaches peace of mind and peace in the society. There are wrong allegations against Muslim Madrasas. In Madrasas even in their dreams, they never think of terrorism. Madrasas are centers of peace and character formation of a higher order in this selfish and materialistic world, it may be true that there may be found some kind of dogmatism and rigidity in the teaching of some madrasas as regards beliefs, but in not a single madrasa, one can find the teaching of violence or terrorism. All madrasas are centers of peace, as Quran straightforwardly teaches with great emphasis that killing of an innocent person is like killing entire mankind and saving an innocent person is like saving entire mankind. Prophet Mohammed (peace be on him) has been described by Quran as mercy of Allah to entire mankind and the whole world; and God has been described as the Providence for entire mankind and for all nations and all worlds. The very word 'Islam' means getting peace through surrendering to and following the laws of God which are ultimately expressive of the qualities (sefat) of God.

Malicious role of certain newspapers :
Certain local newspaper have been found in the forefront to distort facts and twist information so as to develop a wrong picture of the Indian Muslims and thereby poison the minds of the members of the Hindu community against the Muslims. They make frantic efforts to show that for all the problems of the people of India, Muslims are responsible for them. This is all false and baseless propaganda which is repeated in a Nazi and Fascist way.
It is falsely alleged that the Indian National Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Parties, and other leftist parties favor Muslims and Muslims are given many benefits. But the two basic indices of economic poverty and educational backwardness are the percentage of the people living below the poverty line and the level of literacy. In literacy, the national average for males is about 64 percent and for females, it is about 40 percent and as regards the percentage of people living below the poverty line, it is about 40 percent in India. Muslims are far below these averages. In literacy, the percentage of Muslim males is 30 percent and that of Muslim females, it is 10 percent. But in the backward States like U.P. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, the general average rate of literacy is much below the national average and that for Muslims in these States, it is further below.
As regards, the percentage of Muslims living below the poverty line, it is more than 60% and in the above mentioned backward states they are still higher.
In the economic, social and educational survey of Muslims and Dalits in Ahmedabad conducted in 1976 by Mr. Bashir Quraishi and myself, it was found that 75 percent of Muslims of Ahmedabad city lived below the poverty line. In literacy and education also their percentage rates were far below than the average. In other cities, towns and rural areas, the condition of Muslims was still worse. Of course the situation has some what eased after the lapse of about 25 years. But basically, Muslims are much backward in their economic progress and education which are the main planks of human welfare.
There is no redresses of Muslim woes and there has been continuous violation of political, civil, social and economic rights of Muslims. Acts like TADA and POTO violate the fundamental rights of the Indian citizens. Sufficient legal provisions are there in our constitution to safeguard the vital interests of our country and hence such Acts are not required, they being unconstitutional and are meant for harassing minorities and opposition parties.
Under TADA about 2 lakh persons, mostly Muslims were arrested and only in Gujarat, their number was 30,000 and despite the expiry of the Act, in 1995 after its terror-striking operation for 10 years, many innocent victime still languish in the jails. POTO is even more dangerous than TADA and it is volatile of the fundamental rights of Indian citizens and is meant to create terror among minorities and opposition parties.
Human Rights Commission was established in 1993 but its jurisdiction is not wide and it has still to be effective and have its impact on restoration of human rights to minorities and the other deprived people. POTO and the existence of Human Rights Commission are inconsistent with each other. POTO gives immense power to the police department. Whatever the police department says about the person arrested, will be taken as proof and even the doubtful evidence also may be considered enough to give the death sentence. In the police custody, the police may beat the person and his statement given under terror of the police in the police custody will be accepted as true in the constituted Court of Law. This is unusual and terribly unjust.
Movement for Restoration of Minority Rights
Now what should be done to get these rights secured in practice ? One-sided communal riots and genocide of Muslims have been continued with all the resources at their disposal to keep Muslims always in the helpless condition, endeavoring even for bare survival. This may not leave any energy left or stamina preserved for having a conscious and positive attitude to have a strategy for their economic development or reducing their educational backwardness. Actually they should launch an organized common movement of all minorities, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other Mandal Commission Castes for getting poverty and unemployment removed and their political, social and economic rights restored and made effective in practice. This is in the interests of all the people of India including Hindu brethren and all minorities and poor people.
Also efforts should be made to isolate communal and fascist forces from the vast multitude of common Hindu brethren. Hindu masses should be approached and efforts should be made to remove their misunderstanding in a spirit of sincere fellow—feeling and brotherhood.
Muslims, Other Minorities and Dalit can Play a Pioneering Role:
Though minorities and Dalits are bleeding and have been passing through a critical phase, it seems, God has decided to take constructive work from them for the survival of India as a democratic, secular and cultured Nation which can occupy a highly respectful position in the comity of nations of the world. But the essential condition is that they should all come together and launch a very organized and joint political movement for the restoration of their political, social and economic rights. Muslims should have self-confidence and faith in God and they should extend a hand of active co-operation to the Dalits, other minorities and other backward classes for this common struggle which is, infect, in the interests of all communities of India. Solving their problems requires a lead on their part to solve the problems of all.