Get together on Muslim Reservation, Popular Front of India, Goa

Goa: Popular Front of India (PFI), organized a Get together on Muslim Reservation at Ravindra Bhavan, Margaon, Goa.

Popular Front of India has decided to launch a two month long National Campaign for Muslim Reservation during February and March 2010. The nation-wide campaign started with a Grand Public Meeting at Pune in Maharashtra on 31st January 2010. A Parliament March will be held at New Delhi on 18th March 2010. During the campaign period PFI has decided to organize exhibitions, street meetings, vehicle caravans, rallies, seminars, and cultural shows in various states. The campaigning will involve distributing pamphlets & posters.

The campaign is the need of the hour in the light of the proceedings of the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission Report. The Report was tabled in the parliament without the accompanying action taken report. The central government lacks the political will to implement the recommendations of the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission Report.

Related to the reservation issue & implementation of the Justice Ranganath Misra commission Report, we organized a get together program at Ravindra Bhavan, Margao, Goa on 20th February 2010. The program started at 11:00 AM with the Welcome Speech of the President, PFI, Goa, By Mr. Sayed Iftiyaz. This was followed by the introduction to Popular Front of India by Mr. Mohammed Tahir, State Executive Council Member, Karnataka. This consisted of the reason for the formation of PFI, for the upliftment of all the backward classes in India, particularly Muslims. He highlighted the struggle of Muslims in Independent India & also highlighted the struggle of the organization in various facets of the society including but not limited to employment, education & health care.

Then Mr. Khaleel Ahmed, Member of Popular Front of India, delivered the key note on what is reservation? Why reservation? What are the provisions of the Constitution of India regarding reservation & Why Muslim is eligible for Reservation as per the Constitution of India? In the process he highlighted that the Muslim community today has been sidelined from the mainstream in a well thought of conspiracy of some representatives with a short vision.

Where the constitution in clause 16(4) talks about the reservation for all people who are backward also has a clause 341 which talks about reservations only for Hindus. This was amended in 1956 to include the Sikhs & later in 1976 to include the Buddhists.

A number of commissions have been formed since independence to study the backward classes by the prevailing state & central governments. Almost all the reports indicate that over 80% of Muslim community is backward.

One of the significant reports happens to be the Mandal commission report which was ready in 1980 but the Prime Ministers between 1980 & 1990 for some reason chose not to table the report. In 1990, Mr. V. P. Singh, the then Prime Minister tabled & implemented the report which gave the recommendation of giving 27% reservation to the OTHER BACKWARD CLASSES, which unfortunately did not include the Muslims.

It looked like, this step motherly treatment of the Muslims was going to be corrected by our beloved Prime Minister, Dr. Man Mohan Sighji, with the formation of Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee which studied the state of Muslims in India based on official government records. The finding of this committee was an eye opener which said that Muslims formed the most backward of all the backward classes. This report highlighted that the Muslim representation in the government jobs was not proportionate to their population with 3% in IAS, 1.5% in IFS, 4% in IPS & 4.5% in Railways when the census in 2001 indicate that Muslims are 13.4% in India.

To uplift the Muslim community which was reported as most backward by the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee, the central government constituted the Justice Ranganath Misra committee to study & suggest the steps to be taken to uplift the downtrodden in the minority communities. The said Committee has recommended that 15% reservation be given to the of the minorities and 10% exclusively to the Muslims, if separate reservation is given. In case we follow the Supreme Court order regarding the ceiling of reservation, 8.4% of the 27% reservation given to OBCs to be allocated to the minorities & 6% exclusively to Muslims. In this context, it is hoped that the National Campaign of Popular Front will further strengthen the ongoing efforts in different parts of the country by various organizations including the campaign initiated by Joint Committee of Muslims Organizations for Muslims Empowerment (JCMOE).

Finally the campaign concluded with the question answer session. Many people and organizations participated in the campaign and made it very successful.