Report on Minorities

REPORT ON MINORITIES VOLUME I HIGH POWER PANEL ON MINORITIES, SCHEDULED CASTES SCHEDULED TRIBES & OTHER WEAKER SECTIONS MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS GOVERNMENT OF INDIA NEW DELHI 14th JUNE, 1983 COiNTfENtS PART ONE ?AGE Forwarding letter of the C h airm an ................................................................................................................................................... (v) Chapter I INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................................... 1 II M E T H O D O L O G Y ............................................................................................................................... 7 III POPULATION P R O F I L E ................................................................................................................................. 12 IV E D U C A T I O N .................................................................................................................................................... 19 V EM PLO Y M EN T..................................................................................................................................................... 30 VI RURAL D E V E L O P M E N T ................................................................................................................................ 53 VII INDUSTRIAL S E C T O R ................................................................................................................................. 67 VIII THE ROLE OF FINANCIAL IN S T IT U T IO N S ........................................................................................... 85 IX DISTRIBUTION OF ECONOMIC CONCESSIONS AND CONFLICTS DUE TO ECONOMIC D IS P A R IT I E S .................................................................................................................................................. 99 X IMPlJiMENTATION M A C H IN E R Y ............................................................................................................. 109 PART TWO MINUTE OF DISSENT . ............................................................................................................ 115 (i) PART ONE (iii) ^jnrwrf^l ^“f DR. GOPAL SINGH ^ 5EF^-ST^ CHAIRMAN GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS (Ph : 698293) High Power Panel on Minorities, S.C., S.T. & Weaker Sections 4th floor, Lok Nayak Bhawan, Khan Market, New Delhi-110 003. June 14, 1983. Esteemed Home Minister, I have the honour to present to you our final report on the Minorities of India. Like our Interim Report, submitted to Government on January 31, 1981, this report also, I am glad to say, is unanimous. Three other reports, one each on the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Other Weaker Sections will be submitted separately as soon as these are finalised. 2. Our work on the present report on the religious minorities of India was as rewarding as it was arduous and complex. While the whole country appre ciated that the present Government for the first time in the history of free India had taken such a far-reaching step to bring into being our High Power Panel to see how far the fiscal policies and programmes of the Government, both in the Central and States Sectors, had benefited the minorities, to identify bottlenecks, if any, and to suggest solutions for a breakthrough, we did not realise that the task entrusted to us was so treacherous and time-consuming. 3. No data was available in any public office as to the benefits accruing to the vast religious minorities (now numbering about 120 milHon) as none were specifically earmarked for them (as they were indeed for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes). No data could be made available to us by the Minori ties’ Commission (established by a previous Government in 1978), which had the necessary authority and the infra-structure to hold such an inquiry. The Universities (including the Muslim Universities) and various social welfare orga nisations whom we contacted had also no relevant material with them, nor the census reports threw any light whatsoever on the subject of our inquiry. (Even the population figures of the Minorities collected at the 1981 census were not made available to us in spite of our best efforts). Against the employment ex changes, there were bitter and large scale complaints that they did not even regis ter the names of the Minorities, let alone offer them any openings. Distinguished public men and legislators, including Members of Parliament, whom we contac ted personajly or through correspondence, could not help us out with any fac tual data, either.- Complaints were mostly built on hearsay and emotion rather than hard facts and reasoned arguments. Solutions were suggested to us which would, in our considered opinion, only aggravate the problem. 4. This should give you an idea of what an uphill task we were confronted with. We had, therefore, to look through thousands of employment registers, examination results, lists of licence and quota holders. Bank ledgers, school and (V) (vi) university rolls, administrative records of various Ministries and Departments, etc., basing our calculations mainly on the names entered therein. He had also to evaluate, after inquiry on the ground, the actual benefits accruing to the minorities in various policies and programmes of the Government, to bring them either technical training for self-employment or Bank loans or subsidies for industrial activity, supply of raw materials to the small sector industries and the disposal of their end-products, etc. 5. We could not obviously cover the whole of India in a period of three years in regard to the Government’s multi-pronged attack on poverty, unemp loyment and under-employment, housing, distribution of land, fair wage Acts and their implementation, the condition of landless labourers and marginal farmers, etc., but we did manage to cover over 80 districts (out of 500) to study the situation on the ground so as to cover as many facets of economic activity in relation to the minorities as possible, and to see if the claims made through Government statistics were justified by actual facts. 6. We must here, however, thank the numerous dignitaries of the State— Ministers, officials, and other pubHc servants—throughout the country for the very sympathetic and ungrudging cooperation they gave us in our inquiry. I must also thank my own esteemed colleagues on the Panel with their varied and rich experience of public life besides our hard-working staff for their whole hearted cooperation in this onerous task. But for this, we would have not been able to cover the ground as extensively and as fruitfully as we have. The large private sector undertakings, after some initial hesitation, also offered their full cooperation in submitting the data in regard to the private industry under their “kind” control and management. 7. Though we were charged with the task only of determining the extent to which the minorities and the Weaker Sections had benefited from the economic policies and programmes of the Government in free India, we could not ignore the over-all conditions of poverty and distress, especially among those who lived below the poverty line and whose number is estimated at bet ween 40 to 60 per cent according to various estimates. We could not therefore distinguish between the “majority” poverty and the “minority” poverty. A poor person is a poor person, no matter what his or her religion or caste. The state must help out all the poor of the land simultaneously, and not discrimi nate in favour only of the minorities in the removal even of poverty. Un fortunately, and to our dismay, however, we soon realised that as it is the Government’s policy (as it should be) to raise the status of the poorest of the poor, among whom, unfortunately, the Minorities and the other Weaker Sec tions (like the ^Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes) formed an overwhel ming part, we were thus attacking the general poverty as such, in the whole nation, and not merely out to single out the minorities, etc., for a special treatment. 8. Another factor also has to be borne in mind. The Minorities and the other Weaker Sections on the one hand constitute the majority of those below the poverty fine, and on the other contribute substantially to the economic well-being of the nation. As handicrafters, weavers, leather dressers and small manufacturers, who are mostly Muslims or the Scheduled Castes, they account for nearly 25% of our exports and nearly 60% of the domestic producers. As labourers and factory workers, they constitute the overwhelming mass. The hygienic conditions obtaining in the country and town owe exclusively to their carting away all our dirt and refuse. The Sikhs have proved not only their (vii) valour on the battlefield, but also become the broadbasket of India. The Christians have offered this nation atleast 20 % of all our health and educational facilities at their own cost. And the industrial enterprise of the Parsis is too well known to recapitulate here. Thus, while demanding equitable treatment and justice for them and the other weaker Sections, we are not asking for doles or undue favours for an indolent, lazy, good-for-nothing section of our society, but a very vital force whose potential if fully utilised could transform this nation. These minorities have also a history of adventure and glory behind them. This must be utilised for the nation’s good. 9. We are also aware that

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