Let us not simplify the UPA government'slatest effort to introduce sub-quota for Muslims and Christians in the OBC and Dalit share as an election eve sop to entice the communal vote bank. Manmohan government has sent an advisory to the states to post Muslim policemen, teachers and health workers in areas dominated by the community members. The national opposition, the BJP has opposed the directive, which is a violation of the Constitution, and said, ?It was yet another manifestation of UPA vote bank politics.?
We have dealt with this subject on a number of occasions earlier when the Sachar and Ranganath Mishra reports were submitted and the government expressed its design to implement them unmindful of their consequences on national polity.
TO begin with, the UPA proceeded on a divisive agenda in the name of Common Minimum Programme, inspired by the Communists whose loyalty to this country?now even the Congressmen are doubting in the context of their opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal apparently instigated by China. What is intriguing is that the Congress is unable to shake off the Left baggage however much it is exasperated by the Left shenanigans. Rather the new appease Muslim binge is more to curry favour with the Communists and soften their anti-Congress tirade in the wake of the emerging strategic pact with the US.
The Congress is aware that the Communists are desperately courting all the communal and fanatic elements in the minority community to widen their support base. The party also knows that after all, with the Congress largely seen as an over enthusiastic Bush poodle, the Muslim vote will not fall into its kitty. But its strategy is to let the Communists woo the jehadis in the hope that the Left gain will ultimately help only the Congress in a post-poll scenario in which again the same players will try to team up on a new CMP. All this only highlights the cynical power game the Congress is adept at playing at immense damage to national unity.
It seems there is no bottom to the depth to which the UPA can sink in furthering its goal. It has communalised budgeting, it has communalised banking and financial institutions, it tried even to communalise the armed forces. It has vitiated the academia spreading the venom of casteism and communalism and now it is out to destroy the country by identifying districts as Muslim majority and pampering them to promote communal segregation. It is bent on dividing the police force as Hindu, Muslim and Christian, and nobody knows what else remains to be fragmented on communal lines. Some more aggressively lunatic in its ranks have even suggested to introduce a communal quota in the judiciary as well and appoint judges after fixing their religion tag. Is there any guarantee that people who get their position only on their religious identity will behave impartially in their execution of duty? And what will happen to the faith of the citizens in the system and its commitment to delivering justice? What will happen to this country once the people lose all hope of fair play and fair deal under these votaries of fake secularism? As the BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said: ?Is it just, fair, reasonable and in national interest at all to presume that even after 60 years of Independence a non-Muslim police force cannot protect Muslims? What message are we giving? Would it not openly encourage terrorists to boldly denounce all investigations against them as farce simply because the investigating team did not include any Muslim officer, that they would not face trial unless there is a Muslim judge??
Nobody is opposed to the uplift of the poor. Creation of an egalitarian society is a constitutional guarantee. The government'seconomic survey says that the people living below the so-called poverty line is only 23 per cent of the population. Recent NSS report though has a different story to tell. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening and the more and more lower-income categories are falling into the debt trap, increasing the number of people below BPL.
Only 77 per cent of the population, according to government statistics, are above poverty. But what is the BPL criterion? Those who earn above Rs 12 per day. But what about the lucky above BPL people? According to the report of National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS), 394.9 million workers, i.e. 80 per cent of India'sworking population, are in the unorganised sector and 80 per cent of these are among those who live on less than Rs 20 a day. These are real poor and vulnerable, the report says. We quote this statistics to show that poverty has nothing to do with religion. And that politics should be about marrying policies with the people.
A conservative estimate, supported by all empirical data, gives us a statistics of almost 30 to 35 per cent of India'spopulation living in subhuman conditions. This is not a comforting thought in the 60th year of Independence. And to know that our political class has only archaic, time warped ideas for giving opportunity to the less privileged is a sad commentary.
The UPA as part of its poll-oriented thinking is going to constitute an equal rights panel to ensure Muslim representation level. How myopic can the ruling class get! In a country with over 30 per cent poor to have an equal rights panel only for the 15 per cent minorities! Does the government have no responsibility to the rest of the population? And how did the UPA and on what basis did it come to the conclusion that all Christians and Muslims are poor? If there is any poor, deprived in the country, it is the Hindu. His land was taken away, his homes and temples were looted for centuries, he was made to pay jazia, an oppression tax of slavery, for almost 800 years, for that long the Muslims and for another 150 years Christians ruled this country. How can the ruling class till 1947, become deprived needing special affirmative action? It is only the Hindu who has some claim to a special treatment. And Pakistan was created, after the bloodiest-ever holocaust in history, to pamper the Muslims. Every corner of the country where Hindu is in minority is in the grip of insurgency and terrorism. A convincing Hindu majority is the only guarantee for the territorial integrity of this country. And by artificially identifying 85 Muslim-majority districts is Manmohan Singh trying to lay the foundation for another partition? In history, the UPA regime will go down as the Centre that tried to wreck the system from within, in real Communist style. But will India pardon these wreckers?
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