*** Excerpts from Religious Apartheid in Modern India by Moorthy Muthuswamy ***

…For any emergent or modern nation, it would indeed be downright shameful, and even outright inconceivable to blatantly discriminate against its citizens, especially its majority community. This reminds one of the white apartheid-rule in South Africa.

One may be surprised to learn that in India, of all nations, similar practices are taking place.

Recently, St. Stephen’s College, an elite Christian missionary-controlled higher education institution located in New Delhi shocked many by declaring that it was setting up a quota system that allots 50 percent of its student enrolment for the Christians.

…A stunning fact: About 95 percent of the college’s expenses are paid by the taxpayers, with the majority community contributing most of it.[4] Interestingly, according to the 2001 census figures, Christian population in New Delhi constitutes just one percent.[5] Indeed, Indian taxpayers appear to be subsidising the selective empowerment of Christians in St. Stephen’s College at the expense of deserving non-Christians.

A Supreme Court ruling based on Article 30 of the Indian Constitution was used by the St. Stephen’s management to justify these religious discriminations.[6] In 1993, the Government of India notified that the Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Zoroastrians (Parsis) are considered “minority.”[7] Article 30 of the Indian constitution allows religious minority communities regardless of their socio-economic status to allot up to 50 percent of student enrolment and employment for members of their own communities in educational institutions administered by them even if the institutions are getting aid from the government.[8] The definition of minority applies at the national level — meaning that in the Indian states of Mizoram and Punjab where Christians and Sikhs are majorities respectively, and the Hindus are a minority, Article 30 still applies to the Christians and Sikhs in these states as minorities, and the Hindus there as majority.

Christian minorities are also, not surprisingly, getting preferential employment in missionary-controlled educational institutions, again justified on the basis of Article 30. For example, the percentages of teaching staff belonging to the Christian faith in missionary-controlled, but taxpayer-funded American College, Union Christian College and St. Xavier’s College are 66, 83 and 42 respectively.[9] But the percentages of Christians in the state of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharashtra, where these colleges are located are just 7, 19 and 1 respectively,[10] clearly suggesting the role of religious discriminations in hiring. It appears that these lawful discriminatory practices encompass just about all Christian denominations and cut across the nation. The temptation to discriminate is driven by the highly beneficial manner of the reservations as well as by their lawful nature.

If the percentage of missionary-controlled educational institutions is proportional to the Christian minority population percentage, these discriminations, while hardly justifiable for a nation that calls itself “secular,” are unlikely to have an adverse impact. However, here’s the gist of the problem: the 2.3 percent (2001 census figures)[11] Christian minorities control over 22 percent[12] (almost ten times their population percentage) of all educational institutions in India (i.e., over 40,000 of them[13]).
In combination with Article 30, the above statistics state the obvious: The Christians are a privileged minority in India, with the government’s resources — inadvertently, it seems — allocated for their preferred empowerment. Not surprisingly, literacy rate of the Christians in India stands at 80 percent,[14] compared to 65 percent[15] overall. With the missionaries providing nearly 30 percent of the healthcare services in India,[16] employment possibilities for those who convert to Christianity are significantly more than those of non-Christians. In addition, the minority status of missionary-controlled institutions helps them get tax, land allotment and many other benefits.[17]

…The magnitude and scale of these discriminations are staggering. If each missionary-controlled institution has on the average a total of 300 students and staff, and if it discriminates on the average against 10 non-Christian student enrolments and youth employments every year, it translates to about a quarter million discriminatory acts every year. For instance, St. Stephen’s, which has an incoming class of about 400 students every year,[19] allots nearly 200 of these seats exclusively for Christians — i.e., nearly 200 acts of discrimination every year.

…It is useful to quantify the implications of this decision. Assuming on the average a total of 300 students and staff in an institution, for the 40,000 institutions controlled by the missionaries, a grand total of 12 million seats is reached. Hence, a disturbing possibility has arisen as a result of the honoured court’s decision: It has empowered the missionaries to lawfully deny non-Christians from a few millions to about 6 million student enrolments and staff employments every year in institutions likely funded by the government.

…Post 1990s, the religious apartheid practices permitted by Article 30 of India’s constitution have played a primary role in devastating the majority community economically in the southern Indian state of Kerala by marginalising their educational opportunities. The article has given minority-controlled institutions in Kerala legal power to discriminate and to regulate educational access at the expense of the taxpayers. According to Indian academic C. Issac:

“[The] 55 per cent of Hindu population of Kerala controls 11.11 per cent of the state’s bank deposits. On the other hand, the 19 per cent Christian community commands 33.33 per cent and 25 per cent Muslim population retains 55.55 per cent…. The education is one of the major sectors where the organised strength of the minorities in Kerala is used in a covert manner. In this sector the majority [Hindu] community as well as the government together control only 11.11 percent, on the other hand, the church controls 55.55 percent and Muslim religious organisations 33.33 percent of all institutions. At present the professional education sector of Kerala is almost under the full control of the minorities. About 12,000 engineering enrolments and 300 medicine enrolments are in the minority institutions and they are fully controlling the admissions. At present 60 percent of the enrolments in paramedical courses are controlled by the organised minority religious leadership…. In this situation the successive governments are functioning as mere onlookers…. A lion’s share of these aided [government-funded] schools is under minority management.”[44]

Can a parent belonging to the majority community expect his/her sons and daughters, even if they are well-qualified, to receive college education in Kerala? Difficult as it is to get admission in a college, it is unlikely to be lost on many Hindus that they stand a much higher chance, should they convert to one of the privileged minority faiths.

…Clearly, modern and “emergent” India has to do away with Article 30 in the present form.

…This article shouldn’t be viewed as an attack on Christian minorities or a call for undermining their rights, or an effort to stop conversions altogether. The focus of this analysis is about the egregious human rights violations of the 80 percent majority community. By tracing these violations to Article 30 of the Indian constitution, this piece offers ways of addressing this issue objectively and fairly without infringing on anyone’s rights.

*** End of Excerpts ***

The original is a long piece but worth reading in full…Comments & thoughts welcome, as always…

P.S. A relevant excerpt from a recent piece in FirstPost:

The spirit of Article 30 is that it is intended to ensure that minorities are not discriminated against or denied equal treatment. But in practice, it has begun to mean that non-minority institutions can be denied the right to “establish and administer” institutions in their own way.
Article 30 and various court judgments related to it, including the recent one by the Supreme Court on exempting unaided minority institutions from the purview of the 25 percent quota for the poor prescribed under the Right to Education Act, clearly need to be rewritten or even abolished.
It can be abolished for the simple reason that the right of minorities to establish their own institutions is inherent in human rights and citizenship rights. Since any Indian citizen has the right to set up any institution under extant laws of the land, minorities can do so too.

Additional Reading: Why Did The Ramakrishna Mission Say They Are Not Hindus?

Also read: “Pseudo-secularism” at its best?

Only one out of every six Muslim children entering an Indian school stays till his matriculation. I use “his” deliberately; the figures are worse for girls—only two out of five Muslim girls enter schools, and fewer than one-tenth complete secondary education.

These stark dropout rates explain the malaise affecting Indian Muslims, and unless that’s addressed, all other solutions are ineffective.

Such low enrolment figures and high dropout rates mean that only one of 25 undergraduate students, and barely one out of 50 postgraduate students in Indian universities, is a Muslim. India defines literacy rather generously, and yet Muslim literacy rate is only 59.1%. According to the Rajinder Sachar committee’s report in 2006, Muslim enrolment at the Indian Institutes of Management was 1.3%, and at the Indian Institutes of Technology, out of 27,161 students, only 894, or some 3.3%, were Muslim.

The consequence? Inevitably restricted professional opportunities. Just about 5% of applicants for the civil service examinations are Muslim, and of the elite bureaucracy, only 3% of Indian Administrative Services, 1.8% of the Indian Foreign Service, and 4% of the Indian Police Service, are Muslim. The figures improve marginally in other government departments, but only just. Muslims form 4.5% of employees in the railways, and an astonishing 98.7% of them are employed at lower levels. In other departments, such as education, health, and transport, representation varies between 4% and 7% of the total number of employees.

Lacking education and skills, many Muslim men and women find it hard to get jobs, and many end up being self-employed. While 44% of Muslim women are economically active (in itself a low figure) only 25% work outside their homes. Many men work in small businesses. Such jobs typically have minimal protection—no unions, poor work conditions, limited probability of training or advancement and low wages.

Even if they become entrepreneurs, credit may be hard to access without paper qualifications. Figures bear that out: the loans that average Muslim borrowers get are smaller than the loans others get. Furthermore, between 2000 and 2006, of the Rs. 266 billion that the Small Industries Development Bank of India disbursed, Muslims received only Rs. 1.24 billion…

And what does the government do? It “promises” to keep madrassas outside the purview of the RTE Act, thus making sure that there is no move to reform and formalise madrassa education . As the report (in the link notes):

Almost 90% of underprivileged Muslim children attend madrassas. However, devoid of a modern curriculum, madrassas are unable to equip these students for the contemporary job market.  This in turn limits their economic opportunities. By bringing madrassas under the provisions of the RTE Act, the Islamic seminaries will be forced to submit to universal standards and modernise.

..and goes on to promise them additional money from the coffers. Sometimes I wonder, where is the enlightened Muslim leadership? Why does it remain silent? Do Muslims not realize that these moves are leading to further ghettoization, further alienation and widening of the chasm between a rapidly modernizing society and the Muslim community? and worse – fueling further resentment among non-Muslims?

P.S. Some of you may have noticed I put “backwardness” with quotes in the title. The reason is that there is scant data to support such “backwardness” – although it is increasingly taken as a “given” in any discourse on development. The reason for my doubt/scepticism is here.  Comment and thoughts welcome, as always..

Related Post: Literacy rates and “first claims”… UPDATED

More on Sachar, OBCs, reservations etc… and Communal Reservations via the back door?

I don’t know how this man Narayana Murthy gets the audacity to lecture to others about doing something.

For nine years now I have been trying to get him (or Nandan Nilikani) interested in CITIZENSHIP – namely, in the process of active participation in the affairs of their nation. Numerous email communications I’ve had with both of them ..I even met both of them. They pretend to be “supportive” of the ideas I advocate but then do nothing.

One of them even asked me to consider joining an existing party to which I responded that I have something valuable: self-respect. Something they don’t seem to either have or understand. Their “honesty” means nothing if it doesn’t translate into self-respect.

…Unfortunately (for India and for their own reputation), they don’t seem to notice any discrepancy in LECTURING others even as they sit on the sideline as smug observers.

…During the lecture Murthy gave a few days ago he is reported to have said that the biggest malady of the country at present was the apathy to social problems. “We feel that problems surrounding us belong to somebody else. We do not take action or rather postpone the decision”.

Nicely said, Mr Murthy, but SINCE WHEN HAVE YOU DONE ANYTHING ABOUT INDIA’S PROBLEMS? Only complain endlessly (or bribe the corrupt?).

The ONLY thing I’ve seen from you in the last nine years are lectures. I’m sorry to be publicly saying this but I’ve formed the view that you are a TIGHT FISTED STINGY MAN WHO IS EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY SUPPORTING INDIA’S CORRUPT SOCIALIST PARTIES.

Why is it that you fear to build or support a political opposition that wants to fix India’s governance? Why not be a citizen instead of being a carping, stingy old man? Why is it that NOT A SINGLE PAISA has been spent by you in supporting the right cause?

Prior to you I met many Indian origin CEOs of IT companies in the Silicon Valley. Same result. TOTAL APATHY.

These are not Indians. They are BLOOD SUCKERS OF INDIA – who will exploit India for all they can but give back nothing in return. They will leave behind a WORSE INDIA than when they were born. That will be their legacy – of DO NOTHINGS.

In THIRTEEN years (fourteen in February 2012) since I’ve been fighting to establish a classical liberal political party in India not ONE so-called “honest” CEO has bothered to even inquire in some detail about how we can transform India.

And not ONE paisa spent. Not one. All hot air and mindless talk.

If you want your reputation to go down well in India’s history, please do something. Or BE QUIET, now. I’m getting a bit sick of all this.

Also read: Narayana Murthy – the most apathetic of them all (by Sanjeev)

and … On Politics, Corruption and FTI, Why bother with politics? and FTI comes of age on this blog

I will be joined on this chat by three panelists: Amit Malviya, Rajesh Kamireddy and Dipinder Sekhon. All three are passionate about India and active in politics in their own different ways – and they are truly in the “youth” age-bracket (unlike some other “Youth Icons”!). We will have a slightly different format this time. We will start by asking panelists to respond to 3-4 specific questions on “Youth, Politics and “What can we do to bring about change?”.  This will be followed by a moderated Q&A from the audience.

The Role of Youth in Today’s Politics and What can You and I do to bring about Systemic Change?”

Time: 8pm IST
Date: 26th Jan ’12 (Thursday)

Please do leave a note below (via comments) if you have a specific question or wish me to address a specific point.

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A few links by way of background and suggested readings are below. If you plan to join, please note the time and make sure you are online a few minutes before we initiate the chat.

You should be able to set a reminder in the box by entering your email. Here are some related posts on this topic..

On Raju Narayan Swamy, Systemic Change and the Long War

Open Thread to discuss “Youth and Politics”

Rs 1,7,60,00,00,00,000 and What can You and I do about it?

Mystery surrounds an American agency carrying out a survey in different parts of India to know the Muslim opinion on some sensitive issues like placing Sharia over the Indian laws, Islam’s role in mainstram Indian politics, and whether Islam is under any serious threat.

…Kerala Police chief Jacob Punnose says the survey had communal overtones and hence a case has been filed against TNS India for asking communally sensitive questions.

“We have decided to file a case of 153(a) under Indian Penal Code (IPC) which relates to the charge of promoting enmity between groups on grounds of religion and race”

No points for guessing why…You can now add asking “communally sensitive” questions to the list of things in India that can get you into trouble…

As a quick reminder, other similar things that can land you in jail include writing scandalous information about “high-profile” people, attempts to tear the secular fabric of the nation , what you post on “social media“, offensive and objectionable material on your blog etc etc..

Not surprisingly, none of these terms have been defined anywhere - to the best of my knowledge. Not surprisingly because by not defining these things, one can always use one’s own “judgement” in such matters…

The signs are ominous. Slowly but surely, the government seems to be determined to muzzle our freedoms...freedom to criticise, to express, to articulate and to defend…

If all this was not so dangerous (and damaging in the long term), it would be very funny…Be worried, very worried…and please register your protest – wherever and whenever you can.

Related Posts:  On Artistic Freedom, Censorship and Responsibility, Losing sleep over communal violence and hate propaganda,  On scandalous information and “high profile” people etc etc…

Also read: On Blogs, Comments, Liability and Being Sued…

P.S. More than 2 years ago, the Supreme Court made the following observation while dismissing a case against the late MF Husain: ”a painter has..own perspective of looking @ things & diff in perspective can’t be basis of criminal proceedings”. Can any lawyers or those with a background in law please comment whether the same “protection” is available to bloggers? Thanks.

Image courtesy: Wikipedia