3 min readNew DelhiFeb 11, 2023 07:11 AM IST
First published on: Feb 11, 2023 at 01:53 AM IST
THE RAJYA Sabha on Friday took up a private member’s resolution urging the government to implement the recommendations of the Sachar Committee and other reports that have discussed educational and social backwardness of the Muslim community.
The resolution, which was moved by P V Abdul Wahab of Indian Union Muslim League, saw fervent support from MPs across party lines, including those from the Congress, TMC and Samajwadi Party.
“Sachar Committee Report, 2006, and Ranganath Misra Commission Report, 2007 reveal that the condition of Muslims in India is worse than SCs and STs,” Wahab said. One-fourth of the Muslim children in the age group of 6-14 years have either never attended school or are dropouts, he said, citing the Sachar Committee report.
During the two-and-a-half-hour-long debate on the issue, most Opposition MPs, including John Brittas of the CPI(M) and Imran Pratapgarhi of the Congress, criticised the government for curtailing the budget allocation for schemes under the Minority Affairs Ministry. The BJP MPs reiterated “sabka saath, sabka vikas”, insisting that the government’s developmental schemes are for everyone, irrespective of their religious affiliations.
Supporting the Sachar Committee resolution, CPI’s Sandosh Kumar said the BJP “talks about Muslims and sabka saath, sabka vikas”, but the party has “poor” Muslim representation. “In the 75th year of Independence, the effort is to create an India-Pakistan situation in every village of India,” Kumar said.
Rakesh Sinha of the BJP said, “There is no discrimination towards the minorities and backward classes, and schemes pertaining to electricity, water and other amenities are reaching every part of the nation.” Sinha went on to equate the Sachar Committee with the Hunter Commission under the British, and alleged that “just like the British, the aim of the Congress in constituting the Sachar Committee was to create a religious divide in society”.
“When a highway is built, or drinking water is made available to households, no one asks if the user comes from a majority or a minority community,” he said.
G V L Narasimha Rao of the BJP said his party has opposed the Sachar Committee report as it was a “patently communal exercise”. “It reflected the politics of minorities and the politics of appeasement,” he said.
Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Kumar Jha alleged that polarisation, mob lynching and hate crimes are on the rise. He said things must be seen from the human rights angle rather than the perspective of religion.
In a long emotional speech, Jha stressed that there is an atmosphere of fear and cited instances of “many of his Muslim PhD students opting for safe topics for dissertation rather than what comes naturally to them”.
Jebi Mather of the Congress said the Maulana Azad National Fellowship should not have been discontinued.
Rajya Sabha proceedings on Friday. (PTI) 
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