Third decree treatment

The temptation in the end proved to be too powerful. The Cabinet on Friday succumbed to the ordinance option to give greater powers to the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions. There are on account of this two reasons for disquiet. One, the decision to snatch for the commission what will be in the end rather discretionary powers to identify which private educational institutions be given minority status comes just a day after the Allahabad High Court refused to restore minority status to Aligarh Muslim University. That reiteration of the court8217;s October judgement should have been a point for closure. It should have been counsel for interventionist lobbies within the UPA to desist from directly involving the government in recommending minority status to college and universities. This sort of involvement opens the Central government to charges of lobbying for certain communities. It goes against the spirit of secularism, and it threatens to put the Centre in the business of balancing concessions on the basis of community. The Congress must surely remember the neverending balancing act that began with its Shah Bano-induced legislation, leading to an overt involvement in Ayodhya, and ending in electoral defeat.

There is, in addition, the regrettable recourse to an ordinance. This ordinance is proof of the shoddy haste with which legislation was rushed through in the winter session of Parliament to provide for reservations in unaided private institutions. Those among these institutions deemed to have minority status would not have to reserve seats on the basis of caste. The ordinance cleared this week provides the modality for getting entitlement to minority status. The government8217;s unwise entry into this arena aside, the use of an ordinance points to a larger malaise. Ordinances are meant to be issued in the rarest of instances. A case must be made to justify the urgency, to show why circumstances do not allow a wait till the legislature meets. In this case 8212; and in so many others by Congress governments, like Maharashtra8217;s ordinances on banning bargirls and on legitimising unauthorised construction in Ulhasnagar 8212; the measure is clearly a populist statement.

A government sure of the merits of its legislative agenda must have the confidence of securing it through the processes of Parliament. It is not too late for the Cabinet to reconsider its decision.