President of Patriots Forum, D.C. Nath was superannuated in January, 1995, as the Special Director, Intelligence Bureau, D.C. Nath (IPS-1960) was associated with the International Institute of Security and Safety Management (IISSM), headquartered in New Delhi, for over 14 years, first as the Executive President & CEO and then as the President & Director General, between February, 1997 and March, 2011. The author of a highly acclaimed book, Intelligence Imperatives for India, Mr. Nath earned high plaudits from all around for two of his very significant presentations on: “Revisiting the Future of India” (2005, London) and “Lessons from India for the War On Terrorism” (2007, USA). He is the only one in the field, combining the experiences of a police officer with specialization in intelligence and strategic analysis and an industrial security expert par excellence. More Bio on D. C. Nath…
OPINION>>>>
April 10, 2015
Dear Friends,
Subject: Petition To Human Rights Commission For The Majority Community.
Today, we are sharing with you what we have submitted to the Chairman, Human Rights Commission, Government of India, demanding to consider issuing instructions to the government to extend the benefits granted to the so-called minority communities following the Sachar Committee’s recommendations.
Friends, in case you agree with us, some of you may like to take this up independently and in your own way.
A copy of our letter to the Human Rights Commission is attached without its enclosures.
Vandemataram,
Your sevak,
D.C. Nath
(Former Spl. Director, IB)
(President, Patriots’ Forum)
April 10, 2015
To,
The Chairman,
Mr. Justice K.G. Balakrishnan,
Human Rights Commission,
Government of India,
New Delhi.
Dear Sir,
We beg to be excused for intruding into your busy schedule. But, Sir, we have an important submission to make.
We represent a Delhi based “Think Tank”, namely, the Patriots’ Forum. It is pledged towards protecting & preserving the age-old Indic civilization.
Our submission today is, however, regarding the protection of basic human rights of the members of the majority community in the country.
Right since 1947 our country has been ruled by a clique of political parties whose undeclared objective has been to denigrate the religion and culture of the majority community and to promote the interests of those following the religions of non-Indic origin. While considerations of vote bank politics could be one reason for this attitude, the mental make-up of our first Prime Minister who reportedly described himself as “English by education, Muslim by culture and Hindu by accident”. That comment has left its indelible stamp on the functioning of the successive governments. This process reached its climax during the 10 years long rule of Sonia Gandhi government. While Dr. Manmohan Singh was the nominal Prime Minister, the real power was exercised by the anti-Hindu Roman Catholic Sonia Gandhi and her chief political advisor, Ahmed Patel.
The period of eight years spent in political wilderness prior to its return to power in 2004, seems to have imparted an unusually strong urge to the appetite of the Indian National Cogress for perpetuating the party’s hold on power. Having a long experience of electoral politics in India the Sonia led UPA knew very well that despite constituting 80% of the population the Hindus will not be able to pose a serious threat to the UPA’s hold because –
1. They are hopelessly divided into several mutually antagonistic camps on account of loyalties towards casteist leaders (e.g., Brahmin, Thakur, Vaishya, Jat, Gujar, Yadav, Dalit- non- Dalit, OBC-non- OBC, SC, ST,) or regional or sectoral preferences, e.g., preferences, Dravid, non -Dravid, etc.
2. Many educated and affluent Hindus just do not vote , and
3. The illiterate/semiliterate poorer sections of Hindus (a fairly large segment) can be easily manipulated to vote by use of money, muscle or other tried and trusted tricks of trade.
On the contrary, the Muslims (who formed 13.4% according to the 2001 census but actually now are about 20%) and the Christians (1.9% according to 2001 census but estimated to be about 6-10% at present) constitute solid vote banks who largely vote according to the dictates of their religious leaders. Once the loyalty of these two sections comprising about 25% or more of the electorate is ensured, victory of their favourite political party becomes almost certain (including the votes garnered from the poorer section of Hindus). Pampering the Muslims and Christians by freebies and keeping the Hindus divided by encouraging factional Hindu leaders e.g. Mayavati, Mulayam Singh, Ajit Singh, Laloo Yadav, etc., to pursue their divisive agenda has been a key plank of the UPA strategy.
To get over the difficulty posed by the constitutional provisions forbidding discrimination on grounds of religion the UPA decided to take advantage of the exception provided in clause (4) of Article 15 itself which reads as follows:
4. Nothing in this article or in clause (2) of article 29 shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.]”
Having discovered this escape route the UPA Government moved rapidly to fabricate evidence to prove that the Muslims of India constituted a “socially and educationally backward class of Indian citizens” deserving special provisions for their advancement.
Following a visit by a delegation of Muslim MPs and Ministers, the Prime Minister through a Notification dated 9 March 2005 appointed a carefully chosen Muslim dominated High Level Committee under the Chairmanship of Justice Rajinder Sachar to report on the social, economic and educational condition of the Muslim Community in India. In his address on the occasion of Independence Day, 2005, the Prime Minister announced inter-alia that “We will also revise and revamp the 15 Point Programme for Minorities. The new 15 Point Programme will have definite goals which are to be achieved in a specific time frame”. A new Ministry of Minority Affairs was created on 29th January, 2006 “to ensure a more focused approach towards issues relating to the minorities and to facilitate the formulation of overall policy and planning, coordination, evaluation and review of the regulatory framework and development programmes for the benefit of the minority communities”. The country already having a constitutional body in the shape of the Minority Commission, there was indeed no need at all for the creation of this separate body. This itself is a clear proof of the UPA government’s bias in favour of the minority communities.
The Sachar Committee submitted its report on 17 November, 2006, bogusly declaring that the “Muslims were among the most educationally, socially and economically backward communities of India.” The Sachar Committee’s report has been examined in great detail and it has been found that the Committee’s conclusion about the condition of the Muslims was entirely unwarranted by the available evidence]. The Sachar Committee Report was laid on the floor of Parliament on 30 November 2006. On behalf of the Patriots’ Forum, we had filed a PIL against this Report. On advice of the Delhi High Court, it has been transferred to the Supreme Court, where objections from several High Courts against this Report have already been received.
While addressing a meeting of the National Development Council on 9th December, 2006 (Sonia Gandhi’s birthday), the former Prime Minister made the astounding declaration that “the Minorities, particularly the Muslim Minority, must have the first claim on the nation’s resources”. This declaration was totally uncalled for and is violative of the P.M. oath of office not to show favour towards any community, etc.
By implication, the former Prime Minister decided to treat the Hindus as second class citizens who should be content with having left-over crumbs, after the Muslims and other minorities had their lion’s share of national resources.
In justification of Dr Manmohan Singh’s anti-Hindu declaration, the PMO issued a clarification, the crux of which is reproduced below:
“We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on resources…….. .” While better off sections of society will benefit from this process, it is the responsibility of the Government to pay special attention to the welfare of weaker and marginalized sections. …….. India must shine, but shine for all”.
The above clarification leaves the UPA government clearly guilty of deceiving the country and of acting against the Constitution. In the first place it seems to create the false impression that the Muslims of India have been left far behind the others in India’s march towards development. Even assuming for argument’s sake that the minorities and particularly the Muslims happen to be among the weaker and marginalized sections of the Indian society, what exactly could be the justification for giving them the first claim on the nation’s resources?
Our humble submission is that when the Government is so solicitous about the condition of the Muslims and Other Religious Minorities, (ORMs) what makes it totally indifferent to similarly circumstanced 34 crore poorest Hindus living below the poverty line. The Government’s concern for the weaker and marginalized sections lost all credibility because of the government’s decision to divide the weaker and marginalized sections into two religious groups — one made eligible for huge benefits and the other declared completely ineligible for any scholarship – with the religion of each group being made the sole determinant of eligibility.
The present nationalist government believing in “sab ka sath, sab ka vikas’ must find out the reason for promoting the welfare of the marginalized poor except through communal lense. The Constitution specifically forbids discrimination on ground of caste, race or religion. The intention of the UPA government was that while Muslims, Christians and other minorities deserve to be helped to rise above their poverty, the Hindus deserve no such help, unless they converted to Islam or Christianity, even when conditions of some section of Hindus, especially in rural areas where worse on the grouns.
Apart from the religion based criterion followed by the government, there is another serious flaw in the Governments discriminatory policy viz. that it is against the principles of equity and natural justice. The Sachar Report has been closely examined and it has been found that the conclusion reached by the Committee about the condition of the Muslims is entirely unwarranted by available impartial evidence. Independent studies have repeatedly come to the conclusion that there is virtually no difference in the overall situation of the Hindus and the Muslims in India. As a matter of fact, accordingly to the four out of the five human development indices, universally accepted, the Muslims in India are better-off than the Hindus in four cases. This is proved statistically in the leaflet of the Patriots’ Forum attached.
In fact, extreme poverty is more common among Hindus than among Muslims. Despite the availability of abundant data in public domain the Sachar Committee proceeded to give a fabricated and fraudulent report. The UPA government needed an excuse to pursue their votebank policies and that was provided by Justice Sachar. All said and done, providing the means of rapid advancement in life to one section of the population and denying the same to another equally deserving section solely on basis of religion must be condemned as offending against the universal principles of equity and natural justice.
The case of the other Religious Minorities is even more perplexing. In their case, no enquiry at all was considered necessary and after receiving the Sachar Report, the UPA government quietly proceeded to grant the same benefits to these ORMS as had been granted to the Muslims. The only imaginable reason of this munificence towards the ORMs (i.e., Other Religious Minorities) could be perhaps Government’s presumptuous belief that these Minorities also belonged to “weaker and marginalized sections of the society”. It is common knowledge that far from being weaker and marginalized, these ORMs comprising the Christians, the Buddhists, the Sikhs and the Parsis are show-stealers in the Educational, Social and Income ladders of the Indian Society. The real reason for the ludicrous decision to make these Minorities equally eligible for the favours granted to the Muslims could have been the Government’s desire to ensure that their religion-based discrimination was not challenged in courts of law. As it is, the numbers of the ORMs being small, the Muslim community has remained and will remain the largest beneficiary of the Government’s largesse.
The details of the benefits granted to the Muslims and Other Religious Minorities may be seen in Appendix 1 to this letter, that is Chapter 4 titled, “If You are a Hindu”, excerpted from the recently published fully documented book, ‘The Majority Report’ (copy enclosed). This book highlights how benefits amounting to several lakh crores of rupees every year are being given only to enable the beneficiary minorities to rise rapidly in socio- economic spheres to become the dominant section of the Indian society. The second unstated objective could be to push the poor and middle class Hindus deeper and deeper into penury and backwardness unless they convert to Islam or Christianity for getting free scholarships and cheap loans. We hear that some of them have actually done so.
Continued assistance for the Haj pilgrimage to the Muslims is another instance of high level of discrimination. This is one case that has no parallel in the world. The Andhra Pradesh High Court had actually stayed this grant but the appeal against that has already been made in the Supreme Court and meanwhile, this unique method of helping the Muslim for pilgrimage is continuing. No such aid is given to the Hindus for their religious pilgrimage.
Dear Sir, we had pinned great hopes on Shri Narendrabhai Modi. The least he could have done on assuming office was to stop immediately all one-sided religion-based favours illegally and unconstitutionally granted by the UPA government to Muslims and other religious Minorities and to compensate the Hindus for all the facilities denied to them during the eight years of UPA rule. Or, if Shri Modi does not want to annoy the Muslims, the least he could have done was to grant the same incentives, free scholarships, concessions and opportunities for the advancement in life also to the Hindus, as showered by the previous government on Muslims, Christians and other religious minorities and which are being continued unchanged by the present nationalist government. After all, what we are asking for is that the Hindu citizens of this country be treated equally with the rest. Is that an unreasonable demand? Does not not-doing so amount to gross violation of the basic Human Rights of the Hindus in their own country?
Should you require any clarification in the matter, we will always be available at your New Delhi office at a couple of days’ notice.
‘Hoping to receive your earnest attention and with deep regards,
Yours sincerely,
D.C. Nath
(Former Spl. Director, IB)
(President, Patriots’ Forum)
Enclosures:
1. A Book, ‘The Majority Report’ authored by Ram Kumar Ohri and Jai Prakash Sharma.
2. Press release on May 29, 2012, of Shri Salman Khurshid, former Minister of Minority Affairs.
3. Think India.
Source: Patriot Forum
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