bring-state-minorities-under-article-30

Hindus living in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, now a union territory, as also in Punjab, are faced with a unique disadvantage. While in terms of national population, they belong to the “majority community”, but within the state they are a minority. While, as a minority within the state they remain at a disadvantage, particularly in terms of political power, they do not get any special constitutional rights that the minorities get as they are treated as a “majority”.

 

In Punjab, though there is no institutional discrimination with the minorities, Jammu and Kashmir cannot claim this distinction. The minorities in Jammu and Kashmir are still treated with “deliberate and well-designed discrimination” with vengeance, which started immediately after the independence of the country that ended about a century-long Dogra/Hindu rule.

 

The outrage among the Hindus in Jammu over the admission of 42 Muslim students in a medical institution started by the Mata Vaishnodevi Shrine Board has multiple reasons. In government-run engineering and medical colleges, there was pronounced discrimination against them, as admissions were never based on merit, but community affiliations. Now that the Hindus thought they had their own medical college, they could expect their wards to study there. But against the 50 seats in the first batch, 42 went to the Muslim candidates in the name of merit.

 

The problem is precisely because of the “dichotomous contradiction” that despite being a “minority”, Hindus are treated as a “majority”. The institution is run by a minority community and should be treated as such. In Jammu and Kashmir the Hindus are in a minority. The institution is funded completely with the donations that are made to Shri Mata Vaishnodevi shrine, which of course are made by Hindus only.

 

Mata Vaishnodevi Institute of Medical Excellence was set up by Shri Mata Vaishnodevi Shrine Board this year. The Board has already been running a university for a long time. It is obvious that the management of the Shrine Board, with the Lieutenant Governor being the ex-officio Chairman, did not anticipate any practical difficulty that is why no proper measures were taken to avoid the situation that has emerged now.

 

Idealistic and high moral ground aside, it is a grave contradiction that an institution run by a Hindu shrine should be having 42 students from a different community against just eight of its own and that too when the Muslim students have no faith in the shrine that is funding and financing it.

 

Also read: VHP questions admission process at SMVD Institute, seeks probe

 

The issue indeed is complex. Admission to medical colleges across India is done on merit scored in the NEET. This is done to ensure that only the best and brilliant minds get to study in the medical institutions. Since there is also a provision of reservation for various categories like the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, it is not completely a merit-based process. As at times, people with less merit coming from reserved categories still manage to get admissions over those who have better overall merit score.

 

On the basis of the same reservation policy, minority communities in India, under the Article 30 of the Indian Constitution, have also been granted special right to set up their own education institutions with 50 per cent reservations for the students of their own community. This holds true for institutions run by the Muslim, Christian and Sikh communities. Since Hindus constitute a majority at the national level, they do not come under the purview of Article 30 even when they are a minority in the provinces like Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.

 

The issue has completely polarised people of two communities in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Interestingly, political parties like the National Conference, People’s Democratic Party and People’s Conference, who openly practice and pronounce Muslim communal politics, have started resorting to breast-beating over “threat to secularism” and “communalising” of medical education. They are crying hoarse about the protests being staged by people in Jammu against the admission of an overwhelming majority of non-Hindus in a medical institution that is run and financed exclusively by Hindus.

 

Time has come to amend the Article 30 of the Constitution of India for clarification and defining a minority. The minority and majority communities should be defined and determined at the state level and not at the national level alone. Let the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir enjoy the privileges a minority is constitutionally entitled to, whether at the national or state level, but also ensure that the “minority within the state” is not made to suffer and subjected to double discrimination.

 

One, being a minority within the state they suffer different sorts of discrimination at different levels, sometimes subtle and sometimes obvious. The major discrimination they suffer is about political power. For example, you cannot imagine a Hindu Chief Minister in Jammu and Kashmir. And when you do not have political power, you suffer multiple disadvantages. People who suffer such discrimination and disadvantage know it better. That is why the members of the Hindu community, cutting across their partisan affiliations, have risen against this development.

 

Two, the application of the Article 30 of the Constitution adds to their disadvantage as they cannot claim any special benefit that the “minorities” get by virtue of being a “minority” particularly while running an educational institution. It is not just a paradox that a minority community sets up a medical college and the students belonging to the majority community get admitted and benefitted in maximum number? It is grave injustice and profound discrimination, which must end forthwith.