Quota for Backwards: Struggle for Social Justice

Ram Puniyani

After Supreme Court Bench had expressed unhappiness about the ways in which the Muslim sub Quota was created last December, the Government has been trying to submit the necessary data. Supreme Court wanted Centre to explain the basis of the move to reserve this 4.5% for the Muslims. With due support from relevant studies and documents Govt is trying to put forward the justification for its move. This Supreme Court verdict was in the backdrop of Andhra High Court decision to quash the minority sub quota. (June 2012) Andhra High Court had raised the point that the reservation on the basis of religion is unconstitutional. It is a strange reading of the constitution. The spirit of the constitution is that there shall be no discrimination on the basis of caste, religion or class. However, if certain communities suffer social discrimination and deprivation, the Constitution provides reservation as an instrument to neutralize the prevalent social disparities.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as per its anti minority and anti reservation stance welcomed the Supreme Court's refusal to stay Andhra Pradesh High Court's decision quashing the minority sub-quota. Its spokesperson also charged the Congress-led government with having a communal agenda and going in for "vote-bank politics". The implications of this understanding mean that the prevalent disparities should continue. BJP’s goal is not a society based on equity and justice as it is guided by ‘religion based nationalism’. Some others pointed out that the ruling party Congress, as such does not want the quota for Muslims in the real sense. This perception comes because Congress party does show a lack of will power in the direction of affirmative action for weaker sections of society as a whole and about Minorities in particular.  

http://www.indianmuslimobserver.com

As such Constitution does allow quota to educationally and economically backward classes. Today Muslims are educationally and economically very backward community in India. Its educational backwardness has been repeatedly pointed out by HRD ministry and Home Ministry in their reports for a long time. And the economic condition has been highlighted by Sachar Committee (2006) and Rangnath Misra Commission(2007). In this light how can the sound legal case be made to actualize the social and political need of our society to get economic justice to minorities, is a challenge for the Government.

Congress Government started taking this issue seriously and overtly from the time of UP assembly elections 2012. It promised for this 4.5% reservation for Muslims. As this promise came in the wake of the forthcoming assembly election, it sounded like one more election gimmick. As such we are riddled in a society where the affirmative action for the weaker sections of society is a must. Already we have the reservation for SC, ST and OBC. The reservation policy was all through opposed by BJP saying that reservation undermines merit. We are living in a society where merit has been successfully bypassed by the power of money. Capitation fees, buying seat in professional colleges with money is a big business. This has bypassed the ‘merit’ in a very direct way. Merit is also influenced by the social-economic inequalities, which is the major cause of backwardness of some sections of society. There have been agitations time and again which have tried to oppose the reservation for the weaker sections of society.

There are many issues involved here. The major issue is the principle that that the reservation should not be based on the grounds of religion. This point is well taken and here the issue is that this section of Muslims, which is backward economically and socially, is being considered for its backwardness not for its religion. To put it the other way around, can a religious community deprived of the constitutional provision of reservation just because it belongs to a particular religion? That will become a discrimination of grossest variety. All Muslims are not being considered for this provision, only OBC Muslims are being thought of. There was a time when section of Muslim Ulema claimed that this reservation is invalid as Islam does not permit caste system, it does not have caste system. Very true, theologically Islam does not have caste system, but caste system amongst the Muslim community is a social reality, confirmed time and over again and recognized by different commissions. The technical point that this quota should be approved by Commission for Other Backward caste is valid and Government has to go through this procedure.

The Supreme Court query about the ground for justification for this quota needs to be answered. Already Sachar Committee and Rangnath Mishra Commission have done a meticulous job and we need to stick to those findings and Government needs to argue the case on that basis. It has to judiciously use the data of these two reports to make the case for reservation. Why 4.5% is being asked for? Mishra Commission recommends 8.4%. These matters are related to proportions and the quota is necessarily in proportion to the population and the quota meant for it. For 52% of OBC, 27% of Quota was fixed. So now it is within this segment that the sub quota is to be created.

Other matching action which is needed is in the electoral arena. We have been seeing that the representation of Muslims is constantly declining in our Parliament and assemblies. Before independence the separate electorate had created havoc and was also the foundation of divisiveness and the tragic partition of the country. That is ruled out lock stock and barrel. The appeal to the political parties to give more number of seats to minorities is dodgy and has not worked. We can think of reserved constituencies for minorities. We cannot have lop-sided representation system. We have to create a future where we rise above these considerations, but at the moment such actions have to be part of our policy making. Needless to say ‘Equal Opportunity Commission’ has no substitute and we must intensify our efforts in that direction not only for Minorities but also for other disadvantaged sections of society.

The biggest hurdle to these policies related to quotas is the opposition to these policies from communal parties. The communal parties interpret and propagate about affirmative action in a twisted way. They keep on harping that these actions tantamount either appeasement of minorities or it is a way of practicing communalism. This is like putting the reality upside down. Desire for equality also needs to consider the causes of inequality and to overcome them through all means. These measures must be interim in nature, with a resolve to build the nation where religion and caste are not the factors retarding the growth of the community. The attempt of to polarize communities along religious lines, on these issues needs to be countered and the path of a just society laid down through social initiatives and administration support of the democratic Government. 

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Targeting Innocents: State and Human Rights of Minorities

Ram Puniyani

In Kalyan a Muslim youth Bilal Shaikh was slaped with a non boilable cognizable offense (May 2012) under section 333, after he jumped the traffic signal. He was assaulted brutally by the police for having arguments with them, suffered a fracture in right arm and was in jail for eight days. The policemen who beat him up got released with the non cognizable warrant.

Image Courtesy: http://tumkuruniversityjournalism.blogspot.in

Another Muslim youth Mohammad Amir Khan, age 18, preparing for his school exam, was abducted by police, charged with being the mastermind of serial blasts in Delhi, was charged under all the possible sections, tortured in jail for 14 years and finally released in 2012 when no evidence was proved in the courts.

In the series of blasts, for which now Aseemanand-Pragyasingh Thakur and company is now cooling the heels in jails, many a Muslim youth were arrested after every blast in Malegaon, Mecca Masjid (Hyderabad), Ajmer and Samjhauta express. In all the cases the Muslim youth had to be released as police had no credible evidence of any sort. In the meanwhile many of them had to drop out from their studies and their careers were ruined.

In the recently released (June 2012) report by Tata Institute of social sciences, the observation is that 36% of the jail inmates in Maharashtra are Muslims while the population of Muslims in state is close to 10.6%. The report was sponsored by the Maharashtra States’ Minorities Panel. The findings of the report are in conformity with the Sachar Committee report and general observation of Human rights activists.

Most of the arrests of Muslim youth are prompted by the prevalent stereotype of ‘Muslims are criminals, terrorists’. These stereotypes are highly prevalent not only in society but also amongst the bureaucracy, particularly the police and amongst intelligence agencies. Many in the police force are totally in the grip of communal thinking and with their infinite power they unleash themselves against the Muslim youth at every conceivable opportunity. The rise of communalization of society and more particularly after the coming up of the terrorism of Al Qaeda variety, the stereotypes about Muslims have worsened. One recalls that this type of terrorism was subtly brought up by United States for pursuing its goal of controlling the oil wealth. The attitude of authorities has become more anti minority and this in turn has undermined their professionalism and they are guided more by their biases than by the rules of law.

There are multiple reasons for the Muslim youth being targeted by the state authorities. True, that some Muslim youth have fallen prey to the illegal activities due to the abject poverty which they have to suffer. Still the major reason for their being indiscriminately arrested by the police relates to the misconception regarding acts of terrorism and communal violence.

In communal violence, the major culprit instigating the violence is majoritiarian communal forces. The study of different inquiry committee reports by Teesta Setalvad (Communalism Combat, March 1998) shows that in most of the cases of violence it is the RSS related organization, already prevalent or floated specially for the occasion, which is in the lead. Even in Mumbai violence, Shrikrishna Commission held Shiv Sena as the major factor leading the violence. As such Muslims are 13.4% of the Indian population according to 2001 census, but amongst the violence victims 90% are Muslims. Police and many a times political leadership takes the attitude which increases the insecurity of the community.

The worst part of this phenomenon is that in popular perception it is alleged that it is Muslims, who start the riots. Dr. V.N. Rai, who has done a major study on the communal violence points out that generally a situation, is created where the minority community is forced to throw the first stone on many occasions. To worsen the matter, after the violence the majority of those who are arrested for communal violence are Muslims again.

The recent acts of terror and attitude of police are very reflective of the whole process. In most of these acts of terror, Malegaon, Ajmer, Jaipur and Samjhauta express blast, many a Muslim youth were arrested as the ones’ who have done the act. Police machinery produced evidence of their involvement with some Pakistan based terror group; SIMI was always blamed for many of these acts. Even at that time there were enough pointers that police investigations and action defies common sense. Police had the standard formula for arresting Muslim youth after every blast. They made it a practice to implicate the Muslim youth and put on their head the charge of blast and their link with Lashkar-E-Tayyaba, Indian Mujahideen, SIMI or some such group. Social activists kept pointing to the authorities about the leads showing in another direction from where the acts of terror were emerging. Police totally biased with prejudiced mind set kept on repeating the same pattern over and over again.

Hemant Karkar

Once Hemant Karkare’s immaculate investigation showed the link of Malegaon blast to Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur’s motor cycle and her links with many Hindutva groups the matters came to a halt. Sadhvi’s links with Swami Dayanand Pandey, Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, retired Major Upadhaya, Swami Aseemanand and many others of Hindutva ideology revealed that police till then was totally acting in a wrong manner. In this light Human Rights organization ANHAD (Act Now for Harmony And Democracy), organized a tribunal in Hyderabad, ‘Scapegoats and Holy Cows’. The report of this tribunal was very damning of the actions of the investigation authorities and the state. Logically with the arrest of Saffron terror gangs the acts of terror seem to have come to a halt.

Despite this, the attitude of police remains as biased as before and in the day to day life they display this partisan behavior. This biased attitude of state machinery, police and intelligence authorities in the main, has been ruining the life and careers of many a Muslim youth. The feeling of insecurity amongst the community as a whole is on the rise. This feeling of insecurity is crippling the possible growth of the community. Those implicated in such acts are also boycotted by the community and have faced immense personal, social and economic losses. It is time that the Human rights groups intensify their campaign to protect the innocent Muslim youth, the legal measures need to be strengthened whereby the police cannot exercise its biased attitude in arresting any Muslim youth. Measures are needed to ensure that police-intelligence agencies takes up more professional attitude overall and more particularly in the matters related to minority youth. The Government needs to wake up and apply the correcting measurs.

Apart from preventive legal steps we also need to work against the prevalent social biases against Muslims in particular. The myths against the community, which are historical and contemporary issues, which are related to the causes of acts of terrorism need to be countered by spread of truth about these myths. It is the duty of state and social organizations to undertake and promote such awareness programs through lectures, workshops, popular booklets and through mechanisms like T.V. and media in particular.

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Weeping Idols and Icons: from Virgin Mary to Chamundeshwari

B Premanand

Experiment: 37

Effect: The Virgin Mary sheds real tears, and even the sweat on her body tastes saltish.

In 1988 all over the world, icons and statues of the Virgin Mary started weeping. The tears tasted saltish and were believed to be real tears. This happened in Kerala also.

Props: Hollow statue of the Virgin Mary made of plaster of Paris or clay with two holes in the eyes, filled with salt and water and sealed at the bottom.

Method: The salt filled in the hollow of the statue melts with moisture and tears drip from the two holes in the eyes. Sweat forms on the body because of pores on the plaster of Paris or clay.

Experiment - 38

Effect: Idols of Hindu gods and goddesses weep.

In earlier days Hindu gods and goddesses also wept. It was considered to be an ill-omen indicating the ruler had committed some mistake and the god was upset. Earlier in this century, goddess Chamundeshwari at Mysore started weeping when the Mysore Maharaja appointed Sir Mirza Ismail, a muslim as dewan of Mysore State. Priests and Hindu fundamentalists did not like a Muslim being appointed Dewan of a Hindu State. Chamundeshwari was the family deity of the Mysore royal family. The priests rushed to the maharaja to tell him that the goddess is upset by the appointment and she was weeping. The dewan sent an intelligence officer to investigate the story and the trick was exposed.

Props: Idol of god or goddess with crown and hollow up to the neck and with an inlet at the crown and two holes in the eyes. Water and Wax.

Method: Crown of the idol is filled with water and the holes in the eyes sealed with wax. When the wax from the eyes is removed, water drips through the two holes in the eyes.

During 2009-2010 reports appeared in a section of media that a flex print of Mary with Infant Jesus at Kattachira, Kerala had started miraculously shedding tears. This received wide publicity and the devotees started flocking to the church.

This ‘miracle’ was debunked by Prof Narendra Nayak, who, along with the activists of Kerala Yukthivadi Sangham, visited the St.Mary’s Jacobite Chapel, Kattachira and investigated the case. As a fitting response, Prof Nayak made a flex print of none other than B. Premand shed tears “over cheap tricks being called miracles.

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Miracle of Multiplying Food: Jesus Christ to Satya Sai Baba

B Premanand

Jesus Christ is said to have multiplied 5 loaves of bread to 5000 and 7 into 7000. In Mahabharatha, Droupadi, wife of the five brothers, Pandavas, is said to have multiplied two grains of cooked rice to feed hundreds. Satya Sai Baba is also said to have multiplied food to feed his devotees.

Multiplying the Bread and Fish - Painting by Giovanni Lanfranco

If one sows one wheat seed, maybe one can reap 500 wheat grains. But once food is cooked it cannot multiply.

Earlier in 1940's to prove that cooked food can really multiply, people kept bread slices or chappathi in a wet cloth. It was opened after a week or month and was seen to have multiplied. Believers were flabbergasted by the miracle. But it was only the growth of fungus on the bread or chappathi by keeping it in wet cloth. There was nothing supernatural.

Experiment: 36

Effect: Popcorn, biscuit or toffee put into a container increase to many more.

Props: A long metal container and a short container with a rim projecting a little out and a long tight lid. Popcorn, or biscuits or toffees.

Method:  Tightly pack the long container with popcorn and insert the short container. Show the container and the lid. Reverse them at the same time, the mouth of the container to your side and the mouth of the lid to face the audi­ence. Put one popcorn into the container, close it with the long lid, move your hands remove the lid, and pour out the popcorn from the container.

If you want to multiply food in large quantities the food (or bread) has to be stored under the stage or under a table with a hole big enough to pass up the bread. Over this a table cloth is put with a hole fixed with a cloth which could be removed from the bottom. Over this hole is placed a vessel with a false bottom. Then put one bread in the empty vessel, and thereafter take as much bread as you have stored underneath, passed up to you by a boy hidden under the stage or under the table.

Jesus Christ transformed five loaves into 5000 on a sand mound.

A similar "miracle" was telecast on National TV in the serial "Rajni". Priya Tendulkar, the heroine, exposes a godman who produces from an empty vessel whatever fruits the devotees ask for. All the fruits were stored under the stage. The vessel was shown empty and kept on a particular place on the stage which had a hole. A person hidden below went on passing the fruit up through the false bottom when the audience named it. Priya went under the stage, tied up the youth, and started passing the wrong fruit so that the godman was exposed.

Satya Sai Baba is said to have produced various fruits from a tamarind tree in the dimness after sunset. Any fruit his followers asked for were pro­duced. Without storing the fruits beforehand no one can produce different fruits from a tamarind tree. This trick was performed by him in the early years of his life when there was not such a host of devotees in his ashram. He has stopped performing this trick now, along with the feat of multiplying food. 

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Fishy Treatment of Bathina Goud Family of Hyderabad

Manoj Thazath

One killed in stampede for fish medicine

(Hyderabad, June 9, 2012)

Amid utter chaos and confusion that marked the distribution of the famous ‘fish prasadam' in the city, one person was killed in a stampede while some others suffered injuries in Kattedan, here on Friday.

Thousands of people suffering from asthma jostled with one another at the gates of the sports complex on the city outskirts, where the ‘prasadam' was to be administered by Bathina Harinath Goud's family members. The belief is that the ‘prasadam' would cure them of the respiratory disorder. The yellow dough-like medicine, ingredients of which are kept a secret, is rolled into a small ball, put in the mouth of a live ‘murrel' fingerling and pushed down the throats of the patient.

(The Hindu, June 9, 2010)

Desperately hoping for a cure for their chronic asthma, thousands of patients and their relatives throng at this annual event where a family hailing from the twin-city of Hyderabad makes these credulous patients swallow "fish prasadam" - live murrel fingerlings dipped in what the organizers call ‘herbal medicine’.

Earlier, they used to call their offering ‘fish medicine’. In 2005, however, with the Andhra Pradesh High Court, acting on a petition filed by the rationalist group Jana Vigyan Vedike, directing the organizers of the spurious treatment not to use the word ‘medicine’, they started calling it ‘fish prasadam’. But this change in nomenclature does not seem to have the desired effect. With the open complicity of various government departments (the State Fisheries Department, for instance, “arranged for 80,000 ‘murrel' fish” for the event this year) the crowd continues to swell every passing year.

Image Courtesy:
http://srisrilara.blogspot.in/

The Baithini Goud family that administers this 'treatment' claims that some saint had handed over to their ancestors, in 1845, a secret formula of medicine as a cure for asthma.1. It is not clarified who the saint was, why the saint had selected this family to administer it, or why the ‘medical formula’ should remain a secret. Or why the medium for administering the ‘herbal medicine’ should be a fish. But the last point perhaps is understandable because the family administering this ‘secret cure’ belongs to the Goud caste, for whom eating fish is not a taboo. What is interesting however is that with the popularity of their medicine picking up, attracting patients belonging to the ‘twice-born’ castes too for whom fish is forbidden food, the treatment evolved! Now the murrel fish is no more a necessity – jaggery is equally fine, though the trade mark remains the murrel fish! Who can now say that providers of miracle cures and alternative medicines do not experiment!

Life Positive peddles nonsense 

This miracle treatment has a strange course – it has to be taken once every year for three consecutive years for the patient to be cured of the disease for ever! The medicines should not be administered on any day of the year, mind you – it should be on the ‘auspicious day’ of "Mrigishira Karthi", which is fixed each year by none other than astrologers.2 During these three years, following the ritual of swallowing live fish, the patient has to follow ‘a strict diet for 45 days’. “Once the patient has swallowed the live fish, three doses of extra medicine is provided, to be taken on three successive auspicious days - Arudra Karthi, Punarvasu Karthi and Pushyami Karthi, which fall every 15 days in a regulated span of 45 days. Apart from this, the patient has to be under strict diet control for 45 days” (LifePositive, November 1999)3

How does their fishy medicine work? Well, it is a miracle! Is not their medical formula a secret? But the Goud family is forthcoming at least on the role of the fish component of their ‘miracle medicine”:

“This live fish travels, wagging its tail and fins, through the throat and negotiates the phlegm congestion, providing a 100% cure”4 

If you start visualizing a fish moving, wagging its tail and fins as if through a stream, from your pharynx to esophagus to your stomach (the normal path of the food you eat), you are thoroughly mistaken. That’s not where this fish goes. It goes right into your lungs and ‘negotiates the phlegm congestion”!

If you think I am misleading or exaggerating, here is Life Positive, the journal that peddles every new-age nonsense, clarifying it for you in no uncertain terms:

“As the fish moves down the windpipe, it opens pores blocked by phlegm, thus making way for the herbal paste” (Life Positive, November 1999).

Fish moving down the windpipe? Are they joking? Do the author and the editor of the journal never ever coughed up tiny food particles that accidentally entered their trachea or windpipe?

Pulmonary Aspiration

Assuming that they didn’t, let us refer them to a Wikipedia article to get some idea of what the consequences of pulmonary aspiration are. [Pulmonary Aspiration is the medical terminology for, to quote Wikipedia, “the entry of material (such as pharyngeal secretions, food or drink, or stomach contents) from the oropharynx or gastrointestinal tract into the larynx (voice box) and lower respiratory tract (the portions of the respiratory system from the trachea (windpipe) to the lungs)]:

Consequences of pulmonary aspiration range from no injury at all, to chemical pneumonitisor pneumonia, to death within minutes from asphyxiation. These consequences depend in part on the volume, chemical composition, particle size, presence or absence of infectious agents, and underlying health status of the person. In healthy people, aspiration of small quantities of material is common and rarely results in disease or injury. People with significant underlying disease or injury, especially hospitalized patients, are at greater risk for developing respiratory complications following pulmonary aspiration because of certain factors such as depressed level of consciousness and impaired airway defenses (gag reflex and/or respiratory tract antimicrobial defense system).5

If this is what happens when tiny food particles accidentally get into your lungs, can you even imagine a fish ‘swimming’ through your windpipe and lungs? It is evident that the Goud family and the worthy editors of Life Positive magazine who have taken upon themselves the task of marketing medical charlatanism are ignorant of even the basic human anatomy and the causes and symptoms of asthma. It is shocking to see thousands of chronic asthma patients flocking to these quacks without worrying about the hazards involved.

Though the Goud family continues to maintain that theirs is a ‘secret formula’ handed down through generations, they were directed by the Court in 2005 to give samples for scientific analysis. The laboratory test concluded that it had no medical properties. It was following this test that the court directed the organizers not to use the word ‘medicine’

Though it is reported that this ‘treatment’ is offered free of cost (the Goud family claims that the saint who had gifted this secret medical formula had made them take oath that the treatment would be offered free of cost; the 'medical formula' would however remain secret – Oh! What a magnanimous saint!), we think that various financial aspects of this annual event should be seriously looked into, studied, and investigated – including the role of the government departments. Who bears, for instance, the cost of 80000 murrel fish supplied by the Fisheries Department of the Government of Andhra Pradesh? At what cost it is supplied? Why does the State Government continue to involve in these affairs by arranging the venue, supplying murrel fish, and making special transportation arrangements from various parts of the state for the patients to reach the venue, despite the fact that it is proven in the laboratory tests that the ‘treatment’ is medically worthless?

'Alternative Medicine' and Placebo Effect

But the more important question to be asked is why do people, even the educated, intelligent lot, fall for this medical charlatanism?

Analysing the growing popularity of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the United States in the 1990s, R. Barker Bausell says in his book Snake Oil Science that modern medical science’s answers to ‘chronic, non-life-threatening illnesses that drastically affected their victims’ quality of life’ left a great deal to be desired. Pharmaceutical marketing created the expectation that there did exist a medical answer for every human complaint. However, consumers “dissatisfaction with conventional medicine’s inability to treat, much less fix, chronic, sometimes disabling aches and pains” has created demand, which is met by the supply of these ‘alternative treatments’.

Bausell says  “… millions of intelligent people could be correct when they conclude that their symptoms were relieved as soon as they received a complementary and alternative medical treatment, but incorrect when they conclude that the relieve was due to the treatment itself … the best scientific evidence available suggests that the genesis of this relief is something else entirely. And while this possibility may seem counterintuitive, I will suggest that this “something else” is actually the placebo effect, a phenomenon recognized at least since the time of Hippocrates and used by physicians ever since".6

Notes:

1. http://topnews.ae/content/27817-fish-prasadam-165-years-old-belief-treat-asthma - Accessed on June 10, 2012
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathini_Goud_Brothers#Nature_of_the_treatment – Accessed on June 10, 2012
3. http://www.lifepositive.com/body/traditional-therapies/fish-therapy/fish-therapy.asp - Accessed on June 10, 2012
4. http://www.bathinifish.com/history.htm - Accessed on June 10, 2012
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonary_aspiration - Accessed on June 10, 2012
6. R. Barker Bausell, 2007, Snake Oil Science: The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Oxford University Press, New York.

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