Dear Friends,
Welcome to the blog Jagterahoo. I am a lecturer in Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad, India. I have also worked in development sector as the Programme Officer, Minorities Programme of Centre for World Solidarity, a Hyderbad based NGO. My experinece working with minorities has taught me that there is little debate on the development concerns of the minorities particulary the Muslims. On the other hand there are conscious efforts to confine the debate on minorities to the communal agenda. This blog is a small effort to provide platform for the development concerns of Muslim community of India and change the course of debate.While Muslims are labelled as blood thirsty terrorits world wide, Saddam Basha, a social activist from Anantapur is running an Islamic Blood Bank silently for years saving the lives of many without asking them about thier religion or caste. While there is a huge problem of child labour in the community, the 3% seats alloted for minorities in the nearly 1500 Government B.C. hostel in Andhra Pradesh are not utilised by the community for lack of awareness and motivators. These are many such issues which will find expression through this blog. My effort is to make it an informative and useful site rather than just talking shop on minority issues. It features unnoticed success stories, silent sufferings and also small but sincer efforts for removing these hardships. In short it will be an effort to knit the community closer withtheir fellow country men by raising their real concerns. whichhave a common bonding. I am looking forward to the cooperation of concerned and like minded persons.
As a first step I am posting a document containing 12 points agenda for the development of Muslim minorities in Andhra Pradesh.
12 Points for the Empowerment of Muslims in Andhra Pradesh
· Empowerment by securing proportional representation in all democratic bodies.
· Economic Emancipation by securing equal opportunities in employment and equal share in all government sponsored schemes and programmes particularly poverty eradication programmes.
· Educational upliftment by providing opportunities for cent percent literacy among the community.
· Ensure Social Justice and Equality status of the community in all fields.
· Encourage the community members to participate in the national building activity
I. Political Empowerment: The representation of Muslim minorities in the representative bodies starting from the State Assembly to the village Panchayat is very less. There are only 11 Muslim MLAs out of 294 MLAs in the Assembly, 2 Lok Sabha members out of 42. There should be atleast 29 MLAs and 4 MPs from the Muslim Minorities.
1. 10% seats should be allotted to the Muslim candidates in the coming Assembly and Parliament elections.
2. There should be atleast 5 Muslim ministers in State Cabinet.
3. The Political Parties should give proportional representation to the Muslims in their national and state bodies and district committees.
4. The nominated posts, like Chairpersons, Directors and members of Corporations should also be given to Muslims in proportion to their population.
II. Funds for minorities’ welfare: The State budget for the year 2008-09 is around Rs.100000 crores. But the budgetary allocations made for their welfare is only Rs.181 crores. Which is only 1.8 percent of the total budget when compared with the issues confronted by the minority communities and their share in the total population of the state, the budgetary allocations are very meagre.
1. Rs. 1000 crores should be earmarked for the minority’s welfare for the year 2009-10.
2. The budgetary allocations to minorities’ welfare should be increased annually so as to make it proportionate to their population.
III. Proper share in welfare and poverty alleviation programs: The proportion of Muslims in the BPL population is more than their percentage share in the total population. Hence they should be given priority in welfare and poverty alleviation programmes.
1. Community targeted programme should be initiated to remove poverty among the Muslims. They should be given priority in poverty alleviation programme in proportion to their population in the BPL population.
2. The government should fix physical and financial targets in all programmes for minority community in proportion to their population.
3. There should be specific quota of 10% for minorities in all the welfare schemes of all other departments like housing, women and child welfare.
4. The quota of 7% in rural areas and 20 % in urban areas fixed for minorities should be strictly implemented in allotment of houses and house sites under Rural Permanent Housing, Indira Awaz Yojana and Urban Permanent Housing schemes.
IV. Land for the landless Muslims: Muslims are neglected in the land distribution and CLDP programme of the government for the landless. The government confessed that there are less than 1% Muslims covered under the land distribution programme. Muslim masses in rural areas are living in abject poverty and most of them are landless and depending on menial jobs for their survival.
1. The government should earmark 10 % of the land distributed for the landless poor of the Muslim Community.
2. They should be provided with loans and other inputs for the developmentof the land under CLDP and Indira Prabha prgrammes.
V. Education among minorities: The educational backwardness of the Muslims is the main cause for the abject condition of the community. To improve the education among the Muslim;
1. Reservation should be provided to Muslims students at all levels of the education in government educational institutions and all legal hurdles should be removed in their implementation.
2. The government should establish schools within 1 km in the minority concentrated areas in the slums and the villages.
3. The government should provide basic facilities in the schools like benches, drinking water, toilets and other facilities to attract the children to the schools.
4. Free books and scholarships should be given to the poor students to retain them in the schools.
VI. Hostel facilities: There are 12 hostels for minority students and 12 Urdu residential schools which accommodate very few students. 12 hostels for minorities in twelve districts are not sufficient to address the problem of child labour and drop outs among the minorities. However there are 1,429 hostels for B.C.s (1,108 hostels for boys and 321 for girls) in the state with a strength of 1.73 lakhs students and 2,356 hostels for S.C.s with a strength of 2.59 lakh students.
1. The Government should either provide hostel facility to minority students in the existing social welfare hostel in proportion to their population or start separate minorities’ hostels in all the mandals where there is considerable minorities’ population.
2. There should be separate hostels for boys and girls upto SSC in each mandal.
VII. Implementation of Urdu as second official language: The government has declared Urdu as Official language in 14 districts of the state. However there is no proper implementation and no machinery has been set up to make it operational. There are nearly 9,200 posts of Urdu teachers out of which 7,800 posts are filled and there are nearly 2,400 posts are vacant in the state.
1. The government should strictly implement Urdu as second official languages and appoint Urdu Cells in Secretariat as well as district collectorates.
2. Translators of Urdu should also be appointed in all government offices.
3. Urdu should be included in syllabus of all government and private, Telugu medium and English medium schools where ten percent students’ mother tongue is Urdu.
4. Urdu teachers should be appointed in government schools not only in Urdu medium schools but also Telugu and English medium schools as a large number of students from minority community are studying in these schools.
5. The vacancies of the Urdu teachers should be filled.
VIII. Employment Opportunities and Proper representation in services: The representation of minorities in higher services is very low. The 4% reservations for Muslims minorities have become a mirage.
1. The government should make all necessary steps to ensure 4% reservations for Muslim minorities from this year.
2. The Government should give special consideration for minorities in the recruitment of police and other state services as mandated by the New 15 Point programme. (Point 10a)
3. The Selection Committees should be made representative by appointing a minority member as required by the Prime Ministers New 15 point programme for the Welfare of the Minorities. (Point 10a)
IX. Coaching Facilities: Centre for Educational Development of Minorities (CEDM) is imparting coaching for Teachers recruitment and for Preliminary examination of Group I and Civil Services apart from professional courses like Eamcet and BEd. There is no coaching facility for Civil Services and Group I mains examination.
1. A permanent building should be constructed for Coaching and training with hostel facilities and library for candidates of Civil Services and Group-I prelims and mains examinations.
2. The minority students should be selected from Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and other minority communities in proportion to their population.
3. For the candidates selected for Civil Services and Group-I exams free accommodation, food, free coaching and books should be provided.
4. The poor minority students attending the coaching classes should be given stipend.
5. The centres of CEDM should also be started at all the districts where the Muslim population is in sizeable number.
X. Self Employment Programmes and Trainings: The government should fix physical and financial targets for minority communities in proportion to their population in the self employment schemes as large section of the Muslim population depends on self employment. There is need to upgrade their skills and provide them with marketing facilities.
1. Self Employment programmes should be popularised in the minorities’ concentrated areas by conducting awareness campaigns.
2. The training centres should be run for soft skills like computer and also in tailoring, crafts and other cottage industries for both men and women by the Minorities Finance Corporation and other agencies like department of youth affairs.
3. The government should provide computers and sewing machines and other tools to the trained men and women to set up their own business.
4. Marketing facilities should be provided to the products produced by these self employed youth. For this marketing centres should be started at each district head quarter.
XI. Banking Facilities and Loans: To improve the flow of credit to the minorities which is very crucial for their economic development the following steps should be taken.
1. The banks should earmark physical and financial targets for disbursement of loans to the minority community.
2. The government should give surety for the loans given to minorities as most of the time they are not in a position to utilise the loans because they could not arrange collateral security.
3. The banks should conduct loan melas in minority concentrated localities to encourage the youth and women to establish self employment units.
XII. Wakf Properties:– There is an urgent need for the protection and proper utilization wakf properties, most of which are under illegal occupation and encroachment. There are a number of properties which are leased out for a paltry amount. Wakf properties should be released from encroachment and used for the development of the community.
1. The Wakf Act should be amended to empower it with magisterial powers to deal cases of the encroached lands.
2. Special courts should be set up to deal with the cases related to wakf properties.
3. The wakf survey should be completed and all the documents of the wakf should be computerised.
4. The Wakf properties lease deeds should be revived and reasonable rents should be fixed.
5. A Wakf Commissionarate should be established for the development of wakf properties.
6. Wakf properties should be utilised for the purpose for which they are donated and also for the economic and educational development of the community.
This is not the exhaustive list of the demands but it contains the major issues. If sincere efforts are made most of them can be addressed. Let us make this as the agenda of all the political parties and groups which raise thier voice for the rights of the minorities.
Syed Najiullah
11/26/08
