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Minority Report:
Calculating Damage In Supreme Court
Kalam Nishan Singh
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At a time when Akalis and the SGPC are gloating over the stay by
Supreme Court on High Court’s definition of a ‘Minority’, it is
pertinent to study the larger damage being done to the Sikh
community, as also to the construct of a ‘Minority’ in India
through legal stratagems. |
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 ON THE face of
it, it is a rather innocent development, and the latest has perhaps
been making the Sikhs a little bit happy. In reality, it is a
development most sinister, and the Sikh community should be very
very worried at the arguments which have won the day for it.
A young man went
to the
Punjab and Haryana High Court, claiming he has been robbed of his
right to admission in an SGPC-run medical college because the SGPC
has reserved some seats for the Sikh students. The High Court said,
looking at the census data, that Sikhs are not in a minority in
Punjab as far as demographic figures are concerned and therefore the
SGPC cannot reserve seats for Sikh students.
The SGPC as well
as the state government tried to argue that only a baptized person
was a Sikh, and that the court should strictly follow the definition
of Sikh as per as the Sikh Gurdwara Act, and going by that the
number of people who can qualify as being called "Sikhs" is very
small, so it should be allowed to reserve seats. The High Court did
not agree to such contentions.
The state
government went to the Supreme Court which has stayed the order of
the High Court. The Tribune newspaper carried the headline: "HC
order on Sikhs stayed; Way cleared for allowing reservation to Sikh
students in SGPC institutions." Most Sikh circles have celebrated
the Supreme Court's decision (by a Bench comprising Chief Justice K
G Balakrishnan and Justice M K Sharma) of ordering the stay. There
has been absolutely no discussion or debate on the ramifications of
the High Court order, the sinister implications of the arguments put
forth by the
Punjab
state government as well as the SGPC in relation to the case in
Supreme Court, and the entire focus has been on expressing happiness
at the apex court's decision.
The SGPC is
allowed to reserve up to 50 per cent seats exclusively for members
of the Sikh community on the basis that Sikhs are a minority
community. This permission has been granted vide a notification.
Another notification issued under the Punjab Private Health Sciences
Educational Institutions Act notifies the Christian and Sikh
educational institutions as being minority institutions in
Punjab for the
purposes of the said Act.
Punjab’s counsel
Ajay Pal told the Supreme Court that there were a number of sects
like Nirmalas, Udasis, Ram Raias, Dera Sacha Sauda, Radha Soamis and
Nirankaris etc. who cannot be considered to be Sikhs. If these sects
are left out, then the number of Sikhs is not so high, and therefore
they should be considered a minority, argued SGPC counsel Harish
Salve. The Punjab government, through senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan,
adoted the same line.
The Supreme
Court stayed the high court's order. The case will go on for long,
and government circles are happy because the law in
India runs its
course very slowly. As sections of the media have noted, it may take
quite some time even before the case can be listed for hearing by
the SC leave alone deciding it.
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There is need to understand the perniciousness in this logic.
Where will a minority be able to stress, stamp and exhibit its
little power and give out a sign to its upcoming generations
that it is making a collective effort to improve the lot of the
masses? Obviously in a place where it has a concentration of
resources and manpower and material self-sufficiency. |
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Problems with
Punjab’s
and SGPC's approach:
There are
serious problems with the arguments raised by Punjab Government and
the SGPC at the earlier stage when the case was with the High Court
as well as now. First of all, the question of who is a minority in
India has
not been decided under any law in this country.
India
has a National Commission for Minorities which deals largely with
all matters related to minority communities. Under a notification,
the country has five minorities. Symbols of all five minorities,
including the Sikhs, are part of even the logo of the National
Minorities Commission, of which Tarlochan Singh was not so long ago
the Chairman and a very active one. If the definition of the
minority is now to be considered at a state wise level, then what
happens to the earlier notification? And what happens to the
National Minorities Commission?
The
Punjab
and Haryana High Court judgment has taken away the very grounds from
under the feet of the National Commission for Minorities. If there
are going to be no national minorities, then what is the federal
commission’s role?
Why has the SGPC
and the Punjab Government not even questioned the total and
deafening silence from the side of the Commission?
Also, since when
has the concept of the minority come to be seen so rigorously on the
basis of the demography? The idea of one or the other community
being seen as a minority has little or nothing to do with the
numbers, and has more to do with the general level of development, a
whole of social indices and the extent and duration of persecution
it has faced and also on the overall perception of the community’s
location in the socio-political mindscape of the nation-state.
Why does no
Brahman in
India lose sleep
despite being such a miniscule minority? And were Muslims ever a
majority in India during the entire period of Mughal rule? Perhaps
the British in India were the acutest of the minorities in
India
during the colonial period but were they worried on that score? And
who were worried? Of course the largest majority – the Hindus.
As social
scientist after social scientist has made clear, the construct of
“Minority” has to do with power and influence and development, and
not just with numbers. No one doubts this line of reasoning, except
the SGPC and the Akali leadership which instead has brought the
debate down to a headcount and then gone on a game of exclusion –
exclude sect x, then also exclude sect y, and so on and so forth,
till only just so many people are left to be called Sikhs that the
SGPC is able to stuff a few more seats with students of its choice!
The Game is much
more sinister:
The game of
definition of minority is much more sinister than it seems on the
face. Not long ago, the World Sikh News had blown the lid off a
draft bill, cleared by the Sikh Prime Minister of India Manmohan
Singh, as per which the minorities were to be defined at the state
level, of course after vesting the Center with enough power to
declare anyone a minority even if it does not qualify under the
bill.
Later, sections
of the Indian media picked up the story and CM Parkash Singh Badal
had reacted by condemning the move (See www.WorldSikhNews.com for
details.)
Ever since then,
systematic attempts are being made which have slipped the media’s
gaze. Couple of states in the South, including Karnataka, have
already issued notifications terming the ‘Sikhs’ as a ‘minority.’
Innocently, the local Sikhs have welcomed the move, again without
understanding the implications. What was the need to declare Sikhs
of Karnataka a minority? Clearly, it was to underline the new
principle that a minority is to be defined at the state level.
By this logic,
clearly
Punjab will very soon be obligated to issue a notification to
certify Hindus, Muslims and every other community except the Sikhs
as a ‘minority’. By the same logic, Muslims in
Jammu and
Kashmir
will be no more a minority in that state.
There is need to
understand the perniciousness in this logic. Where will a minority
be able to stress, stamp and exhibit its little power and give out a
sign to its upcoming generations that it is making a collective
effort to improve the lot of the masses? Obviously in a place where
it has a concentration of resources and manpower and material
self-sufficiency. So Sikhs will try to set up educational
institutions and community’s forums in
Punjab,
Christians will have similar resources and initiatives going in
north-eastern states of India will Muslims will like to have such
centers to help their community excel in Kashmir.
But here comes
the Indian nation-state, saying, ‘No, you cannot do it where you can
because you have enough numbers here and you certainly will be able
to do so. Therefore, try doing it where you cannot.’ That is a
sure-shot recipe to guarantee failure even before the attempt is
made.
And nothing can
harm a minority community more than a systematic attempt to push it
into such a groove in which it starts chucking out its own out of
the larger definition of the community. Instead of trying to weave
back the various sects and cults, instead of bringing those who have
gone astray back to mainstream, the SGPC and the Akali leadership is
now busy telling the high court in India that they are a lost case,
a lost cause and have been counted out.
This is an
approach most reductionist in nature. The Sikh community will do
better to understand the underlying themes of such actions. It is
time we open the debate to the larger community rather than letting
highly-paid senior lawyers and some of India’s best brains argue a
position in the Supreme Court which may well win for us the right to
admit some students in a medical college but lose out on the very
core of the value system and the larger question of what makes a
minority a minority. In social sciences, debates are more complex
than what can be handled on calculators.
21
May,
2008
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