Press Statement issued by Shri L.K. Advani
Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha)
At a press conference in Nagpur (Maharashtra) on April 21, 2006

My questions to Smt. Sonia Gandhi & Dr. Manmohan Singh on religion-based reservations Aren’t you defying the unanimous view of Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar? Aren’t you altering the ‘Basic Spirit’ of the Indian Constitution?

I am in Nagpur on the 12th day of my 35-day Bharat Suraksha Yatra, which I have undertaken jointly with my Party President Shri Rajnath Singh. Today is the last day of my Yatra in Maharashtra. The Yatra has covered the state in two separate legs – first in Mumbai and western Maharashtra and now in Vidarbha. I am deeply moved by the response the Yatra has received in both regions. I express my feelings of gratitude to the people of Maharashtra for their enthusiastic support.

Nagpur is the karma bhoomi of two great sons of modern India – Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and Parampujya Guruji Golwalkar, second Sarsanghchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. In the course of my Yatra, I had an occasion to pay homage to Dr. Ambedkar on his birth anniversary (April 14) by visiting Chaitya Bhoomi (where his Samadhi is located) on Dadar beach in Mumbai. I have also visited the Deeksha Bhoomi in Nagpur several times. The Constitution of India, of which he was the architect, remains his priceless and enduring gift to the Nation. His lifelong mission for justice to the downtrodden has been a source of inspiration and guidance to me.

Shri Guruji was an embodiment of the vision of resurgent nationalism, deeply rooted in the cultural and spiritual soil of India. He combined within himself a saintly personality and the abilities of a brilliant organiser who built the RSS into a mighty force of selfless swayamsevaks dedicated to the defense and all-round development of India. I pay my humble tributes to him on the occasion of his birth centenary. Since the thoughts and deeds of Guruji have been deliberately distorted by our ideological adversaries, I appeal to all fair-minded people in the intelligentsia and the political class to re-appraise him through an objective study.

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Since I am in the city that is associated with hallowed memory of the principal author of the Indian Constitution, I am prompted to express my serious disquiet over the ominous manner in which the present leadership of the Congress party has been trying to alter the basic spirit of the Constitution. It is doing so by relentlessly pushing for religion-based reservations for minorities, guided purely by considerations of vote-bank politics and not by any genuine empathy for the minorities. The Congress-run AP government’s decision to introduce 5% reservation for Muslims, the central government’s decision to reserve 50% seats in the Aligarh Muslim University (both of which have been struck down by the courts) and the aborted attempt to conduct a Muslim census (as a prelude to accepting religion-based reservations) in the Armed Forces – these are merely initial pointers to the dangerous new mindset in the Congress party.

After the UPA came to power in May 2004, the demand for religion-based reservations for minorities is being voiced more widely and aggressively than ever before. The Congress leaders are lending support to this divisive demand either overtly or covertly. An example of this is Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s silence when a delegation of Muslim leaders, led by Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid, met him a few days ago and demanded, among other things, reservation for Muslims in jobs and educational institutions. Congress president Shrimati Sonia Gandhi also has maintained studied silence over this demand.

An important debate in the Constituent Assembly:

In this context, I wish to ask the Prime Minister and Shrimati Sonia Gandhi if they have cared to familiarize themselves with the important debate in the Constituent Assembly on communal reservations. In the immediate aftermath of India’s Partition in 1947 on communal grounds, some people demanded religion-based reservations for minorities, on the basis of their population, in education, employment, security forces and also in Parliament and state legislatures. This proposal was considered thoroughly by the Constituent Assembly’s Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights, Minorities, Tribal and Excluded Areas headed by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The committee had a galaxy of leaders as its members – Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Maulana Azad, Dr. S.P. Mookerjee, Dr. K.M. Munshi, Purushottamdas Tandon, Pandit Govind Vallabh Pant and Gopinath Bordoloi. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was a special invitee.

Its final report stated: “The Committee are satisfied that the minorities are themselves feel that in their own interests, no less than in the interests of the country as a whole, the statutory reservation of seats for religious minorities should be abolished.”

Commending the report to the Constituent Assembly, Sardar Patel said: “In the long run, it would be in the interest of all to forget that there is anything like a majority or a minority in this country and that in India there is only community – of Indians.”

Pandit Nehru hailed the acceptance of this report by the Constituent Assembly as “a historic turn in India’s destiny”.

All this seems to matter little to the present-day leaders of the Congress party. They have so completely surrendered themselves to the politics of minorityism, that they do not hesitate even to defy the unanimous view of Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel, Dr. Ambedkar and other stalwarts of the Constituent Assembly on the issue of religion-based reservations. I therefore charge them with seeking to mount an assault on the “basic spirit” of the Constitution. I also warn them that the people of India will not keep quiet if the Congress party persists with its sinister attempts.