Apartheid against majority
By Chandan Mitra

Clearly, the Government is telling the country’s endangered majority: Aren’t you ashamed to be the majority? If you still aren’t, just wait, we’ll soon make it impossible for you to live here.

For decades, we have been extolling the virtues of positive discrimination, arguing that it is the most effective method of assisting underprivileged sections of society attain a degree of equality in societies where they have been historically wronged. Blacks in the US, non-White immigrants to European countries and even natives of South Africa have benefited from this policy.

In India, we went many steps further by opting for the politically lucrative reservation route. While there is much to be said for job quotas for Dalits and Tribals who have been disprivileged for millennia, the grounds for extending the same prescription to other castes and communities remain dubious, if not outrightly opportunistic. I am referring specifically to the implementation of the Mandal Report and the sinister move to reserve jobs for Muslims in certain States. All these actions have been justified in the name of positive discrimination.

So far, so good. But in the last few months, the last seven days in particular, the UPA Government has gone on an overdrive. Taken cumulatively with the measures it has taken or proposes to introduce, a clear signal has been sent out to the ordinary Indian, the average citizen of this country who does not belong to a minority or privileged caste. It may surprise the Arjun Singhs, A.R. Antulays and even the Manmohan Singhs to know that there still exist a large number of common Indians who are, in fact, the majority in this country. Thanks to this Government, they cannot run unaided educational institutions free of quotas. Thanks to this Government, it is a matter of time that minority quotas are introduced in recruiting youngsters to the Army. Thanks to this Government, illegal immigration from a neighbouring country (which has been called “external aggression” by the Supreme Court) will be immensely facilitated through an amendment to the Foreigners’ Act. And, thanks to this Government, caste-based job quotas may soon be introduced even in the private sector.

Clearly, the Government is telling the country’s endangered majority: Aren’t you ashamed to be the majority? If you still aren’t, just wait, we’ll soon make it impossible for you to live here. We will provide quotas for all available minorities everywhere and, wherever possible, divide the majority into mutually exclusive categories so that they cease to be the majority. In other words, there will remain no Hindu Indian after we are through with our vivisection plans. There will only be minorities of various hues who will compete with one another for crumbs. We, the Congress and Left, will happily rule thereafter, employing the same policy the British did. Positive discrimination is an old-fashioned, discarded practice. The Government of India has unveiled a unique policy package called “Negative Discrimination”. This involves looking at the country’s majority negatively. It is intended to eliminate their self-esteem, make them emotional and psychological wrecks and send them on a permanent guilt trip for having born into a “majority” family.

It is in pursuit of this diabolical policy of negative discrimination that the Government has sent out a questionnaire to the armed forces demanding a Muslim head count. In fairness, the idea didn’t emanate from Arjun Singh although he is usually credited with all such diabolical plots. The head count demand is part of an official committee’s recommendation. And who heads this committee? Ex-Justice Rajender Sachar, an infamous bleeding heart, part of the brigade that would have been happy if we gifted Kashmir and Punjab away and gradually self-destructed India itself. It might be argued by non-bleeding hearts, well-meaning people, what’s wrong with a headcount? Shouldn’t the Indian Army reflect the country’s communal composition? But then, if we agree to a quota system, why stop at Muslims? Why not Christians, Buddhists, neo-Buddhists, Jains, Parsees, animists, atheists, agnostics, literates, neo-literates and various castes including “backward” Muslims and “Dalit” Christians?

Readers may wonder why I have not mentioned Sikhs so far. In order to accommodate so many other religious and social groups according to their numerical proportion, it would be necessary to throw out most of the Sikhs from the armed forces. This is because they are over represented, by virtue of their colonial classification as a martial race, like the Gurkhas. In the 70s, it was common to see a wall writing that posed: “Sikhs in Army 33 per cent to 12 per cent. Why?” Issued by one Bakshi Jagdev Singh (who, he?) this query made people aware how disproportionately Sikhs had been taken into the Army. And public opinion on that? A jolly good thing too. As sword-arm of the Indian people, ever since Guru Tegh Bahadur sacrificed his life to uphold the Hindu right to wear the janeu, Sikhs were rightly inducted into the Army. Does anybody dare evoke the quota argument here? It would be interesting to know how Rajender Sachar whose heart once bled for the “misguided youth” of Punjab (read mercenaries on ISI’s payroll) reacts to the likely termination of service of many Sikhs from the Army in order to implement the hidden agenda for a Muslim quota?

The Government says it is distressed by the breakdown of the traditional national consensus on foreign policy. But the UPA regime has broken a much bigger consensus. That is not just on foreign policy but also on the national interest itself. The move to amend the Foreigners’ Act to make it mandatory to give every illegal immigrant a “fair hearing” through a tribunal amounts to extending the disgraceful and legally invalid IMDT Act of Assam to the entire country. India is not Britain or France or even the US for that matter - developed countries that have to deal with just a few thousand people trying to sneak in by illegitimate means every year. India faces what the Supreme Court has correctly termed “external aggression” as a result of lakhs of Bangladeshis openly migrating to this country. They are provided ration cards, helped to grab land and jobs and also enlisted as voters. Estimates of such illegal infiltrators range from 1.5 crore to 4 crore. The entire system has been manipulated by politicians, primarily the Congress and now the CPI(M). The Congress enacted a ludicrous piece of legislation called the IMDT Act wherein the onus of proving the charge of being an illegal migrant rested on the accuser and not the accused! No wonder just about 700 persons were identified as illegal immigrants in 20 years.

Now, to assuage Muslim sentiment, apparently stung by the Apex Court’s striking down of the Act, the Government proposes an even more pernicious piece of law that will make virtually impossible the admittedly difficult task of physically sending back even one Bangladeshi infiltrator. I do not believe a single Indian Muslim supports the idea of wholesale import of Bangladeshis to this country. No patriotic Indian would entertain such thoughts and Indian Muslims, barring a minuscule few, are genuine patriots. Therefore, wooing Indian Muslim sentiment by facilitating a free run of this country for illegal Bangladeshi aggressors is a non-starter. If anything, the backlash, if and when it comes, will unfortunately widen the gulf between communities. That is why it is a matter of concern that the Government is adding fuel to the simmering anger of the majority. Once the majority is convinced that its own Government is purposefully discriminating against it, India might get engulfed in a devastating fire that those who are igniting it will fail to control.

(The writer is the Editor of the Daily Pioneer and Rajya Sabha MP)