Karnataka govt in dilemma over 'minority' tag for institutions

Bengaluru: The Siddaramaiah administration is in a conundrum over new rules to grant the 'religious minority' tag to higher education institutions by scrapping the requirement of having to enrol a fixed percentage of students from a particular minority community. 

The Cabinet had to defer a decision after Minority Welfare Minister B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan, one of Congress' most visible Muslim faces, is said to have raised a red flag on the delicate subject. 

On Thursday, the Higher Education department sought the Cabinet's approval to amend rules on granting 'religious minority' status, a move that is in line with a major policy decision made by the government in March this year. 

In Karnataka, schools seeking 'minority' status had to provide a 25% quota for students belonging to that particular minority religion. For example, a Muslim minority school had to have 25% Muslim students. 

Similarly, institutions offering higher education and technical education had to admit 50% students belonging to the minority religion they cater to. 

These requirements were scrapped in March in a decision aimed at institutions run by Christians, Jains, Sikhs and Parsis as they were finding it difficult to admit 50% students from their communities in order to retain their 'minority institution' status. 

"Especially Christians," Higher Education Minister Dr MC Sudhakar told reporters before the Cabinet meeting. "Since the Christian population is less than or around 2%, they're finding it hard to fill up 50% seats as required. There was a request from them. So, the Cabinet decided a few months ago to relax the norms. So now, rules are being framed for that," he said.

But Khan was shocked to find that the new rules covered institutions run by all minorities, including Muslims. 

Apparently, Muslim minority institutions are not in favour of the relaxation as they have enough students from their community to meet the norm. Relaxation could mean non-minority students outnumbering minorities in their institutions, they fear. 

But there is a hitch: rules cannot be amended selectively. "We can't leave out Muslims and provide relaxation for others," a source directly aware of the dilemma said. 

Sudhakar told DH later that it was decided to hold more discussions on the matter. "It was also said that linguistic minority institutions are facing a similar problem. Further, this (problem) isn't restricted to higher education. It was decided to discuss this with the school education department as well," he said.