On reservations for religious minorities

Articles of Faith: The last Lok Sabha elections saw the second lowest representation of Muslims (4.42%) in Parliament. Muslim representation in the history of the Lok Sabha has never crossed 10%.

In three years of its functioning, the Constituent Assembly changed its mind on several topics. Decisions taken in the initial years about the future Constitution were reversed because circumstances changed, and people’s thinking changed. The single biggest cause for this change was perhaps the unforeseen and unimaginable Partition violence. One such topic was reservations for religious minorities in the legislature.

As far back as 1909 itself, the colonial government had specific reservations for Muslims in the Imperial Council, which had Indians on it. A notable beneficiary of this reservation was Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who represented Bombay’s Muslims in the Council but as a member of the Indian National Congress! Over the years, other religious minorities such as Christians and Sikhs also got reservations in legislatures.

Reservations for Muslims in legislatures continued up to Independence and when the Constituent Assembly met, the idea of reservations for religious minorities was not opposed, except by a few. When the Advisory Committee on Certain Political Safeguards for Minorities (headed by Vallabhbhai Patel) submitted its report on August 8, 1947, to the Constituent Assembly, it recommended that there should be reservations for religious minorities in legislatures. The Constituent Assembly adopted a resolution approving this on August 27, 1947. That date is relevant because even then, no one had a clue what Partition would mean for the country.

Cut to May 25, 1949, and as the Constitution was being finalised, the question of reservations for religious minorities came up once again. And this time, the same Committee, still headed by Patel, changed its position completely. The Committee now suggested that there should be no reservation for religious minorities at all in legislatures. When the report was tabled in the Constituent Assembly, it led to a heated debate.

Mohammed Ismail Khan and Jaspat Roy Kapoor opposed this and were joined by Mahavir Tyagi, demanding that the Assembly not go back on its earlier decision. Khan even wanted the re-introduction of separate electorates for each religion, though the Assembly had already agreed on joint electorates. After all, if one decision could be re-opened, why not the other?

Zahirul Hasnain Lari, while he was opposed to reservations for minorities and separate electorates, argued that a better way to protect their interests would be to have proportional representation in the legislature. In his impassioned speech, he worried whether Muslims would get ignored in a first-past-the-post system of elections and felt proportional representation would be better.

Support for the move to abolish minority reservations came, however, from a majority of the members and, surprisingly, Naziruddin Ahmad was one of them. Naziruddin Ahmad is one of the great dissenters in the Constituent Assembly.

He disagreed with many aspects of the Constitution, especially when he thought it would harm the interests of India’s Muslims. But on this matter, he welcomed the abolition of minority reservations. In a clearsighted way, he outlined why such reservations would hurt Muslims -- it would drive a deeper wedge between Hindus and Muslims, and it would cause rifts among Muslims themselves. He argued that as long as there was a joint electorate, Hindu candidates would not ignore Muslims, and this would bring the communities closer.

On this, he was also joined by Begum Aizaz Rasul, who made a strong pitch for removing reservations in legislatures and creating joint electorates.

Looking back at this debate from the vantage point of 2024, one would be tempted to conclude that Lari, Ahmad and Begum Rasul were being naive. The last Lok Sabha elections saw the second lowest representation of Muslims (4.42%) in Parliament. Muslim representation in the history of the Lok Sabha has never crossed 10%.

But that only looks at one metric. India has had Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist CMs in states where none of these religions were followed by a majority of the population. Muslims have won seats in Hindu majority areas and vice versa. Bangalore North elected H T Sangliana, a Mizo Christian, to the Lok Sabha in 2004. Maybe the Indian voter sees herself as an Indian voter first and does not always stay within the neat identity boxes others try to put her in.