Mukul Sinha October 29, 2013 | 

Modi appears to have suffered a temporary amnesia regarding his fight against terrorism after the six explosions rocked Patna just prior to his meeting on 27th October 2013. Instead of making his usual “hoonkar” against Jehadi terrorism more shrill and strident after the bomb blast, Modi started speaking about the welfare of poor Hindus and Muslims. “A poor Hindu has to fight against poverty and a poor Muslim also has to fight against poverty. Lets defeat poverty together” said Modi. He went on to add that Muslims go to Haj where Centre fixes the quota for each state. Bihar has a larger quota but more applications are received in Gujarat as Muslims in Gujarat were more prosperous than Bihar’s!

The man who now wants to take credit of sending more Muslims to Haj from Gujarat, has since 2003 systematically robbed the Muslim youth of their SEBC (Socially and Educationally Backward Classes) quota in higher education and in Government job reservations. In the state of Gujarat reservations in Higher education and jobs for Socially and educationally backward classes (SEBC) was made as per the report by Justice Bakshi Commission in 1978. This quota is irrespective of religion and both Hindus and Muslims are entitled to the quota for SEBC as long as their caste( or sub-classes) are included in the list of SEBC. Muslim Julaya was declared as an SEBC community in the year 1978 with effect from 1st April 1978. Julaya which are traditionally the Muslim weavers of Gujarat may carry different surnames like Polara, Momins, Ansari etc.

Education Denied to Muslim Youth in Gujarat

To deprive the Muslim youth of their entitlement of the SEBC quota, the Government of Gujarat formulated a cunning methodology. Whenever a SEBC certificate of the competent authority was produced before any admission or appointing authority, the certificate was sent to the Director, Developing Caste Welfare Department, Gujarat State, who happened to be KG Vanzara, the brother of the now celebrated DG Vanzara, the accused DIG in all fake encounter cases. The Director would then after hearing the concerned student declared the certificate to be “fraudulently obtained” and cancel the same. The youth would then lose his admission to the medical or engineering college or lose his job as the case may be. This game started in 2003.

I had the occasion to handle about half a dozen such cases that affected a huge number of persons in their respective community. I will deal with just three cases of bright young students whose certificates were cancelled by the Director. (1) Imran Ali Rajabhai Polara and others who belonged to traditional weavers family but had the surname Polara. (2003) (2) Momin Mohammad Akbar Gulam Kasam (Minor) a boy from the Momin community of Dholka Taluka (2005) and (3) Junaid Pathan, a boy belonging to the Sipahi community from Danta (2008). The first two had gotten their admission in a medical college whereas, the third was admitted in a MBA course on SEBC quota. They were all losing their admissions and we challenged all three orders of the Director. The Gujarat High Court struck down all the three orders being illegal and not only the boys (except the second) retained their admissions but thousand of families belonging to the above communities continue to get the reservations under the quota for “Julaya” or “Sipahi”. We end this post with the observations of Justice Mohit Shah of Gujarat High Court in the Imran Polara’s case which would establish the malafide of the Director:

Imran Rajabhai Polara vs State Of Gujarat , Judgment delivered on 17 January, 2004

16. It, therefore, appears to the Court that this is a fit case where the impugned orders passed by the Director on 25.9.2003 deserve to be quashed and set aside and the matter deserves to be remanded to respondent Nos. 1 and 2 for holding a fresh inquiry and to decide whether the petitioners belong to “Muslim Julaya” community which is already declared as a Socially and Educationally Backward Class…

17. While the Court does not express any opinion on merits of the controversy, the Court cannot help observing that the Director seems to have carried the matter a little too far in suggesting that the petitioners had played any fraud in obtaining the certificates from the District Social Welfare Officer, Palanpur about their caste. This was not the case where an individual was claiming to belong to a community other than the community to which he belonged. Here was an attempt of the entire community of Muslims in Kanodar village claiming that their ancestors were engaged in the occupation of weaving for many decades and that they were belonging to the community of Muslim weavers, the term “Julaya” means weaver and, therefore, they were covered by the term “Muslim Julayas” which is one of the communities in the list of SEBCs.”

Narendra Modi’s Government which was deliberately depriving the Muslim youth from their right of higher education can hardly claim that Muslims get a better deal in Gujarat!

 

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