Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind on Monday raised the pitch in the run-up to the 2009 general elections and threatened to launch a countrywide agitation if the UPA Government did not take concrete action on the recommendations of the Sachar Committee report within a month.
“The time for assurances is over. It has been a long time since the Sachar Committee submitted its report. The Government has to act now,” Jamiat’s General Secretary Maulana Mahmood Madani told reporters here.
Jamiat is demanding reservation for Muslims in Government jobs in proportion to their share in the population, a stringent law to prevent communal violence with provisions to punish the administrative officers if found lacking in their duty, and implementation of the Sachar Committee, Ranganath Mishra Commission and Srikrishna Committee reports.
In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Madani said if Jamiat did not get a satisfactory response from the Government till October 10, it would be constrained to launch a nationwide ‘satyagraha’.
“We will meet after this deadline is over and decide on our future course of action. We will raise our voice through peaceful means and offer court arrest throughout the country,” Madani said.
Accusing the Congress of using diversionary tactics, Madani said before it came to power in 2004, the party had expressly assured the Muslim community that it would provide reservation for them.
“The Government had sufficient time in the past three-and-half years to fulfill its promises. The plight of the Muslim community is worse than that of the Dalits and this has been established beyond doubt by the findings of the Sachar Committee,” he said.
Madani said the 50 per cent cap on reservations put by the Supreme Court should not be held sacrosanct and the Government should find means to increase the quota limit to accommodate reservations for Muslims.
On the proposed law to deal with communal violence, Madani said the draft Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, which is under consideration of Parliament, had major drawbacks and asked the Government to replace it with a Bill having more stringent punishments for those abetting hate crimes.
The Jamiat also opposed the civil nuclear cooperation with the US saying the country had enough resources for power generation and there was no need to get into any such arrangement with a foreign power. “When we are not even utilising all the resources that are available to us, why should we enter into such a degrading agreement with a country like the US,” Madani said.
