NEW DELHI, 23 June 2006 — The Indian Cabinet gave its approval yesterday to a 15-point program for minorities that had been pending for more than 20 years.
Revised and recast, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s new 15-point program for minorities’ welfare touches on areas ranging from communal riots, education, employment and housing.
It was first formulated in May 1983 covering 15 points where action was needed. The points were enumerated by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in a letter, dated Aug. 28, 1985, addressed to all chief ministers.
During his independence day address, last year, Manmohan, promising to revive the program, had said: “The new 15-point program will have definite goals which are to be achieved in a specific time frame.”
Taking the first step in this direction, the Cabinet approved yesterday 15 areas that will be addressed in the interest of minorities’ welfare.
The government will be concentrating on — enhancing opportunities for education; improving living conditions; and prevention and control of communal riots.
The focus in the field of education, include: — equitable availability of integrated child development services (ICDS); improving access to school education; greater resources for teaching Urdu; modernizing madarsa education; scholarship for meritorious students from minority communities and improving educational infrastructure through the Maulana Azad Education Foundation.
Under this category, a few points have also been devoted to minorities’ equitable share in economic activities and employment. These are: — self-employment and wage employment for the poor; upgrading of skills through technical training; enhanced credit support for economic activities and recruitment to state and central services.
Where living conditions are concerned the government intends to focus on minorities’ equitable share in rural housing scheme and improving conditions of slums inhabited by them.
Regarding communal riots, the three points included are: — prevention of communal incidents, prosecution for communal offenses and rehabilitation of victims of communal riots. The Cabinet has decided that 15 percent of funds may be earmarked, wherever possible, for relevant schemes/programs for nationally declared minorities.
The program has been recast to focus action sharply on issues intimately linked with the social, educational and economic uplift of minorities and provide for earmarking of outlays in certain schemes so that the progress can be monitored.
While Muslims, constituting around 13 percent of the country’s population are the largest minority in India, Christians constitute nearly three percent and Sikhs around 2.6 percent of the population.
India is also home to Jainism and Buddhism, followers of which constitute several million and to less than 100,000 Parsis or Zorastrians.
Statistically, Sikhs’ electoral importance is limited to Punjab, the only state where they are the dominant community. However, Muslims are spread across the country, with they being in the majority only in Jammu and Kashmir. They form a substantial minority in states such as Assam, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
The decision of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government to suddenly pay greater attention to minorities is apparently linked with Indian Muslims having recently become vocal about being sidelined even by secular parties.
With assembly elections due in Uttar Pradesh in the coming year, the Congress is keen to woo the minorities. Analysts view the revival of the 15-point program for welfare of minorities as a step in this direction.
