Minorities are poorly represented in mainstream education

We welcome Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen’s comments questioning the need for a separate ministry for minority affairs. This ministry, created soon after the UPA came to power in 2004, has been talked up by the government as an achievement that should please minorities. But, as Sen points out, it has simply become another sink for public money, doing little but administer scholarships for minority students and disburse funds in minority-dominated districts but with little control over how the money is spent. Sen’s suggestion to set up separate funds in its plans, just as it does for the welfare of scheduled castes and tribes, makes sense. But prior to spending money, the primary task is ensuring the safety of minorities, for which we need rigorous enforcement of extant law and new laws such as the Prevention of Communal Violence Bill. Minorities must be treated with the respect due to any Indian citizen, urged to mix freely among all communities and encouraged to join mainstream education and workplaces.

Indeed, as a recent report on the state of minorities points out, India has failed in these objectives. Minorities are poorly represented in mainstream education and in the formal workforce. India cannot afford this for its own good. It is not a small matter if nearly 200 million people, the entire population of Brazil, were to fall behind the mainstream in education, health, skills and development. It turns worse when their backwardness is preyed on, to create internal schism.

Nor is mainstreaming of the minorities just the business of the state. Industry must realise it is in its own self-interest to instil the confidence that anyone can live with dignity and prosper in India. They need to create an equal opportunities policy in recruitment on their own.