Mr. Salman Khursid, Union law minister was present as a guest in Al-Ameen educational society, Bangalore to attend a function on 26-December-2011. He spoke about 4.5 % reservation for minorities in government institutions.
As per supreme court directive, reservation for job, admission and membership (like in lokpal) can not be more than 50 %(rectify me if I am wrong). Depending on the percent of backward caste in a perticular religion, reservation has to be fixed. s per Mr. Khursid, the percent of Minorities in Indian population is 13 % and muslim comprises of 70 % among minorities. Considering the percent of backward caste in muslim population, the reservation for backward muslim is fixed to be 4.5. He advocated for similar reservation of minorities of other religion. The law minister told that voice of majority (religion, members in parliament)must be respected, but a Hindu should think about development of a Muslim and similarly,a muslim should think about development of other minor religious person. Mr. Khursid told that he got idea of reservation (for minorities) from Karnataka, where the reservation for minorities were implemented before 20 years.
The guest praised Dr. Mumtaz Ahmed, founder of Al-Ameen education society for opening educational institution (minority educational institution) for spreading education. He talked about importance of employing staff of majority community and enrolling students of majority community.
Then, the session was open for discussion.
Fist question was about governing different law colleges in India; second was about introducing law related course / subject (thus increasing awareness about law)in schools; Third question was why reservation for minorities can not be more than 10 percent? All the questions were answered to the satisfaction of questioner. While answering third question, the guest told as per current population of minorities the reservation is not possible. For reservation, a new law has to be passed by
parliament and support of BJP is required, which he thought impossible as of now. In the same contest he told that if Anna Hazare want to implement anything then, he has to get elected to parliament and by majority voting he has to pass desired lokpal law (version of Anna Hazare).
My question to Mr. Khursid was: "Does the member of parliament / MP (supporting government version of lokpal bill) know what people of his constituent want regarding lokpal bill? Did they talk to people? What the people are telling and what the elected members of parliament are going to do?" Answer of guest was, "I dont know about other MP, but I am very conscious about peoples sentiment. If you as a pharmacist loose job you can get anther job, but we parliamentarian loose election we can't get job....And we (conscious MP)often face such difficult questions from such brilliant persons like you..."
After me few other persons asked Mr. Khursid more questions.
I wanted to ask questions like- why government wants control over Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI is very in-efficient in solving corruption cases involving very influential politician)? But, I could not ask it as the speaker had told to ask only relevant question. If I get another chance then I am going to ask his the question.
Five hours after completion of function, a known muslim person approached me and talked to me regarding my point of view about Jan lokpal bill and corruption. The gentleman told me that 4.5 % reservation for backward muslims is not going to help the needy and the advantages will be taken by capable well-off muslims. I did not comment any thing and slowly left.
