Manmohan Singh: How Schar Committee Report Changed Backward Muslim narrative
A Prime Minister who is known for transforming the country’s economy, Dr. Manmohan Singh is fondly revered by people across the country, irrespective of their political affiliations. While making drastic changes in the economy, the former Prime Minister did a lot for the poor and jobless in rural India, such as the launch of the flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), thus trying to uplift the downtrodden along with the country’s advancement.
The marginalised groups and minorities, especially Muslims have more to owe to the former prime minister, who appointed the widely discussed Sachar Committee report to inquire about the social, economic, and educational status of Indian Muslims. The report was submitted in 2006, disclosing the shocking discrimination the community was going through. The committee, headed by former Delhi High Court chief justice and late activist Rajinder Singh Sachar, brought to light the socio-economic backwardness of the community.
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The report had a significant impact as it brought the huge inequality the Indian Muslims were facing to national attention, igniting debates to seek ways, including the setting up of legal mechanisms, to enhance the dismal plight. Though the revelation only remained in paper with no major initiative taken as per the committee’s recommendations, it could minimally enable analysts to have statistical backing in arguing that the discrimination exists. The report recommended that the community, marginalisd for decades, needed government’s active support for the upliftment.
As per claims, instead of improvement, the plight of the community has further deteriorated due to the alleged lack of funding, despite there being few welfare schemes. The committee had found out that the areas that the members of minority groups were residing in lacked infrastructure. The report showed that the roads, electricity, drinking water, among other public services, were increasingly lacking in those areas, adversely impacting the standards of lives
Though the Manmohan Singh government in 2014 approved 72 out of the 76 recommendations listed from the Sachar Committee Report, there has been no major progress. Since the BJP government came to power, the recommendations remained stagnant as the Centre has been engaged in accusing the Congress party of Muslim appeasement, pushing the Sachar Committee narrative behind the curtain.
The ruling BJP also used the former prime minister’s old statement about the Muslim minorities’ right to have equally share in the country’s resources during the recent general elections, making smear campaign and alleging Muslim appeasement against Dr. Singh. The Congress leader had talked about the need for country’s resources to be distributed equally among all sections of the people, underscoring various backward sections including SC&ST’ OBC and Muslims.
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“We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably the fruits of development,” the former Prime Minister was quoted as saying at the 52nd meeting of the National Development Council in 2006.
