In its five successive budgets, the present UPA government has innovated and institutionalised, perhaps for all time to come, a new and powerful icon for budgets - the minority. The background for the innovation is this. In the last few decades, the minority label had evolved as socio-religious identity with huge political clout. The minority label confers such sociopolitical power that many sections like Jains, sub-sects of the Hindus like Arya Samaj, even the venerated Ramakrishna Mission and others began seeking minority label for protection from state, declaring themselves as not part of the Hindu majority. This showed how discomforting it is to be part of the majority in India, and how reputable it is to be a minority. But the Indian debate on minorities hardly reflected this constitutional reality.This prominority political drift became a durable element in national polity as the political class always saw the minorities, particularly Muslims, as bulk ballot papers.Now, to this already attractive socio-religious identity of the minority, the successive budgets of UPA have added economic attraction through budget allocations. The process began thus. This icon of 'minority' figured once in Chidambaram's 2004-05 budget speech. But, he referred to the new icon, 'minority', thrice in each of his subsequent four budget speeches. In the last and latest budget, minority label has dwarfed into just a pseudonym for a single community- the Muslim! Here is a short history of how what began as minority budgeting has ended up as budgeting for Muslims, nevertheless, under the guise of minority budgeting!

In its first budget, for 2004-05, UPA government introduced the idea of minority budgeting. Allocating Rs 50 crores to the National Minority Development and Finance Corporation, the budget said that 'attention will be paid to the welfare, especially education, of the minorities', as if no attention was paid for their welfare during Nehru, Indira and Rajiv years and till UPA - read Sonia Gandhi - came to power!

UPA's second budget declared that 'minorities have to be brought into the development process', as if minorities had been intentionally kept out of all development process from August 15, 1947, till February 28, 2005! Schools for girls and boys; anganwadis in minority dominated districts; training and deployment of Urdu teachers; private coaching of minority students were among the programmes budgeted for minority welfare. Quietly, budgeting for minorities began drifting to become budget for a single community - the Muslims. The next budget more explicitly smuggled the single community agenda into the minority budget - like the Rs 200 crore bounty to Maulana Azad Educational Foundation; Rs 13 crores for Urdu.

The current budget (2008-09) openly and explicitly shifts to the single community agenda. Para 47 of the speech, headlined "Minorities", increases allocations to the Ministry of Minority Affairs from Rs 500 crores 2007-08 to Rs 1,000 crores. This is for the speedy implementation of the Sachar Committee, which was concerned only with Muslims, not with other minorities at all! The schemes budgeted are: multi-sectoral development plan at a cost of Rs 3,780 crores in 90 minority - read Muslim - concentrated districts; pre-matric scholarship scheme for Rs 80 crores; allocation for modernising madarsas Rs 45.45 crores; Rs 60 crores more for the Maulana Azad Educational Foundation. And more, 544 public sector bank branches in minority populated areas up to March 2008, and many more in 2008- 09. And more minorities will be recruited to the Central para-military forces. Finally now, minority in the budget means only one community, the Muslims, not others - Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists. Result, budgeting explicitly for one community sets apart and separates the Muslims even from other minorities! This disturbs and dis-aggregates the society at large, and also isolates the Muslims even more than Sachar fears.

Every sensible Indian knows what the political class intends. It targets the bulk votes of Muslims.Whether those who dis-aggregate the society into vote banks will get their votes or not, no one can be sure. But have they have any idea of the downside of their strategy, namely, the damage to the national fabric as well as the very minority interest they seek to promote when they dis-aggregate the society? And what is the effect of this dis-aggregation on the ground? Here is an instructive sample.

See what happened to a branch of Central Bank in Ammappati, a Muslim-concentrated place in the district of Pudukottai,Tamil Nadu. Some Muslim youths in Ammapatti wanted two employees of the branch transferred. The management did not oblige.The youths warned that unless the two staff were transferred, they would lock - yes lock - the bank on October 15, 2007. Scared, the bank complained to police and district administration, got police protection. A peace meeting was called by the Tehsildar. The bank general manager came promptly. But the youths would not go to the Tehsildar's office. They demanded that police and bank official should come to the Jamaat! The general manager, who was from another state, agreed to go to the Jamaat and have discussion with a five-member Muslim delegation. But, instead of five, over a 100 confronted him at the Jamaat. After patiently hearing them he said he would go back to the bank and get the views of the employees. But the crowd gheraoed him, asked him to give in writing that the two employees would be transferred. He refused to sign saying that he had no authority to order transfer. Before the general manager could reach the bank, the youths went to the bank and closed the shutters and locked the bank with staff working inside! Patient till then, he got upset and told them that their action constituted a crime. This forced the police inspector present to inform the DSP, who came and opened the branch.

But the issue would not die down and the situation was worsening by the hour. Report went to the SP who made a midnight dash to Ammapatti and asked the agitating Muslims 'how would you feel if the Jamaat was locked like you locked the bank?' His plain talk then became a new issue. 'How could the SP talk of locking the Jamaat?' Later, talks took place before the Collector.The Muslims began demanding that in addition to transfer of two employees, action must be taken against the SP! The bank officials insisted on the arrest of the offenders. Otherwise, they said, it would set a dangerous precedent. This incident was reported in the Tamil weekly 'Thuglak' (dt 31.10.2007). The Jamaat did explain its side (dt 21.11.2007), but confirmed the incident and disputed only the details.Worse still, other newspapers and magazines would not risk even reporting the incident. Is there any trace of a scared minority in the behaviour of Ammapatti youths, about which Sachar pontificates in his report?

The lesson is clear. If the government declares a bank branch as for a specific community, the community - read 'the Jamaat'- would like the branch run as per its norms, likes.The result will not be different if it were not bank branch, but a balwadi or a school, or scholarship schemes. So, more and more communities realise that being separate is rewarding and, at the minimum, it protects their temples and educational institutions; and to be among the majority means loss of religious and cultural freedom.

Yes, Sachar committees and minority - read Muslim - budgeting may aggregate votes for the rulers, but, they are bound to lengthen the queue to separate and dis-aggregate and dismember the society.

Courtesy: www.newindpress.com, April 15, 2008