Date: 21/09/2022

Relevance: GS-2: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Center and States and the performance of these schemes;

Key Phrases : Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order of 1950, Ranganath Misra Commission, National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities.

Context:

• The Center is constituting a national commission to study the social, economic and educational status of members of Scheduled Castes, or Dalits, who converted to religions other than Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism.
• The government’s move relating to the conspicuously religious footing of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order of 1950 has hit the headlines.

Background

• Reference has been made in a related report to the Ranganath Misra Commission’s 2007 recommendation on the issue.
• The report recommended with a remark that the government of the day did not accept the recommendation on the ground that it was not substantiated by field studies.

Constitutional Safeguards

• The Constitution of India, brought into force in 1950, guaranteed equality before law and equal protection of laws to the citizens (Article 14).
• Elaborating upon this basic fundamental right, it declared that the state shall not discriminate against any citizen only on the grounds, inter alia, of religion and caste (Article 15).
• Provisions were, however, included in the Constitution regarding the welfare and advancement of the so-called Scheduled Castes (SCs).
• To reinforce them, Article 15 was amended next year to clarify that its initial principle would not deter the state from making “any special provision” for the socially and educationally backward classes of citizens, or the SCs and Scheduled Tribes (STs).

Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950

• The Constitution had left it to the President of India to proclaim the first list of SCs, and to Parliament to amend the list from time to time in the future.
• A few months later, the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950 was promulgated, containing the first list.
• It was with a clear rider under its para 3 that no non-Hindu, even if belonging to any of the castes listed or to be listed in future, would be covered by its entries.
• On persistent protests by the Sikh and Buddhist communities, the rider was modified twice, in 1956 and 1990, to admit lower castes among them to the fold of constitutionally-Recognised SCs.
• All those belonging to such castes whose forefathers might have converted to Christianity or Islam in the distant past remained, and still remain, out of its purview.

On the eve of the 2004 general elections

• The Congress, then out of power, made a promise in its manifesto that on coming to power it would constitute a national commission to examine and report on the issue of reservation for minorities in government jobs and educational institutions, which they had been demanding since long.
• It was an electoral compulsion since, in the past, the party had always been openly averse to this demand.
• After its unforeseen victory in the election, the personal integrity of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saw the promise translated into action.
• The constitution of the proposed commission was announced by a gazette notification, spelling out at length its terms of reference - all basically relating to the possibility of reservations for religious and linguistic minorities.
• The government took about five months to select commission members under the chairmanship of former Chief Justice Ranganath Misra.
• One of the members was mandated to be an expert in legal and constitutional matters.
• Officially called the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities, it became popularly known after its Chair as the Misra Commission.

Writ Petitions and Newly added term of reference

• Two writ petitions against the religion-based exclusivity of the Scheduled Caste Order of 1950 had then been pending in the Supreme Court for long.
• The Court, on its demand for the government’s final response to the petitions, was told by its counsel that the matter would be referred to the Misra Commission for research and recommendation.
• The commission’s terms of reference were then modified by the government to include among them the “issues raised in the court relating to para 3” of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950.
• The commission’s report was handed over to the Prime Minister in May 2007.
• This newly-added term of reference was answered in the report with a recommendation that the religion-related rider under the said Order be deleted to make the SC law “religion-neutral”.

Government’s stand

• There was a deafening silence on the part of the government. On persisting public demands, the commission’s report was at last tabled in Parliament - two-and-a-half years after its submission.
• There was no action-taken report and no discussion in either House. The government never disclosed its stand on any recommendations of the commission, and did not answer any questions about it.
• Only once did a cabinet minister tell the media, outside Parliament, that “we will pick sensible” ones from amongst the commission’s recommendations.
• Members of the political party now in power, then the main Opposition, had bitterly criticized the report and called it an “anti-national measure.
• All such comments, by both the ruling and the opposition parties of the day, related to the commission’s positive recommendation on its original terms of reference relating to reservation for minorities.
• There was never even a whisper, official or private, about its stand on the subsequently added term of reference regarding the religion-caste nexus under the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order of 1950.
• The media report that its recommendation on this issue was rejected by the government “on the ground that it was not substantiated by field studies” is therefore, not correct.

Source: Indian Express 

Mains Question:

Q. The Centre is constituting a national commission to study the social, economic and educational status of members of Dalits, who converted to other religions. Why don't Dalits who convert to Christianity and Islam get quota benefits? [150 Words].