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Beware of the next attack
WSN Network
 IN
keeping with the typical knee jerk reactions, the SGPC is
celebrating the High Court verdict at a time when a much larger
attack on the Sikhs, this time via the lgislative route, is being
planned against the community.
The judgement on
unshorn hair would mean little relief if the Government of India
succeeds in passing a law whose draft has already been cleared by
the Council of Ministers. The 103rd Constitution Amendment Bill that
seeks to define a "Minority" on the basis of state-level demographic
data will effectively snatch away the status of a minority from the
Sikhs. This will end the SGPC's right to reserve any seats for the
Sikhs in the institutions it runs in Punjab.
In May last
year, the amendment draft was cleared by a Cabinet presided over by
PM Manmohan Singh.
Since 1980, the
National Minorities Commission has been treating Muslims,
Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Zoroastrians as religious
minorities at the national level. The communities were notified when
the National Commission for Minorities Act came into force in 1993.
The SC judgment
In February last
year, India’s Supreme Court refused any immediate relief to the Sikh
community by refusing to suspend the Punjab and Haryana High Court
judgement that had declared Sikhs a majority community in Punjab and
had thus deprived them of the benefits that accrued from that
status.
The apex court
bench headed by India’s Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan had brought
in a new twist in the tale by arguing that if they go by the
argument of the state government and considered only someone as a
Sikh as per the definition of a Sikh in the Sikh Gurdwara Act, the
Hindus will be a minority in India.
The SC bench
also said: “It’s very absurd to say that Sikhs in
Punjab
are in a minority”. The SC ruling had come after the High Court’s
division bench, comprising Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice
Ajay Lamba, had struck out a notification issued by the
Punjab
government allowing the SGPC-run institutions to reserve 50 percent
seats for members of the Sikh community saying the Sikhs cannot be
termed a minority in Punjab.
Jains In
 Later, under
pressure from a strong lobby of the Jain community, led by a large
media house and several other pressure groups, the Union Cabinet
decided to amend slightly the Constitution 103rd (Amendment) Bill
and included the Jain community as a minority group.
The WSN has
learnt that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is being advised by many
well wishers to make sure that the Sikhs do not lose their minority
status in the country, including in Punjab.
What is shameful
is that the law aimed at shutting Sikhs out of the benefits accruing
to the minorities is happening under the watch of a Sikh Prime
Minister.
It is understood
that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Social Justice and
Empowerment has suggested many amendments in the Bill. With this
Bill, the National Commission for Minorities will for the first time
get a constitutional status; something that was perceived to be
there already but what in law and fact was never the case.
The WSN
investigation bureau has been tracking the issue for many months
now.
3
June 2009
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