Reservations for Muslims

 

Reservations for Muslims

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

The victory of the BJP has opened up the floodgates of reservations in India, with all the attendant caste rivalries and hatreds getting ignited or reignited instead of getting effaced, newer and more powerful castes entering the reservation network, and the percentage limits of reserved seats being pushed up further and further. To be frank, it was the end of Congress one-party rule at the centre in 1977 which initiated this whole unending nightmare: it was the Janata Party government, of which the present BJP was a constituent, which appointed the Mandal Commission in 1979, and (after the intervening Congress rule from 1980-1989, which kept the issue in abeyance), the Janata Dal government, fully supported (including in this particular matter) by the BJP, which implemented the “report” of the Commission in 1990. It was the BJP governments in various states which have, ever since, expanded the number of castes in the reservation network (especially by including the politically more powerful ones) and increased the total percentage of reserved seats. Most of the pioneers of the OBC reservation campaigns (Karpoori Thakur, Mulayam Singh Yadav, etc) have been given Padma Awards by the present BJP government.

 

But, say the bhakts, one thing this government will never do is give reservations to Muslims. Well, when they do, these same bhakts will find excuses to whitewash, defend, support and glorify reservations for Muslims. For starters, the bhakts can practice what to say then by reacting now to the following tweet by Ritu Rathaur:

https://x.com/RituRathaur/status/1983144101429305587

“"I gave reservation to Muslims but I didn't tell this to media" No one has fooled Hindus more than this man on Muslim reservations”

5:39 PM · Oct 28 2025

 

Apart from the pioneering role played by the BJP in dividing Hindus into mutually warring groups in the name of reservations, the following points about the BJP vis-à-vis reservations may be noted:

1. Apart from the fact that the Congress kept the Mandal Commission in abeyance for 11 years − and no, this is not a recommendation for the Sonia-Rahul Congress, which is a completely different kettle of fish from the Indira and even Rajiv Congresses −  there is no party today which will dare to openly oppose the reservation-virus, and unfortunately most of those few politicians who do so turn out to be the casteist upper-caste elements who can hardly be expected to have objective or unbiased objections.

However, in passing, the two following pleasant and admirable “aberrations” to these rules must be noted:

1a) From my article

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2023/10/caste-census-and-its-repercussions-on.html

“The Shiv Sena, the majority of its voters were OBCs, was the only party whose leader Bal Thackeray opposed the Mandal Commission report in 1989-90. And his party, in alliance with BJP, was swept to power in Maharashtra in 1995. The following account of what happened at the Shiv Sena's annual Vijayadashami rally at Shivaji Park in Mumbai in 1989 or 1990 will illustrate the point: the newspapers were full of predictions that Thackeray would not dare to openly oppose the Mandal Commission since most of his Shiv Sainiks were OBCs, and the important (then) Shiv Sena leader Chhagan Bhujbal (himself an OBC) had openly supported the Commission report. But Thackeray stunned the media at Shivaji Park: he asked all the people who were in the massive rally, who belonged to the "OBC" communities, to raise their hands. A massive number, nearly 80-90 per cent of the crowd, raised their hands. Thackeray explained in detail that such reservations did not benefit anyone, except for a few elites among them, and the only result would be a divided and infighting-ridden Hindu community. He declared: "I am opposing the Mandal Commission. Are you with me in this?". A huge uproar as the crowd replied: "We are with you!". And they remained with him, in even greater numbers!”

1 b) A surprising recent statement by Supriya Sule (daughter of Sharad Pawar):

https://x.com/iAnkurSingh/status/1969400888478613623

“Supriya Sule wants to 'End Caste Reservations' Supriya Sule of INDI Alliance says Reservation should only be on "Economic Basis". Says- "Shame on those taking benefits of reservations in 2nd and 3rd generations too" Supriya says this is what Gen-Z of India wants.”

7:28 PM · Sept 20 2025

Supriya Sule (may, as alleged by critics, or may not) have been playing to the particular gallery she was addressing. Bal Thackeray was clearly doing something no other politician in India would have the guts to do, and was very clearly expressing his real views regardless of the consequences. But both have my respect in this matter.

 

2. There is a difference in the reservations for SCs and STs. For example, STs continue to have reservations even after converting to Christianity (or Islam), whole SCs do not. It is quite possible that tomorrow the BJP will decide to allow reservations for SC converts to Christianity (or Islam) as well. But, leaving that speculation aside, the following two points illustrate the callousness of the BJP in the matter of ST reservations:

2 a) The BJP, for its commercial interests, is busy dismantling the real benefits to ST people. ST lands are being put up for grabs by the BJP all over India, especially after they passed the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act 2023 which regularizes earlier illegal takeovers of tribal lands and relaxes legal provisions for the protection of the lands of tribals and forest dwellers.

In particular, the attempts to take over the lands of the Andamanese people was dealt with in my following article:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-andaman-islanders-and-indian.html

“Hindu thinkers (myself included) have always objected to this word coined in modern times as a translation of the English word "aboriginal" to describe certain sections of the population of the country as native to India as distinct from certain others who are then presumably outsiders who do not originally belong to India. Clearly along with the AIT, the word is like a tool or weapon in the hands of the Breaking India forces. The RSS thinkers therefore choose to use the term vanavāsī, or "forest dwellers", and in general I concur with the term.

However, in certain matters, the word ādivāsī is more appropriate. If the word is taken in the sense of "aboriginal to the country" as pointed out above, then it is certainly wrong and malicious. But if it specifically means "aboriginal to the forest-etc. areas occupied by them", then it is very appropriate. Unlike the other castes and communities of India who have been shifting from one area to another in the course of history, the tribal people of most parts of India have indeed been occupying ancestral areas since thousands of years, and their rights to the areas they occupy are inalienable. This is true even in respect of the reserved or notified tribal areas within the Indian mainland. This is even more true in the case of the Andaman islanders, some of whom, like the Sentinelese, have lived in their areas for ten thousands of years with almost no contact with outsiders. No outsider to their areas has the right to take over their areas.”

Therefore, in that article, I pointed out: “If (as I deduce from the above exchange) the present government is thinking of denotifying the Onge Tribal Reserve and clearing the pristine forests of Little Andaman for a mega-tourist city, it is definitely an atrocity. In fact it is a massive and criminal mega-atrocity against Indian Civilization. And I certainly must put things in their proper perspective if my name is being misused in order to make it seem that my work on Indian Civilization suggests in any way that the culture of the Andaman Islanders is later than, subordinate to, or inferior to, the mainline historical Classical (Vedic/Sanskrit) Indian Civilization” – or that the interests and rights of the Andamanese tribals can be sacrificed or thrown aside in the name of “development” or of the alleged interests and rights of the Indian nation.   

2 b) It is testimony to the intrinsically anti-Hindu nature of Indian Secularism that when lists of STs (Scheduled Tribes) were prepared for listing sections of the people of India as STs for purposes of special rights and protections, and reservations, the only major group of non-Aryan/non-Dravidian language speaking people (and the only Sino-Tibetan language speaking people in the whole of the northeast) who were excluded from the list were the Meiteis of Manipur – their only point of distinction from all the other Sino-Tibetan language speaking people of the northeast is that they are Hindus while an overwhelming  majority of the members of all other such Sino-Tibetan language speaking people of the northeast are converts to Christianity. The BJP went out of its way recently to show its contempt for a court ruling which directed that Meiteis also be included in the list, by refusing to honor the court’s verdict (and ultimately making the court reverse its verdict) even in the face of violent riots which rocked the entire state of Manipur for months.

My articles on the subject:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2023/05/operation-exterminate-meitei-in-manipur.html

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2023/10/is-manipur-reaching-breaking-point.html

 

Will all these shenanigans help the BJP to collect Muslim votes even as they continue to get “Hindu” votes from all the different mutually warring sections of Hindu society? Anything is possible.

Incidentally, a friend of mine, who is a bhakt, recently told me about how all the voters in a particular booth in a constituency in U.P. were Muslims who had received the benefit of BJP schemes, and yet not one of them voted for the BJP. She seemed to think this showed those Muslim voters in a bad light as “ungrateful” people.

This was obviously in reference to the following much publicized case:

https://x.com/seriousfunnyguy/status/1797922687572177255?lang=en

“A village where BJP did not get even a single vote. 532 houses have been given in this village under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. There are 100% Muslim Voters in the village.”

I immediately told her that I have the very greatest respect for those voters, because I very firmly and sincerely believe that:

“People who vote against the BJP are those Muslims who refuse to allow themselves to be bought, and those Hindus who refuse to allow themselves to be sold; while people who vote for the BJP are those Muslims who are willing to allow themselves to be bought, and those Hindus who are willing to allow themselves to be sold”. That is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.