Advisor to Telangana’s Congress government Mohammad Ali Shabbir has challenged the Modi government over the issue of Muslim reservation in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Mentioning that the 4% reservation case is pending in the Supreme Court, Shabbir said that neither the Union Home Minister Amit Shah nor any other BJP leader can scrap the said quota in the two Telugu states.
Shabbir’s remarks come after Union Home Minister Amit Shah in his address in Secunderabad on 12th March called to abolish the 4% Muslim quota, which the Congress party is seeking to exceed to 12%.
This is not the first time that the BJP has opposed the contentious 4% Muslim reservation in Telangana. The refusal to implement the quota was one of BJP’s promises when it sounded the poll bugle in Telangana in 2023.
BJP against religion-based quota
In April 2023, while addressing a public meeting in Chevella in Telangana, Amit Shah said that the reservation given to Muslims in Telangana in education and employment and the implementation of welfare schemes was unconstitutional.
He warned that when in power, the BJP would withdraw the reservation.
Again, in November last year, Shah said that the BJP would abolish religion-based reservations and increase the quota of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) if voted to power.
The history of Muslim reservation in undivided Andhra Pradesh (which included Telangana)
The seed of the problem was first sown by the Congress government led by YS Rajasekhara Reddy in 2004 when it issued an executive order for the implementation of 5% reservation for Muslims by deeming them as OBCs and creating a fifth category (OBC-E).
It must be noted that the Congress government in AP was also considering extending the reservation to the political field.
The order was dismissed by the Andhra Pradesh High Court citing a 50% ceiling dictated by the Supreme Court in the Indra Sawhney vs Union of India judgment.
The judgment upheld the ceiling of 50% quota for states and prescribed 11 indicators to establish backwardness and establish the concept of qualitative exclusion, such as “creamy layer”.
The Congress government then reduced the quota to 4% but the decision continued to draw criticism and formed the Andhra Pradesh Commission for Backward Classes.
In October 2005, an ordinance providing 5% reservation to Muslims in educational institutes and government jobs in Andhra Pradesh was issued and later made the Andhra Pradesh Reservation of Seats in the Educational Institutions and of Appointments or Posts in the Public Services under the State to Muslim Community Act, 2005.
The 5-judge bench of AP HC led by then Chief Justice Bilal Nazki struck down the Act declaring it declaring it unconstitutional.
The HC had found fault with the procedure adopted by the Andhra Pradesh Commission for Backward Classes in recommending the inclusion of Muslims in the list of notified backward classes.
Citing significant grounds for its verdict, the court found that the material placed before the Commission was insufficient to conclude that the Muslim community can be called backward class and deserves a reservation.
Again in 2007, the Congress government formed an ordinance and then passed the legislation titled the Andhra Pradesh Reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes of Muslims Act.
The Act provided 4% reservation to 15 categories of Muslims within the 50% limit. The court in February 2010 struck this down saying that the methodology followed by the Commission to identify the beneficiaries was unsustainable.
The court was reportedly not satisfied with the yardstick used to define the 15 categories of Muslims as backwards. It observed that the Commission’s action was mechanical and perfunctory.
The court also found the Act violative of Article 14 of the Indian Constitution.
As per reports, “upset Muslims” tried to storm the state secretariat in Hyderabad following the court’s refusal to allow the implementation of the quota for Muslims.
Asaduddin Owaisi, President of Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen or MIM (now All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen or AIMIM) had said on the day of the verdict that it was a very “sad day for Muslims”.
“We are trying our best. It is a promise we have made to the Muslims and we are going to fight for it,” then Congress Minister Geeta Reddy had said.
The YSR Reddy government immediately filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court to challenge the HC verdict.
In March 2010, the SC upheld the validity of 4% reservation to Muslims in state education and jobs and passed the ruling in an interim order. The issue was forwarded to a Constitution Bench and has not yet been decided upon.
It is at this juncture that the TRS saw an opportunity and provided impetus to the Muslim quota politics. K Chandrasekhar Rao promised 12% reservation for Muslims if Telangana would be formed.
BRS’ strangling history of vote bank politics
“A Muslim will be the Deputy Chief Minister of Telangana and there will be 4-5 Muslim ministers. The community would also get 12% reservation, which is their right.”
This was the promise made by K Chandrasekhar Rao while welcoming a group of Muslim leaders into the TRS fold.
His speeches from the time identify KCR as a “minority rights” activist advocating exclusively for the Muslim community. And these did win him some success but one that was shortlived, as witnessed in BRS’ abysmal defeat in 2023 to Congress.
In 2014, Telangana was formed and the majority government of TRS again promised 12% reservation to Muslims. In 2017, KCR government passed a Bill allowing the quota for socially and economically backward classes among Muslims in education and jobs.
The KCR government sought that the Centre incorporate the Muslim Reservation Bill in the 9th Schedule of the Indian Constitution, which the Modi government categorically refused.
Suffice to say, TRS’ regional politics depended heavily on Muslim appeasement. But KCR’s hunger for power via national aspirations required him to ditch communalism and have an umbrella view.
While outside Telangana, TRS was a pro-Muslim party, inside Telangana, TRS and then BRS became a party of false promises to its Muslim vote bank, who are in perpetual want for perks what with their victim mode.
Congress capitalised on this sentiment, attacking KCR for his sudden silence over the promises he had made including the 12% quota among other issues like a free-hand to corruption, missing in action that earned him the monicker ‘farmhouse CM’ and anti-incumbency among other issues.
The disappointment in the Muslim community helmed by radical clerics was out in the open when the Joint Act Committee of Telangana Muslim organisations announced their support to the Congress party saying that the BRS could not fulfil their demands.
In fact, in 2021, two years before the state elections, KCR’s aspirations to helm the Opposition against PM Modi enabled a 10% reservation for Economically Weaker Sections in Telangana, two years after the Centre announced it.
Moreover, the KCR government also extended reservations for STs from 6% to 10% in September 2022 through a government order. These decisions reportedly did not sit well with the Muslim community.
As per reports, the Muslim Declaration 2023 read, “When the reservation for STs was increased, the 12 percent for Muslims too could have been implemented. However, KCR failed to do so…KCR deceived Muslims during the Telangana movement and the first elections by making numerous false promises.”
After the 2023 defeat, dissenting calls are reportedly echoing within the BRS to return to its regional objectives. For now, KCR has his feet in two boats.
