By Syed Zubair Ahmad,
Congress party is known as votary of soft Hindutva and the rank and file of the party, all through its history, has had some saffron minds with secular faces. The Congress-led UPA regime of Manmohan Singh also has one such face in the union cabinet since 2004. Ironically, the man is invited at every Urdu program and Mushaira in Delhi but his decisions as HRD minister clearly reflected his saffron mind.
What Congress is all about and how much sincere it is about the issues of Muslims can be seen in the personality of former HRD minister and currently Minister of Science & Technology Mr Kapil Sibal. Every now and then he is specially invited by different Muslim organizations and Urdu loving circles in India and abroad to grace the functions. In fact the organizers of those functions have either some vested interests or are unaware of the shrewdness of the shrewd politician.
It was Kapil Sibal who opposed tooth and nail restoration of the minority character of Jamia Millia Islamia. On different occasions he repeatedly said that ‘Jamia Millia Islamia will lose its secular character if it is given a minority status’. In February 2011, when National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI) headed by Justice MSA Siddiqui, declared Jamia Millia Islamia a minority institution Kapil Sibal, the then union HRD minister, lost his temper and stopped the UGC fund for the central university which was released only after the intervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. For quite some time before, he was pressing the Jamia to implement 27% OBC quota while Jamia’s case regarding minority status was pending before NCMEI. Sibal didn’t stop here. He ceased the power of NCMEI and Justice MSA Siddiqui was sidelined later. Many people in the community felt that NCMEI’s wings were clipped as it was granting minority status to several minority institutions from across the country whose cases were pending for years. Moreover, S.E. Hasnain, despite being the most deserving and number one shortlisted candidate for the chairmanship of the UGC, was not selected. The selection was made by none other than the then HRD minister Kapil Sibal.
Till last October the HRD ministry was under Kapil Sibal, which was responsible for the educational development program for minorities also. HRD ministry was assigned to open Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya in Minority Concentrated Districts under Multi Sectoral Development Program of the center, which also falls under 12the five year plan. But these schools were established far from the Muslim dominated areas. One example of this can be seen in Muslim dominated city of Tonk in Rajasthan where the school was established 17 km away from the population. In the largest Muslim populated state of Uttar Pradesh 453 such schools were opened but all are situated so far from Muslim areas that Muslim girls cannot go there. Only 9% of Muslim girls are enrolled there while 36% girls come from Dalit community. The same situation is of Muslim dominated areas of Mewat region. During his tenure as HRD minister, not a single Urdu teacher was appointed in Central Schools. Likewise under one scheme of Urdu language teaching, any schools which has 25% of Urdu speaking students one Urdu teacher had to be appointed, but this program is still to be started.
Like Congress Party, Kapil Sibal also knows how to make image in Muslim community. He graces countless Urdu Mushairas, attends functions of Muslim community, has good contacts with some local Urdu dailies and keeps some Urdu journalists around him. And it is his compulsion because his Lok Sabha constituency of Chandni Chowk has a large population of Muslims and he knows the art of image building well.