Sachar Committee
Encyclopedia
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh is the 13th and current Prime Minister of India. He is the only Prime Minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to return to power after completing a full five-year term. A Sikh, he is the first non-Hindu to occupy the office. Singh is also the 7th Prime Minister belonging to the Indian...
, was commissioned to prepare a report on the latest social
Social
The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms...
, economic and educational condition of the Muslim community of India
Islam in India
Islam is the second-most practiced religion in the Republic of India after Hinduism, with more than 13.4% of the country's population ....
. The commettee was headed by the former Chief Justice
Chief Justice
The Chief Justice in many countries is the name for the presiding member of a Supreme Court in Commonwealth or other countries with an Anglo-Saxon justice system based on English common law, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Court of Final Appeal of...
of Delhi High Court
Delhi High Court
The High Court of Delhi was established on 31 October 1966. The High Court of Delhi was established with four judges. They were Chief Justice K. S. Hegde, Justice I. D. Dua, Justice H. R. Khanna and Justice S. K. Kapur.-History:...
Rajinder Sachar
Rajinder Sachar
Rajindar Sachar is an Indian lawyer and a former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court. He was also a member of United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. He has also served as a counsel for the People's Union for Civil Liberties...
, including other six members. The committee prepared a report of 403 pages, and presented in the lower house
Lower house
A lower house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house.Despite its official position "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide the lower house has come to wield more power...
(Lok Sabha
Lok Sabha
The Lok Sabha or House of the People is the lower house of the Parliament of India. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by direct election under universal adult suffrage. As of 2009, there have been fifteen Lok Sabhas elected by the people of India...
) of the Indian Parliament
Parliament of India
The Parliament of India is the supreme legislative body in India. Founded in 1919, the Parliament alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all political bodies in India. The Parliament of India comprises the President and the two Houses, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha...
on 30 November 2006 (20 months after obtaining the terms of reference
Terms of reference
Terms of reference describe the purpose and structure of a project, committee, meeting, negotiation, or any similar collection of people who have agreed to work together to accomplish a shared goal. The terms of reference of a project are often referred to as the project charter.- Terms of...
from the PMO
Prime Minister's Office (India)
The Prime Minister's Office known as PMO consists of the immediate staff of the Prime Minister of India, as well as multiple levels of support staff reporting to the Prime Minister. The PMO is headed by the Principal Secretary, currently TKA Nair...
).
The committee had highlighted and presented its suggestions and solutions to include and mainstream Indian Muslims. The online report is available from the Indian Government website. The report is first of its kind revealing the backwardness of Indian Muslims, according to Sachar Committee report some of the major concers are:
- The status of Indian Muslims are below the conditions of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
- The overall percentage of Muslims in bureaucracy in India is just 2.5 % where as Muslims constitute above 14% of Indian population.
To ensure equity and equality of opportunities to Indian Muslims in residential, work and educational sector, the Committee had proposed multiple suggestions to be adopted, with a suitable mechanisms.
There is a lot of discussions and debates goes on the Sachar Committee Report. There are follow-up actions taken based on Committee findings like the Finance Minister P. Chidambaram
P. Chidambaram
P. Chidambaram or Chidambaram Palaniappan, sometimes written Palaniappan Chidambaram is an Indian politician with the Indian National Congress and present Union Minister of Home Affairs of the Republic of India. Previously he was the Finance Minister of India from May 2004 to November 2008...
action funding for National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (NMDFC).
Composition
The committee was headed by former Chief JusticeChief Justice
The Chief Justice in many countries is the name for the presiding member of a Supreme Court in Commonwealth or other countries with an Anglo-Saxon justice system based on English common law, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Court of Final Appeal of...
of Delhi High Court
Delhi High Court
The High Court of Delhi was established on 31 October 1966. The High Court of Delhi was established with four judges. They were Chief Justice K. S. Hegde, Justice I. D. Dua, Justice H. R. Khanna and Justice S. K. Kapur.-History:...
Rajinder Sachar
Rajinder Sachar
Rajindar Sachar is an Indian lawyer and a former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court. He was also a member of United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. He has also served as a counsel for the People's Union for Civil Liberties...
, and include other six members.
- Sayyid Hamid,
- Dr. T.K. Oomen,
- M.A. Basith,
- Dr. Akhtar Majeed,
- Dr. Abu Saleh Shariff and
- Dr. Rakesh Basant.
Dr. Syed Zafar Mahmood
Syed Zafar Mahmood
Syed Zafar Mahmood, Ph.D. is an Indian Civil-Servant and former 'Officer on Special Duty' for the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. On March 9, 2005 the Prime Minister appointed the 'Sachar Committee' to study the "social, economic and educational status" of India's minority Muslim...
was the civil servant appointed by the PM as Officer on Special Duty to the Committee. During the committee's interaction with women's groups, some of them seriously articulated a grievance that it did not have any woman member.
Report
The complete Sachar committee report is available for download online.Methodology
The Census 2001 data has been used to understand the demographic profile, infrastructure availability and educational achievements at various levels. Data from the National Sample Surveys (NSSO 55th and 61st Rounds) have been used to analyze issues relating toemployment, education, consumption patterns and levels of poverty. Banking data was received from different sources such as the Reserve Bank of India, National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development, Small Industry Development Bank of India, National Minority Development and Finance Corporation and National Backward Classes and Finance Development Corporation. Corroborative data was also obtained from government commissions and organisations such as National Backward Classes Commission, State Backward Classes Commission and National Council of Educational Research and Training. Finally data from sources such as ministries, departments, public sector undertakings, universities and colleges were used in preparing this report.
Criticism
Indian media expert Dasu Krishnamoorti has criticized the way the media has handled the report. He criticizes them saying that "Positive journalism means projecting the Muslims as us and not them".. Sunil Jain in an article in rediff says "The problem with all such data, however, is that you need to "normalise" it for any meaningful conclusions to be made. Sachar does this only partially", and that rather than basing its results on the entire population of Muslims, the Report should only have considered those Muslims with a college degree.In addition, the demands made by the Sachar Committee to provide preferential treatment to Muslims in the Indian Army to bring about a greater representation have been severely criticized by members of the Indian Armed Forces
Indian Armed Forces
The Indian Armed Forces are the military forces of the Republic of India. They consist of the Army, Navy and Air Force, supported by three paramilitary forces and various inter-service institutions such as the Strategic Forces Command.The President of India is...
as well as BJP political party. Retired Colonel Anil Athale of the Indian Army
Indian Army
The Indian Army is the land based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. With about 1,100,000 soldiers in active service and about 1,150,000 reserve troops, the Indian Army is the world's largest standing volunteer army...
comments that it is vital that the Indian Armed forces remain secular and not give preference to anybody irrespective of religion, and that the Sachar Committee seeks to undermine that legacy.http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/14guest.htm However, there was
However, Dr. Sachar replied to this criticism saying that it was an uncalled for attempt to communalise a non-issue.
The Sachar commission findings were later alleged by the Bharatiya Janata Party
Bharatiya Janata Party
The Bharatiya Janata Party ,; translation: Indian People's Party) is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Indian National Congress. Established in 1980, it is India's second largest political party in terms of representation in the parliament...
(BJP) to be manipulated for electoral purposes.
Numerous methodologies in obtaining the report have been criticized as statistically invalid, and a politically motivated stunt to advocate for the conversion of India into an Islamic theocracy by elevating the status of Muslims and demean the status of non-Muslim Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
s and Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
s into dhimmi
Dhimmi
A , is a non-Muslim subject of a state governed in accordance with sharia law. Linguistically, the word means "one whose responsibility has been taken". This has to be understood in the context of the definition of state in Islam...
s.
There was widespread disagreement over the methodology and conclusions of the Sachar Committee. AK Dubey, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, said that the “Sachar Committee has indulged in a statistical manipulation that needs to be understood. The approach it adopted to bring to light social and political truths were muddled”
External links
- Muslim deprivation widespread: Sachar Committee http://www.hindu.com/2006/12/01/stories/2006120107350100.htm
- Appeal to Sachar Committee http://www.milligazette.com/dailyupdate/2006/20060305_gujarat_appeal_PM.htm
- 'US feels India has 180m Muslims': Times of India