On August 30, the Supreme Court of India sought a response from the central government to a plea that the Dalits who have converted to Islam and Christianity from Hinduism should be eligible for the same quota benefits that are reserved for Scheduled Castes.
The court asked the Centre to reply within three weeks and directed the other side to respond to the Centre’s response within one week. Advocate Prashant Bhusan appeared for the petitioner, and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for the union government.
It is noteworthy that then-Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said in Rajya Sabha last year that Dalits who had shunned their faith and converted to Islam and Christianity would not be permitted to contest parliamentary or assembly elections from constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC), and will not be allowed to claim other reservation benefits.
The issue of granting reservation rights to the converted Dalits has been raised several times in the past. As per the current law, Para 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order outlines that no person who professes a religion different from Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste.
Furthermore, then-Prime Minister of India Jawahar Lal Nehru-led central government had passed an order in 1950 limiting the definition of “scheduled caste” only to members of the Hindu faith, which was later extended in 1956 to Sikhs and to Buddhists in 1990. In the past, the Supreme Court of India had too had upheld the caste benefits only to those belonging to the Indic faiths.
Converts lose reservation rights leading to a dilemma
Though it is not widely talked about, most of the converts that leave Hinduism and accept Islam or Christianity do so allegedly to have a “better life” without any discrimination. They are often allegedly lured by the religious leaders of those faiths with a promise that if they convert, their woes will be over.
However, no one tells those people that after conversion, they will lose the right to a reservation that they enjoy while being attached to the Hindu fold. When converted, the benefits marked for the Hindu Dalits no longer apply to them, and it becomes a major headache for the religious leaders to keep them in the new faith.
In the past, there have been several attempts to include “Muslim Dalits” and “Christian Dalits” in the reservation system, but the attempts were not fruitful for such converts.
Caste system in Christianity and Islam
Though it is often believed that Christianity and Islam do not have a caste system, the reality is different. When a Dalit converts to Christianity or Islam, no matter whether he or she is lured or done on their own, they face discrimination. It is often seen that Dalits have separate churches, though not promoted that way, but in an unsaid rule. The same goes for Islam. Those who get converted to Islam are not seen as “pure” by their fellow practising Muslims. It might be the reason the idiom that roughly translates to “A new Muslim will follow religious practices more vigorously” came into existence. To find a space for themselves in the community, new converts in any religion follow the traditions of the book.
However, it takes a lot of time and commitment for them to find the space they desire. Meanwhile, the benefits of reservation in jobs and education they were enjoying being a Dalit of the Hindu community are stripped, resulting in further “shock” that they are often not ready for. To stop the converts from going back to Hinduism, attempts are being made to expand the horizon for Dalit reservations to such converts.
BJP against Ranganath Mishra Commission report
While Bharatiya Janata Party is now in power at the Centre and preparing a response to the Supreme Court over reservation for Converted Dalits, it is important to recall what BJP had said in 2010 after the Ranganath Mishra Commission report was released in 2009.
In 2009, the government-appointed Justice Rangnath Commission recommended 10 per cent reservation for Muslims and 5 per cent for other minorities in government jobs. The committee also favoured Scheduled Caste status for Dalits in “all religions”.
The commission recommended delinking the Scheduled Caste status from religion and abrogation of the 1950 Scheduled Caste Order, which “still excludes Muslims, Christians, Jains and Parsis from the SC net.” The committee recommended that if Muslims were not available to fill the seats, other minorities could be appointed, but in “no case”, the seat should be given to anyone from the majority community.
It is noteworthy that Member Secretary of the commission Asha Das was against the SC status on Dalit converts to Islam and Christianity. She found no justification to give such converts SC status. Furthermore, she added that such converts should continue to form part of OBCs and avail benefits accordingly. However, the commission rejected her dissent note.
In 2010, BJP had dubbed the report as a curse and said it should be thrown “into a dustbin”. The party vowed to protect “the rights of backward classes”. The statement was made during a convention in Bengaluru.
Then-BJP president Nitin Gadkari had said that the party would not accept the report “at any cost”. He added that BJP would oppose if the then-government decided to implement the recommendations that would result in cutting into the reservation of OBCs.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had said in a statement that BJP would not allow the then-central government to snatch reservations from the OBCs and reminded Congress that first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru also opposed reservations for convert Dalits.
He further added that the report should be dumped into a dustbin and said he gave a similar treatment to the Sachar Committee report that asked the states to provide details of Christians and Muslims working in the states.
Former Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu had termed the report as a curse on the backward classes. He called it a “worse loss” for the backward communities.
Before Prime Minister Narendra Modi won the elections in 2014, he had reached out to the Dalits and backward classes to come forward and debunk the Ranganath Mishra Commission report on reservation for minorities. In 2009, when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat, he urged the central government not to implement the recommendations in the report. By that time, the report was yet to be tabled in the Lok Sabha.
It is notable that in March 2022, Union Minister of State for Social Justice A Narayana Swamy said that the Centre had no plans to implement the report of the Ranganath Misra Commission. As the Supreme Court has again commenced hearing on such case, there is a high possibility that the Centre would stick to its old stand that is against providing reservations to “Dalits” who convert to Islam or Christianity.
