Recently, the Supreme Court ruled that “those who converted to Islam from the Other Backward Classes category are not entitled to the reservation benefits available to the backward classes.”
Protesting this verdict, M. Veerapandian, the Tamil Nadu secretary of the Communist Party of India, had issued a statement.
In that statement, “The Constitution of India has granted every citizen the freedom of individual religious belief and religious worship as a fundamental right.
The Supreme Court’s ruling that those who have converted to Islam cannot claim reservation benefits on the basis of their former caste identity goes against the fundamental rights guaranteed to citizens by the Constitution.
Reservation is not based on religion
Reservation is not granted on the basis of religion. It is granted solely on the basis of social and educational backwardness.
For more than two thousand years in Indian society, communities oppressed on the basis of varna and caste have been neglected, marginalized, and forcibly pushed into a backward state in education,
cultural life, and the economy.
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Based on caste, the hereditary occupation system was made compulsory, identifying certain caste groups as those who perform impure work and creating a situation in which they could not escape from it.
These social oppressions are not based on religion. Religion and religious doctrines have been used by the ruling class as tools to justify economic exploitation and protect the plundering of social wealth.
People who have converted to Islam cannot claim reservation The Supreme Court verdict is against the Constitution An immediate constitutional amendment must be brought in to protect the reservation rights of those who have converted to another religion. This is the insistence of the Communist Party of India. https://t.co/yNfGpYM6Ru
— CPI Tamilnadu (@CPItnOfficial) October 16, 2026
Merely converting to another religion does not change a person's socially and educationally backward status.
All members of the Scheduled Castes who have embraced Islam and Christianity continue to face social oppression.
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That is why our Constitution has ensured reservation for those who are socially and educationally backward. Ignoring these considerations, the Supreme Court has delivered its verdict. This is against social justice.
Therefore, even after changing religion, Scheduled Caste people should retain the same reservation rights they had already been receiving,
The Tamil Nadu State Executive Committee of the Communist Party of India has stated that the Union Government should take swift action to immediately amend the Constitution so that the backward classes can continue to receive benefits, and urges the Union Government to do so,” it said.