Chennai: “The Supreme Court’s verdict that those who have converted to Islam cannot demand reservation is against the Constitution. An immediate constitutional amendment should be brought to protect the reservation rights of those who have converted,” said M. Veerapandian, state secretary of the Communist Party of India.
In a statement issued by him, he said, “The Indian Constitution has granted every citizen the freedom of personal religious belief and religious worship as a fundamental right. Articles 25 to 28 in Part 3 of the Constitution extensively explain rights related to religion.
In this context, the Supreme Court’s ruling that those who have converted to Islam cannot claim reservation benefits on the basis of their previous caste identity goes against the fundamental rights granted to citizens by the Constitution.
The dismissal by the bench of Judges Prashant Kumar Mishra and Sri Chandrasekhar of the appeal petition filed by the Tamil Nadu government regarding reservation for those who have converted to another religion is shocking. Reservation is not granted on the basis of religion. It is granted solely on the basis of social and educational backwardness. In Indian society, for more than two thousand years, communities oppressed on the basis of varna and caste have been neglected, excluded, and forcibly pushed into backwardness in education, cultural life, and the economy.
Land, labor tools, and other means of production were seized, and they were pushed into a condition where they had to survive solely on physical labor. The social dominant forces, which also appropriated the social wealth produced by these working people, had oppressed the working masses for thousands of years. Based on caste, hereditary occupational practice was enforced generation after generation, identifying certain caste groups as those who performed “impure” occupations and creating a situation from which they could not escape.
These forms of social oppression were not created on the basis of 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. Caste discrimination, inequalities, and exclusion exist in all religions in India, not just in any one particular religion. Simply changing one’s religion does not change one’s socially and educationally backward status.
All members of the Scheduled Castes who have embraced Islam and Christianity continue to face social oppression. That is why our Constitution has ensured reservation for those who are socially and educationally backward. The Supreme Court has delivered its verdict without taking these factors into account. This is against social justice.
Therefore, the Tamil Nadu State Executive Committee of the Communist Party of India urges the Central Government to take swift action to immediately amend the Constitution so that Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes continue to receive the same reservation rights they have already been receiving even after converting to another religion. The Tamil Nadu State Executive Committee of the Communist Party of India also requests that the Tamil Nadu Government immediately take the necessary legal steps for this purpose,” said M. Veerapandian.