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Muslim Murasu, August 2011
Honorable Salman Khursheed speech at Justice Basheer Ahmed Sayeed college, Chennai.
He delivered this speech as Minister for Minority Affairs.

15% of government expenditure must come to Muslims. We have to ensure it is actually coming to Muslims. But the truth is if this country gets the ideal system of governance, justice, education and social welfare, then Muslims have to ask for nothing because they as equal citizens will get what is their share. And they will not have to say we were left behind. The harsh truth is Sachar committee finally established that Muslims have been left behind. There are many reasons. And scholars will question the reasons including Abu Saleh Sharif who was member secretary of Sachar committee, the most informed person about litigant effect of Sachar committee. Partition forced Muslim elites to leave and go to Pakistan leaving behind a truncated and a traumatized community. Some people will talk of deliberate or unconscious discrimination. But frankly Muslims are the worst sufferers of partition. And those Muslims who decided to stay in India are the worst sufferers.
As far as we are concerned we were against partition. It is like us who were in UP, Bengal who were directly involved. There was no impact of partition on South India. Seminaries wanted India to remain one. Intellectuals wanted partition. Pakistan was pursued in Aligarh. Pakistan was thought of among the intellectuals and the rich. Poor people and maulvis said no to partition. Lot of people in India don't know this. Lot of us also don't know this. You have to be self conscious of what happened in 1947. We were the advocates of unity in this country. We were the people who fought for the freedom of this country. We were the people who deserve to be the equal partners. And we are equal partners. And if somewhere this equal partnership has gone wrong then we need to correct it. Equal rights should be pursued. Certainly it is not only the ministry of minority affairs that is responsible for the well being of minorities in this country. Ministry of minority affairs is responsible to see that all the other ministries are doing their bit for the minorities of this country. Nobody should think that HRD has no responsibility to minority or commerce or law or home has no responsibility towards minority. We are only watchdogs for the rest of the government to ensure that 15% of government's funds are coming to the minority. Now which is the best way to do this is something which we need to look into further.
As we prepare for the 12 th plan I request you to reflect on this and perhaps come to Delhi so that we can fine tune the experience of 3 years of the 11th plan in which we have implemented according to us the Sachar committee report. But Sachar committee report is not Quran. It can be wrong. For us there is only one book that cannot be wrong. Every other book can be wrong including Sachar committee report. We should examine Sachar committee report with a critical eye and what in this report will give benefit to Muslims by bringing Muslims and Hindus closer together and what in Sachar report will isolate Muslims in ghettos and give them something but retain them in ghetto.
We want and we can compete with everybody else in this country in every field. We do know when it comes to making rockets we can compete with everybody because we know that Dr APJ was the best mind we had in this country in making rocket. We recognized him by making the President of India. If we take cricket we know we can compete with the best. We don't need reservation. If we go to media we know that we can be the best. When we go to movies we know we don’t need any reservation. We can beat the rest.
There are many fields where we can be better than everybody else. We are better than everybody else. There are many fields in which we need support. We need urgent support in banking, civil services. It seems to me very strange that standing here in this college and standing in southern part of the country, you are still worrying about education. When we speak in UP, it is you I will give as example of success. You have done it yourself. The great souls have led you. Justice Basheer Ahmed Syeed has led you to build these institutions. There are 10 good quality educational institutions functioning in his name. Azim Premji is doing wonders in Bangalore. You can help people in UP, Bihar, Assam. You have done achievements in Tamilnadu in education sector. I ask you to come and give guidance in our district, even in my own constituency.
We have some models to examine. I have a model in mind. My model in mind is not to have a ministry for minority affairs, but a ministry for equal opportunity. When we say ministry of minority affairs, many think that they have nothing to do with this ministry. My colleagues feel that they have nothing to do with my ministry. And Mulsims think that ministry of minorioty affairs is ministry of Muslim affairs, which is not true. We have other minorities in this country. Some of them are not suffering the same kind. Some have suffered many of the things that we suffer in much worse manner. There are sikhs. Parsis have a very peculiar problem. They have the problem of population. They ask me for money to increase their population. Planning commission says how can we give money for increasing the population when we set all the money for reducing the growth of population. It is a different kind of problem that we have to examine. When we talk of equal opportunity this is much easier. When we talk only of minority character it becomes difficult. When you were asking for minority character for Jamia and Aligarh, fortunately we were able to provide and ensure minority character for Jamia. When i went to Aligarh and said now the world has changed. Don’t ask for minority character. We were fighting for autonomy. But today all the universities have autonomy. You have to fight for something else. Fight for democratic institution called Aligarh Muslim University and the constituency of that institution will obviously be constituencies that are associated and related to the Muslim community of our country. Muslims can then decide for themselves what kind of institution they want to run. Minority character is just one aspect of the democratic right to run your own institution. Government should not interfere. Students get against the VC and come to Delhi and meet ministers and say please get the VC removed. You are a minority institution, you must not come to a government minister and say remove our VC. This is a problem that a community must resolve itself by consensus. If you want to bring people together and want facilitator we will help you. If a minister interferes today because you want it, tomorrow he will interfere because he wants it.
What we need in this country is a major rethink of institutions, but that major rethink of institutions must obviously focus and concentrate on our own institutions.
The country is screaming about rights of Binayak Sen. Let us hear what the Muslims have to say. Why does a Muslim personal law board or why does a milli council or a Muslim organization speak only about Aligarh and Jamia, speak only about riots in Gujarat. Why don't they speak about what is happening amongst naxalites, or what is happening in Tamilnadu, or what happened to Binayak Sen or Sharmila in Manipur or why dont they talk about rest of India because rest of india belongs to them just as much this college belongs to them, just as much muslim mohalla belongs to them, just as much mosque belongs to them. Mosque is for religion. For political debates and discussions it is this college. I dont mean political party discussions i mean politics in the highest sense. Politics is the ultimate in the emergence of the intellectual. We are described by amartya sen as the argumentative indians. Let us not choose topics about Muslims alone. Let us speak about human rights, education. When lokpal bill is debated why are not Muslim intellectuals at the forefront of the discussion. What has been focussed in terms of existing programmes and how it can be further focussed for betterment of Muslim.
We have to make these deliverable promises and quantifiable delivery. Quantify delivery every year, every 3 years, every five years. In priority sector loans we have reached 13% on a target of 15%. In public sector and government jobs, on a target of 15%, we have reached only 9%. We have given 44 lakh scholarships to minorities for pre-metric and another 5 lakh for post-metric, 750 for PhD, this year that will become 1400. This year i hope 44 lakh scholarships will become 60 lakh scholarships. We are looking only 2 year old program. We are looking at how we can universalize it. Every child applying for scholarship must get it. No turning back saying the quota given is reached. That is the aspiration, commitment i have. I hope to reach that position in next 3 years, provided the child meets the criteria about parent earnings and marks obtained. Some of the formulas we have applied have not been so successful as we hoped they would be. We have to fine tune.

You are, the men and women here, are the examples we hold out to rest of the country because if the rest of India could simply come up to your level, Indian Muslims are going to rise by atleast 20 to 30%. I urge people here, you have so much in Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, please migrate and come to the north and set up good institutions in north as well. Let there be a day when a minister for minority affairs come from Tamilnadu, come to speak in a college like this up in th north, and we can then say north south divide has been bridged by none other than the Muslims of India; the way they gave freedom to the country. This is the broad spectrum I had to give you. I will
certainly look specifically into suggestions that have been made . We will factor them in 12th plan, which will be ready in another 8 months time. We will see from experiences what we have been able to achieve and where we have to go.