Budget 2024- Budgetary allocation cut for Muslims, raises alarm

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By Syed Ali Mujtaba, Edited By Adam Rizvi, The India Observer, TIO: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the Union Budget 2024-25 in the parliament on July 23. In this the budgetary allocation for the ministry of minority affairs has been reduced from ₹5,000 crore to ₹3,000 crore.

This is significant news for the Indian Muslim because they require more budgetary allocation for their overall development. An alarm has to be raised, where the Muslim game is heading in India?

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 There are certain facts that have to be brought into limelight by quoting the government sources and posing the question why budgetary cuts have been targeting the Muslim community.

The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data tells us that from 2018-19 to 2022-23, only 29% of Muslims aged between 15 and 24 years have access to education, compared to 44% of Scheduled Castes, 51% of Hindu OBCs, and 59% of Hindu upper castes.

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In higher education, Muslim enrollment is just 5%.” Muslims have the lowest representation in regular wage employment at 15%, and the highest in casual labour at 26%.

In November 2022, the Narendra Modi government announced that it was discontinuing the five-year fellowship, which was launched in 2009 to provide financial assistance to students pursuing higher education citing an overlap of various other central schemes.

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The PM had promised one crore (minority) scholarships but only 58% have been delivered so far. The cut in budgetary allocation to the minorities would make this provision impossible to be implemented.

Earlier Congress had drawn up a plan to spend 15% of the Union Budget exclusively on Muslims but that had to be shelved after strong opposition from the BJP.

Similarly, in many non BJP ruled state 4 % quota is allotted to the Muslims under the OBC category.

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The identity politics of depriving Indian Muslims has reached the choking point. Why can’t the government do a caste survey of the Muslim community and bring a list of caste categories who are a deprived section of the society. They can identify the deprived caste category among the Muslim community and allocate funds for their upliftment.

A big Pandora box has been opened by the Supreme court, when it has asked the government to identify sub-castes within the Schedule caste and give them developmental assistance. However, there is not a word said about giving any assistance to Muslims who have converted to Islam from the category of Schedule caste. The Sachar Commission has given this recommendation saying that the same affirmative action should be given to the Muslims, because changing religious faith does not change their socio and economic status.

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The government however has a different game plan. It’s actual motive is to target the Muslim community beyond bearable limits so that this community permanently vanishes from India.

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Curated and Compiled by Humra Kidwai

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