West Bengal: The Hazards Of Awarding Disproportionate Share Of OBC Pie To Muslims Alone

Another act of ‘Muslim appeasement’ by the Mamata Banerjee government in Bengal has been flagged by the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC). 

The NCBC has discovered that Muslims form an overwhelming majority of ‘Other Backward Classes’ (OBCs) in Bengal. The Mamata Banerjee government has conferred this status on Muslims in an “arbitrary manner”. 

Of the 179 OBC groups in Bengal, 118 (nearly 66 per cent) are Muslims. But the share of Muslim population in Bengal is below 30 per cent. 

NCBC chairperson Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, while condemning the “politics of appeasement” that led to the Bengal government granting OBC status to many Muslim groups, asked the state government to correct the discrepancy “at the earliest”. 

Ahir also took note of serious allegations that the Bengal government had granted OBC status to illegal Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh and to Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar. 

Ahir told mediapersons that an NCBC team which visited Bengal in February this year wanted to know from the state government how there were more Muslim groups in the OBC list of Bengal than Hindus even though the population of Hindus is much higher in the state. 

“They (the Bengal government) did not have any satisfactory reply,” Ahir noted. The NCBC, he added, “will remove communities that were added to the OBC list without adhering to proper procedures”. 

“First, the Bengal government told us orally that these Muslim groups that were given OBC status were originally Hindus but had converted to Islam. When we asked for proof of these largescale conversions, the state government wrote to us that there was no such proof!” said Ahir. 

The Mamata Banerjee government’s objective of favouring Muslims over Hindus is evident from another aspect of this gameplan. 

OBCs are divided into two categories: ‘A’ and ‘B’. Groups listed under Category ‘A’ enjoy more benefits, especially with regard to reservations in higher education (including technical education) and jobs than the ones listed under Category ‘B’. 

It is no surprise then that 90 per cent of the groups listed under OBC Category ‘A’ are Muslims. Of the 81 communities in OBC Category ‘A’ in Bengal, 73 are Muslim communities and only 8 are Hindu communities. 

Category ‘B’, which has much lesser benefits, nearly 46 per cent of the 98 listed groups are Muslims while the remaining (53 groups) are Hindus. 

It is, thus, clear that the Bengal government conferred Category ‘A’ OBC status to many more Muslim groups than Hindus. 

Implications Of This For Hindus

Hindus will have to bear the implications of this policy of appeasement of Muslims by the Bengal government. 

That’s because Muslims have already started cornering a lion’s share of the existing 17 per cent reservation in government jobs for OBCs. 

According to BJP leaders, recent lists of new recruits in all government jobs in Bengal show that a disproportionate number of them are Muslims. 

As time goes by, the number of Muslims in state government service will increase to much more than the community’s share of population (estimated 27.4 per cent) in Bengal. 

That will result in an administrative bias against Hindus, say BJP leaders. This bias is already manifesting itself, especially in the conduct of the state police. 

“A substantial number of newly-recruited personnel in police stations across Bengal are Muslims and we are getting an increasing number of complaints from Hindus across the state that complaints made by Hindus against Muslims are not been taken cognisance of or are being taken very lightly,” said a senior BJP leader who did not want to be named. 

This has also coincided with muscle-flexing by Muslim groups who have been emboldened by Mamata Banerjee’s Muslim appeasement policies. 

Such muscle-flexing has translated into many radical Muslims targeting Hindus. “We are getting many complaints about radical Muslims, including clerics who preach the regressive Salafi Islam, targeting Hindus and Hindu religious festivals and rites. But when the victimised Hindus go to the police, their complaints are not registered. Instead, in many cases, they are victimised by the police,” said the BJP leader. 

This bias against Hindus, say BJP leaders, also exists in other departments like land and land revenue, agriculture etc. Muslims are given preference over Hindus in government schemes and welfare measures, and the grievances of Hindus are not being addressed. 

Senior state government officials admit that not just in the OBC category, the number of Muslim recruits in the general category is also increasing disproportionately. 

Mamata Banerjee is on record stating that Muslims are milch cows who need to be given special preference and benefits. 

Immediately after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls where Trinamool’s performance was disappointing, Mamata Banerjee said: “I appease Muslims and will do it 100 times as there is no harm in taking kicks from a cow that gives you milk” (read this and this). 

She has recited the kalma in public and frequently appears on stage in the company of Muslim community leaders and clerics with a hijab.

Muslims are a critical factor behind the Trinamool’s win in successive elections in Bengal. They vote almost en masse for the Trinamool, and form more than 55 per cent of the Trinamool’s support base.