The basic premise of Sudarshan TV program ‘Jihad in Bureaucracy’ seem to be completely misplaced. Number of Muslim officers in bureaucracy has, instead of increasing, actually come down over last four years. Only 42 Muslim candidates figured in a total of 829 selected in the civil services examination this year while 50 Muslim candidates were selected in both 2016 and 2017.
However the television channel seems to have based its analysis only on UPSC 2018 results when only 28 Muslim candidates could be selected. But the total number of candidates selected too was substantially lower at 759 in 2018 as compared to 829 in 2019, 990 in 2017 and 1099 in 2016.
Proportional Muslims are having merely 4-4.5 percent representation among the selected candidates while they constituted more than 13 percent of country’s population.
Minority committee candidates appearing for the Civil Services Examination, are given free coaching, hostel accommodation and scholarship by the Minorities Affairs Ministry of the Union Government. Therefore, this TV program casts aspersions on the Union Government more than anybody else. Its silence on the issue therefore, is deafening.
Union Minorities Affairs Minister Mr Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi doesn’t feel that the program is directed at is his Ministry. “We’re not the only ones sponsoring Minority candidates for UPSC examination. Several state governments and NGOs with doubtful credentials, too have been supporting them. I feel the program is directed more towards them”, he said in a newspaper interview.
Moreover he claims that Muslims are only one of the six minority communities in the country – Sikh, Christians, Jain, Baudh and Parsis, being the other five. So why target only Muslims? The Ministry provides scholarship to only BPL candidates.
This year, of the 22 candidates clearing the civil services exam with govt’s scholarship, seven are Jain, two Baudh and two belonging to other non-Muslim minorities communities. Therefore, it is wrong to blame the govt for promoting Muslims in the bureaucracy, feels the Minister.
But NGOs like Zakat Foundation, which have been sponsoring Muslim UPSC candidates, blame the government for its lopsided policies. The government does not financially support any NGO unless it has its own teachers. Chairman of Zakat Foundation Mr Zafar Mahmood himself is a retired bureaucrat. His Foundation organises an all India competitive exam to select 75 to 80 students preparing for UPSC exam. The selected students are admitted to various coaching institutes and the foundation foots both their tuition fee and hostel accommodation for two years.
But only a few students get selected in their first two attempts. Since Foundation has financial constraints, students are then asked to go home and prepare through self study. Some of these students appear and qualify for institutions like Jamia Millia or Hamdard University which also provide coaching and hostel facility is UPSC candidates. Unlike Zakat Foundation, Jamia Millia University’s UPSC coaching is fully funded by the Minorities Affairs Ministry. Therefore it is bounden duty of the government to contest wild and substantiated ‘Jihad in Bureaucracy’ claims made by Sudarshan TV, says Mr Mahmood.
