Congress’s Proposal on Muslim Reservation in Karnataka

That reservation for Muslims and other minorities goes against the spirit of the Constitution is a known fact. All religion-based reservations were proscribed by India’s founding fathers. However, secular politicians, without practicing what is truly secular, started pandering to minority religions. Especially Muslims. Ever since India attained independence, the Congress party told the Muslim community that their welfare and safety lie with the Congress party. In turn, the party sought their vote and made them a captive vote bank.

In the latest session of parliament, there was a furor over the Karnataka cabinet deciding to make a Bill in the legislature to provide a 4% reservation for Muslims when awarding contracts to implement development projects worth up to Rs 1 lakh by amending the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement Act, 1999. When queried about the matter of religion-based reservation, Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar made an off-the-cuff remark suggesting that their party would not mind giving reservations to Muslims even if that required changing the Constitution of India. The BJP members in parliament vociferously reacted to the statement. They called it a Congress’s conspiracy to change the Constitution by setting aside religious quotas to appease the minority community. Though DK Shivakumar denied making such a statement, there were no takers for his denegations, as the Congress party is generally perceived to favour reservations for Muslims.

Already there are reservations in the BC quota for some of the smaller subsections among Muslims in southern states. Some of the socially and educationally backward Muslims included in BCs are Singalis, Muslim Dhobis (washermen), Faqirs, Garadi Muslims, Sheikhs, Turaka Kasha et al. whereas some well-off sections like  Syeds, Mughals, Pathans, Iranis, Arabs and others.  But now why place more or less the entire Muslim community in the reservation bracket?  A class, as defined in the Constitution should be a homogenous group. When some in it are so clearly different from the others, it loses the character of a class. By excluding the well-off ones, the others are qualified, if they form a compact class. Under the Constitution, reservations are being made for classes not for communities.

However,  Muslim reservation, championed by the Congress party, is a ploy to get the votes of the community. The reason Congress party gives in this case is that the legislation would be in line with the Sachar committee report that states Muslims are socially and educationally backward. The Scheduled Castes & Schedules Tribes are cited as “socially and educationally backward” in the Constitution for reservation. One cannot compare Muslim destitution to that of SC & ST. Preferentially giving contracts for Muslims for development projects, is not helping to bring them into the mainstream. In any case, this Karnataka government’s new legislation would face legal and political challenges.  

Review of Muslim Reservation:

Let us review the history of Muslim reservations. It all started in 2004 in Andhra Pradesh (united). Defeating the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) which had been ruling for ten years, had become an uphill task for the Congress party, then its main rival in the state. So Congress, under the leadership of the Late YS Rajasekhar Reddy, made all kinds of tall promises during its election campaign; one of which was a 5% quota for Muslims in education and employment. In its quest to grab power, the Congress joined hands with Naxals, calling them Prodigal sons who needed to be brought back into the mainstream and also promised to give Telangana statehood by bifurcating A.P. (united). Apart from that, free power supply to farmers was one of the promises. That was the first of its kind in the country for farmers way back in 2004.

Soon after coming to power, in Nov 2004, the YSR Reddy govt, through an ordinance, provided 5% reservation to Muslims, as promised in the poll manifesto. To prevent it from being a formally religion-based reservation, Muslims were included in the OBC list by creating a new section-category E. This reservation was challenged in the A.P. High Court. In Nov 2005, a five-member bench of the High Court struck down the Act. Later, YSR Reddy’s govt promulgated another ordinance in 2007, providing a 4% quota for Muslims, thereby bringing reservations within the 50% limit.

At present, after the state conducted a Caste-Census, the Telangana Congress government recognised the percentage of Backward Classes in the state to be 42%. Accordingly, Telangana’s new reservation Bill proposes a 42% quota for BCs, 18% for SCs, and 10% for STs, an increase from the existing 29, 15, and 6, respectively. With this, Telangana aims to push the 50% cap on reservations set by the Supreme Court to 70%, which will require the Centre’s approval. Whenever the southern states set quotas for Muslims, to neutralize the effect among the majority voters, they increase SC & ST quotas to a minor extent, raise the total quotas to a whopping level of 70%, and send it to the Centre for approval. To escape the supreme court cap of 50%, they staged a ‘maha dharna’ at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, on 02 April 2025 asking the Centre to approve the 42% BC quota and to include the legislation in the Ninth Schedule. The Ninth Schedule of the Indian Constitution contains a list of central and state laws which cannot be challenged in courts. It was added by the Constitution under the First Amendment Act of 1951.

Why Reservations Should not exceed 50% – Ambedkar’s Justification:

Reservations are an exception to the fundamental rule of “equality” under Art-14 of the Indian Constitution. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar himself cautioned against an exception to the fundamental rule of equality becoming so large as to “eat up the rule altogether”. “Let me give an illustration,” he said. “Supposing, for instance, reservations were made for a community or a collection of communities, the total of which came to something like 70 percent of the total posts under the State and only 30 percent are retained as unreserved. Could anybody say that the reservation (of unreserved category) of 30 percent as open to general competition would be satisfactory from the point of view of giving effect to the first principle, namely, that there shall be equality of opportunity? It cannot be in my judgment. Therefore, the seats to be reserved, if Reservation is to be consistent with sub-clause (1) of Article 10 (of the Draft Constitution), must be confined to a minority of seats. It is only then that the first principle could find its place in the Constitution and {be} effective in operation… (Constituent Assembly Debates, 30 November 1946, p.701).

Hence, the conclusion is that the Congress party, in the two states, Karnataka and Telangana, where they are ruling, are not opposed to Muslim reservations and general reservations over and above 50%. However, they are sending the Bills passed in their state assemblies to the Centre for ratification. If the Congress ever comes to power again at the Centre they would not mind extending reservations for Muslims throughout the country. So, it is for the people of India to mull over the issue of reservations for minority religions and Constitutional change. Right now, it is the BJP at the Centre that is stalling religion-based reservations and opposes tweaking the Constitution to make them possible.