Term of Reference No. 1
Criteria for Identifying Socially and Economically Backward Classes among the Religious and Linguistic Minorities.

In our considered opinion the ultimate goal should be the evolution of a uniform pattern of criteria for identifying the backward, which should be based only on the educational and economic status of people and not on their caste or religion, and its application equally to all sections of the citizens irrespective of their caste or religion. And, we do suggest that overall efforts should be directed towards gradually leading the Nation to that goal.

Religious Minorities

We recommend that in the matter of criteria for identifying backward classes there should be absolutely no discrimination whatsoever between the majority community and the minorities; and, therefore, the criteria now applied for this purpose to the majority community whatever that criteria may be must be unreservedly applied also to all the minorities. 

To be more specific, we recommend that all those social and vocational groups among the minorities who but for their religious identity would have been covered by the present net of Scheduled Castes should be unquestionably treated as socially backward, irrespective of whether the religion of those other communities recognises the caste system or not.

We also recommend that those groups among the minorities whose counterparts in the majority community are at present covered by the net of Scheduled Tribes should also be included in that net; and also, more speci.cally, members of the minority communities living in any Tribal Area from pre-independence days should be so included irrespective of their ethnic characteristics.

Linguistic Minorities
In our opinion the concept of backwardness is to be con.ned in its application to religious minorities as it has no relevance for the linguistic minorities.

Term of Reference No. II
Measures of Welfare for Minorities including Reservation

General Welfare Measures
Educational Measures

We further clarify that by the word education and its derivatives as used below we mean not only general education at the primary, secondary, graduate and postgraduate levels, but also instruction and training in engineering, technology, managerial and vocational courses and professional studies like medicine, law and accountancy. All these subjects and disciplines as also the paraphernalia required for these like libraries, reading rooms, laboratories, hostels, dormitories etc, are included in our recommendations for the advancement of education among the minorities. Report of the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities

As by the force of judicial decisions the minority intake in minority educational institutions has, in the interest of national integration, been restricted to about 50 percent, thus virtually earmarking the remaining 50 percent or so for the majority community we strongly recommend that, by the same analogy and for the same purpose, at least 15 percent seats in all nonminority educational institutions should be earmarked by law for the minorities as follows:
(a) The break up within the recommended 15 percent earmarked seats in institutions shall be 10 percent for the Muslims (commensurate with their 73 percent share of the former in the total minority population at the national level) and the remaining 5 percent for the other minorities.
(b) Minor adjustments inter se can be made in the 15 percent earmarked seats. In the case of non availability of Muslim candidates to .ll 10 percent earmarked seats, the remaining vacancies may be given to the other minorities if their members are available over and above their share of 5 percent; but in no case shall any seat within the recommended 15 percent go to the majority community.
(c) As is the case with the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes at present, those minority community candidates who can compete with others and secure admission on their own merit shall not be included in these 15 percent earmarked seats.
In respect of the Muslims who are the largest minority at the national level with a country-wide presence and yet educationally the most backward of the religious communities we recommend certain exclusive measures as follows:
(i) Select institutions in the country like the Aligarh Muslim University and the Jamia Millia Islamia should be legally given a special responsibility to promote education at all levels to Muslim students by taking all possible steps for this purpose. At least one such institution should be selected for this purpose in each of those States and Union Territories which has a substantial Muslim population.
(ii) All schools and colleges run by the Muslims should be provided enhanced aid and other logistic facilities adequate enough to raise their standards by all possible means and maintain the same.
(iii) The Madarsa Modernisation Scheme of the government should be suitably revised, strengthened and provided with more funds so that it can provide finances and necessary paraphernalia either (a) for the provision of modern education up to Standard X within those madarsas themselves which are at present imparting only religious education or, alternatively, (b) to enable the students of such madarsas to receive such education simultaneously in the general schools in their neigbourhood. The Madarsa Modernisation Scheme may, for all these purposes, be operated through a central agency like the Central Wakf Council or the proposed Central Madarsa Education Board.
(iv) The rules and processes of the Central Wakf Council should be revised in such a way that its main responsibility should be educational development of the Muslims. For this purpose the Council may be legally authorised to collect a special 5 percent educational levy from all wakfs, and (ii) to sanction utilisation of wakf lands for establishing educational institutions, polytechnics, libraries and hostels.
(v) In the funds to be distributed by the Maulana Azad Educational Foundation a suitable portion should be earmarked for the Muslims proportionate to their share in the total minority population. Out of this portion funds should be provided not only to the existing Muslim institutions but also for setting up new institutions from nursery to the highest level and for technical and vocational education anywhere in India but especially in the Muslimconcentration areas.
(vi) Anganwaris, Navodaya Vidyalayas and other similar institutions should be opened under their respective schemes especially in each of the Muslim concentration areas and Muslim families be given suitable incentives to send their children to such institutions.

Economic Measures
We further recommend that a 15 percent share be earmarked for the minorities with a break-up of 10 percent for the Muslims (commensurate with their 73 percent share of the former in the total minority population at the national level) and 5 percent for the other minorities in all government schemes like Rural Employment Generation Programme, Prime Ministers Rozgar Yojna, Grameen Rozgar Yojna, etc.

Reservation
Since the minorities especially the Muslims are very much under-represented, and sometimes wholly unrepresented, in government employment, we recommend that they should be regarded as backward in this respect within the meaning of that term as used in Article 16 (4) of the Constitution notably without qualifying the word backward with the words socially and educationally and that 15 percent posts in all cadres and grades under the Central and State Governments should be earmarked for them as follows:
(a) The break up within the recommended 15 percent shall be 10 percent for the Muslims (commensurate with their 73 percent share of the former in the total minority population at the national level) and the remaining 5 percent for the other minorities.
(b) Minor adjustment inter se can be made within the 15 percent earmarked seats. In the case of non-availability of Muslims to fill 10 percent earmarked seats, the remaining vacancies may be given to other minorities if their members are available over and above their share of 5 percent; but in no case shall any seat within the recommended 15 percent go to the majority community.

We are convinced that the action recommended by us above will have full sanction of Article 16 (4) of the Constitution. Yet, should there be some insurmountable difficulty in implementing this recommendation, as an alternative we recommend that since according to the Mandal Commission Report the minorities constitute 8.4 percent of the total OBC population, in the 27 percent OBC quota an 8.4 percent sub-quota should be earmarked for the minorities with an internal break-up of 6 percent for the Muslims (commensurate with their 73 percent share in the total minority population at the national level) and 2.4 percent for the other minorities with minor adjustments inter se in accordance with population of various minorities in various States and UTs.

Additional Term of Reference

Para 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950

We recommend that the caste system should be recognised as a general social characteristic of the Indiansociety as a whole, without questioning whether the philosophy and teachings of any particular religion recognise it or not since the Indian brands of certain faith traditions like Christianity and Islam have never assimilated many puritan principles of those religions, posing this question in respect of the caste system only and singling out for a differential treatment is unreasonable and unrealistic.

We would like this fact to be duly recognised that among the Muslims of India the concepts of zat (caste) and arzal (lower castes) are very much in practice; and even the Muslim law of marriage recognises the doctrine of kufw parity in marriage between the parties in all vital respects including social status and descent which in this country means nothing but caste.

In view of what has been said above, we recommend that Para 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950 which originally restricted the Scheduled Caste net to the Hindus and later opened it to Sikhs and Buddhists, thus still excluding from its purview the Muslims, Christians, Jains and Parsis, etc. should be wholly deleted by appropriate action so as to completely de-link the Scheduled Caste status from religion and make the Scheduled Castes net fully religion-neutral like that of the Scheduled Tribes.

We further recommend that all those groups and classes among the Muslims and Christians, etc. whose counterparts among the Hindus, Sikhs or Buddhists, are included in the Central or State Scheduled Castes lists should also be covered by the Scheduled Caste net. If any such group or class among the Muslims and Christians, etc. is now included in an OBC list, it should be deleted from there while transferring it to the Scheduled Castes placing the same persons in the Scheduled Caste list if they are Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist but in the OBC list if they follow any other religion which is the case in many States - in our opinion clearly amounts to religion-based discrimination.

We further recommend that as the Constitution of India guarantees freedom of conscience and religious freedom as a Fundamental Right, once a person has been included in a Scheduled Caste list a willful change of religion on his part should not affect adversely his or her Scheduled Caste status as that would in our opinion conflict with the basic constitutional provisions relating to equality, justice and non-discrimination on religious grounds; as also with the spirit of the old and timetested Caste Disabilities Removal Act of 1850.