Ahimsa Times 2008 10 SrNo 100

SR No.: 523600
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ahimsa Times
Publisher: Ahimsa Times
Publication Year: 2008
Total Pages: 19
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Ahimsa Times, & India
File Size: 465 KB

Page 13

AHIMSA TIMES - OCTOBER 2008 ISSUE - www.jainsamaj.org
Page 13 of 19
v) Our National Anthem 'Jana Gana Mana' by Tagore clearly enunciates Jains in its second stanza: "Hindu Bauddha, Sikh Jain Parsik, Musalman, Christani" as a distinct religion denomination"
vi) The Government of India Census counts Jains in India as a major religious community right from the first census in British India in 1873.
vii) The Ministry of Human Resources Development, Dept. of Education, SC/ST Cell, constituting a National Monitoring Committee for Minorities Education (Published in Part I Section I of the Gazette of India) in its Memorandum on Minorities Education CI. 3.1.3. mentions that according to 1981 Census the religious minorities constitute about 17.4% of the population of which Muslims are 11.4%, Christians 2.4%, Sikhs 2%, Buddhists 0.7% and the Jains 0.5% which means that per 10,000 persons in India 8264 are Hindus, 1135 are Muslims, 243 are Christians, 196 Sikhs, 71 Buddhists and 48 are Jains. Thus it is clear that the HRD Ministry recognizes the Jains as a religious minority on the basis of Census classification which is itself an authoritative legal document, while the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry of the same Govt. of India is still averse to do so.
viii) And the clinching statistical census evidence that the Jains are in minority not only in every State of India but also in every district.
25. As already noted above it is incomprehensible why the Supreme court Judgment should have thought it fit to quote Maulana Abul Kalam Azad even in obiter dicta. "Azad passionately believed in Hindu-Muslim unity, but he found that from the mid-twenties Gandhi had lost interest in Hindu-Muslim unity and took no steps to secure it. Further, Azad had played a leading part in providing a framework for the Constitution of a free and united India on which the Cabinet Mission Plan was largely based, a Plan which offered India her last chance to remain united. However, Gandhi, Nehru and Patel destroyed the Plan, and accepted partition instead. Azad did his utmost to prevent the partition of India, but he failed to persuade Nehru and Gandhi not to accept partition". (Emphasis supplied).
26. However, the shocking and bizarre implications of such quotations cited with approval in the judgment of the Supreme Court of India presided over by the Chief Justice of India are clear. It clearly means that the Supreme Court is anxious to carry the incredible message that the Father of the Nation who laid down his life for HinduMuslim unity, along with Nehru was responsible for the division of the country.
27. Such an atrociously perverse interpretation of the partition of India under the secure judicial garb of an ostentatious exercise of safeguarding secular credentials of the Constitution declaring that the State has no religion is indeed shocking. Yet the Bench has no constitutional or secular scruples to state further that "Thus 'Hinduism' can be called a general religion and common faith of India whereas 'Jainism is a special religion formed on the basis of quintessence of Hindu religion". (Emphasis supplied).
26. In view of the foregoing the extra-Judicial observations of the Supreme Court Judgment on the religious status of the Jain community as part of the Hindu religious are absolutely without any basis. Also the remarks against the National leaders like Nehru, Patel and the very Father of the Nation as responsible for the partition of India are obnoxious.
29. As a matter of fact the entire tenor of the SC observations on the National and State Minority Commissions as leading to "fissiparous tendencies" and hence calling for their closure are highly objectionable as they question the basic tenets of the Indian secular Constitution and hence need to be expunged.
30. As noted by Shri Shahabuddin: "All constitutional safeguards and assurances under the Constitution and in international law shall be reduced to zero if the distinct identity of any religious group, howsoever small, is denied and any group is forced to relate to Hinduism as a sect or sub-sect. The Sikhs and the Jains and the Buddhists will not accept Hindu hegemony on the ground that they are all branches of the same tree, which has sprang from the same soil. Dharmadhikari J.'s views clearly reflect the Hindutva philosophy. It is time that the Supreme Court free itself of any lurking intellectual subservience to the Hindutva philosophy."
31. The Judgment even expects the National Minority Commission to act in a manner so as to prevent generating
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