In a recent article, The Manufactured Myth of Muslim Appeasement , the author makes an attempt to explain how the hype about Minority Appeasement in India is actually a myth. I pretty much agree with this article. I have a very simple explanation of why there "there is nothing like minority appeasement".
There is nothing like Muslim/Minority appeasement because the affirmative actions aimed at benefiting the minorities are just compensation towards what they have already lost in terms of lives, livelihoods, their houses, and their right to live a dignified life!
This "minority appeasement" arises mainly because of two reasons: Communal Riots and Denial of Affirmative action. In almost all the communal riots in India, in the recent past, the minorities - be it Muslims, Sikhs, Christians - are the sufferers. In an overwhelming majority of the cases of communal violence, it is the Muslims who have suffered. As of now Hundreds of Thousands of Muslims are now displaced all over India. The Gujarat riots (2002), in which about 2000 Muslims lost their lives, and an estimated 150,000 people were displaced during the violence. In Assam, in 2002, in the Bodo-Muslim communal riots, 77 people had died and over 400,000 people were taking shelter in 270 relief camps. In the recent communal riots in Muzaffarnagar (UP) in 2013, the violence claimed 43 lives and injured 93, and displaced over 50,000 people. The violence often accompanied incidents gang-rapes of the minority women.
In the repeated incidents of communal violence, lives, livelihoods, houses, and human dignity, all are lost. Who suffers the most: almost exclusively, it is the minorities that suffer! So any measure towards the rehabilitation of those who suffered from these communal riots are supposed to benefits the minorities. How can, then, any political party, or section of population, call it minority appeasement? Is it not a civic/human right to be compensated for ones loss in a communal riot? Calling these rehabilitatory measures "minority appeasement" is inhuman. And those who make these allegations are insane.
Another question often arises as to why minorities need to be given reservation, or any kind of affirmative action, etc. The reason is, once again, that it is a compensation against what they lose because of denial of their rights. In order to uplift the quality lives of the poor and the oppressed, the affirmative actions are ensured for them. The presidential order of 1950 discriminates against Muslims/Christians in the sense that they are not entitled to Scheduled Caste reservation. A section of the Christians get Scheduled Tribes reservations and Muslims hardly get any of these reservation. So Muslims as a religious community, suffer due to a systemic discrimination.
As a result of the affirmative action given to SC/ST communities, their poverty is declining and they are getting mainstreamed. However, Muslims don't get these reservations, so the poor Muslims, are not getting enough opportunities to getting mainstreamed. So, any measure towards Reservation for Minorities is also not a "special favor", it just a compensation towards the deprivation caused by the presidential order. Thus, rehabilitatory measures and affirmative actions aimed at improving the quality of lives of minorities, are not "appeasement". These their civic/human rights. So, there is nothing like minority appeasement!
