The Supreme Court’s verdict that a person belonging to the Backward Classes who converts to Islam is not entitled to reservation based on their pre-conversion status does not answer all questions about linkages between caste, religion, backwardness, and reservation. The Court dismissed the Tamil Nadu government’s appeal against a Madras High Court order, which held that a person converting to Islam cannot claim reservations under the Backward Class (Muslim) category solely based on conversion. A bench of Justices Prashant Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar ruled that backwardness suffered in the antecedent social order cannot by itself be carried forward to the religion to which the individual has converted. The case concerned a person who converted to Islam and sought to be identified as a Muslim Lebbai, a backward community. After the local revenue authority turned down his application, he approached the Madras High Court, which, too, rejected his plea.

Questions remain about the Court’s view that a person does not carry their backwardness when they move from one religion to another. Backwardness is a social and economic condition. Many sections among Muslims have been declared backward and are entitled to reservation benefits. Seven communities designated as Other Backward Classes (OBCs) constitute the majority of Muslims in Tamil Nadu. The Rajinder Sachar Committee of 2006 had found that the Muslim community has suffered from social, economic, and educational backwardness similar to the Scheduled Castes and Tribes. The Court said the TN government’s order wrongly treated a person’s historical disadvantage in one religion as sufficient proof of membership in a particular backward class in another religion. The contention here is that social backwardness is tied to a caste structure and that when an individual converts to a non-Hindu social order, that backwardness ceases to exist.

Constitutional provisions regarding reservation for backward classes are based on social and economic backwardness, not on religious status. Article 15(4) and Article 16(4) allow the State to make special provisions for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes of citizens without reference to any religion. While reservations based on Scheduled Caste status are only available to those belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist religions, backward and OBC reservations are religion-neutral. When both the communities in question are backward, why should religious conversion be a measure to deny a person’s entitlement? That might amount to discrimination based on religion and a restriction on the right to practise any religion. (Source: DH)