What should have happened in the normal course of things cannot be produced in a flash when carefully planned for. The Sachar committee report on the status of Indian Muslims, tabled last November, would embarrass any nation that calls itself a secular republic. Implicit in the report was a record of long neglect, the reasons for which may have been complicated by history, politics, economics, and geography, but which were also never adequately addressed. It is too late now to blame political leaders and heads of the minority community for the present status of a huge section of Indian Muslims. It is enough that what should have happened naturally in a secular republic — a shared struggle against poverty and backwardness by the minority community together with all underprivileged groups — did not happen. Action will now have to be taken by the government on the basis of the committee’s report: an election is a good taskmaster. The plans the Centre has evolved to address the issues raised by the report sound promising, but implementation might turn out to be both difficult and slow.

The three scholarship schemes that the United Progressive Alliance government has proposed to encourage meritorious students from the community to pursue higher studies — one scheme meant for 20,000 students going into technical and professional courses has been passed — may be truly useful. For these to work, however, the targeted population would have to be as alert as the bureaucracy would have to be efficient. Women’s education, the reconciling of madarsa education to mainstream examinations, technical education for children of artisan families who have dropped out of school would all become meaningful when applied with neutrality and attention. Delimiting constituencies to increase political representation of the community, the equal opportunities commission, and all other measures being promised are an almost point-by-point response to the Sachar report. So much so that it looks like anxiety — at not being able to take the easy way out and provide reservations, perhaps, with the elections closing in and charges of chumminess with the United States of America blowing in the wind. It is good to know that concrete measures are being thought of. But policies through the years have done little to improve the lot of the truly backward in this country, irrespective of their community. A change for the better will take quite a while to show.