As the Centre has appointed a commission headed by former Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan to look into demands to include Dalits who had converted to Islam and Christianity in the Centre’s list of Scheduled Castes, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Monday said that the demand to allocate reservation to “converts” is “anti-constititional” and “anti-national”.
The right-wing body invoked B R Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and even Indira Gandhi, who they said, had termed the demand “unwarranted”. The VHP says that it will now carry out a nationwide awareness campaign against the demand.
In a press conference in Delhi, the VHP said that these demands aim to steal the benefits of reservation from Hindus. “The slicing demand to steal the benefit of reservation to allocate it to the converts from the scheduled communities is not only anti-constitutional and anti-national but also a daylight operation of dacoity on the rights of the Scheduled Castes,” the VHP said in a release.
At the conference, Dr Surendra Jain, joint general secretary of the VHP said that the "unreasonable demand" is "a plot against social justice" and against the basic spirit of the Constitution.
He said that in 1932, when they signed the Poona Pact, Dr B R Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi had agreed on reservations to Scheduled Castes. While Gandhi had protested against the British government’s decision to grant reservation, he eventually agreed on setting aside 147 seats.
"In 1936, Mahatma Gandhi and Dr Ambedkar held this demand as unfounded and unwarranted. When this demand was raised again in the Constituent Assembly, Dr. Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution, rejected it, proving and holding it to be anti-national," the VHP said. "Late Jawaharlal Nehru and late Indira Gandhi had also termed this demand as unreasonable."
The VHP said that to oppose this "illegal" demand, it will run a nationwide public awareness campaign.