'UNMAKING' OF PROTECTION

EMOCRACY rarely collapses in spectacle. It erodes consider- ably quietly through notifica- tions, amendments, withdraw- als and administrative decisions that appear procedur- al but alter the Republic’s mor- al grammar. Maharashtra’s decision to scrap the five percent reservation for Mus- lims in education is one such moment.

- THAMIZHACHI THANGAPANDIAN

Reservations in India were never conceived as charity. They were instruments of historical correction—acknowledgements that structural exclusion cannot be undone by mere declarations of equality. When the Constitution promised social, economic and political justice through special provisions in Article 15(4), it recognised that neutrality in an unequal society perpetuates inequality itself.

Maharashtra’s Muslim quota had emerged from empirical findings. The Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee (2006) documented that Muslims in India lagged behind national averages in literacy, access to higher education, formal employment and public sector representation. Subsequent state-level backward class commissions in Maharashtra identified sections of the Muslim community as socially and educationally backward, forming the legal basis for targeted reservation in education.

National Sample Survey data have consistently shown higher dropout rates and lower access to professional education among Muslim youth, particularly in urban informal settlements. In such a context, affirmative action was a corrective policy grounded in measurable disadvantage.

Its removal, therefore, raises a deeper question: When evidence-based welfare becomes politically expendable, what message is sent to minorities about their place in the Republic?