In a politically loaded move, Kerala’s Left cabinet on Wednesday decided to implement the Rajinder Sachar Committee report on Muslim backwardness, along the lines suggested by its 11-member Paloli Mohammed Kutty committee that had looked into the report.

The 11-member state Government panel headed by CPM central committee member and Kerala’s local administration minister Paloli Mohammed Kutty had come up with a 15-point list of recommendations taking off from the Sachar panel report. This was after the committee, which the Left had thoughtfully populated with both politicians and apolitical opinion leaders in the Muslim community, held its sittings in every district to draw suggestions.

The recommendations, which the state cabinet endorsed on Wednesday, include setting up an independent department for minority welfare and a full-fledged Muslim Welfare Commission, among others.

The committee has urged the government to put in place job quotas in the private sector, besides asking for more schools and colleges for Muslims coupled with more educational support systems like scholarships and hostels. The committee has also asked the government to stop hiring temporary employees in government service, since no community reservation norms could be followed in such recruitments.

Another of its recommendations is to classify government employees on the basis of how they get into service—on the basis of merit or by reservation—so that Muslim candidates could get the full benefits of community reservation.

The cabinet’s endorsement decision may spell advantage all the way for the state’s Left. At one stroke, this may scuttle the congealing anti-Left formation of important casteist and community outfits using the plank of the government attempts to regulate the mostly Christian and Muslim run private self financing colleges, possibly help it re-build some bridges it had burnt with the influential minority sections over the same issue.

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