TRICHY: The Catholic Association of Trichy Diocese has embarked upon creating a 'minority vote bank' which it said would fight for their collective rights. The association held a meeting at St Joseph's college on Sunday and passed a few resolutions including converting dalit Christians into the dalit fold for the purpose of reservation.

The first ever socio-religious-political revival meeting also pressed for the implementation of the recommendation of the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities. The Ranganath Misra Commission had recommended that a 15% share be earmarked for the minorities with a break up of 10% for the Muslims (as they form 73% of the total minority population) and 5% for other minorities in all government schemes. The meeting demanded that the dalit Christians should be accorded the status of dalits under the constitution for the sake of availing the benefits of government reservation policy and other subsidies. The meeting passed 10 resolutions including one against death penalty and asked the Christians to vote for candidates who did not have religious or caste leanings.

Interestingly, the Muslim community too organized a similar conference for the welfare of minorities on the same premises demanding implementation of a charter of resolutions that were passed at the meeting. The apolitical organizers had invited Sehba Farooqui, the national vice-president of All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA), the women's wing of the CPI(M), to Trichy to plead for 10% reservation for Muslims.

Farooqui said that a mere meeting would not bring in the desired effect, but it must be a sustained fight for a social betterment of minorities including Muslims rather than the change of government or seeking sops from the political masters. This meeting passed a resolution to implement the Sachar committee report that had mentioned that the rate of literacy rate among the Muslims is very much below the national average and children of Muslim parents in the 6-14 age group had either never attended school or have dropped out.

Farooqui later told TOI that the minorities' welfare meeting must fight against the stereotyping of Muslims as uneducated, backward people always wearing a prayer cap and sporting a beard. "You must understand the politics of stereotyping of Muslims and they must realize that they cannot fight alone in the long battle."

