It speaks for the way the Union government functions that while faced with an Akali demand for amending the Constitution to exclude the Sikhs from being treated as Hindus under Article 25, it did not even care to find out why and how the original provision had been made in the first instance. The charge of casualness, of course, applies to the entire political community, including opposition parties and commentators. Though many of them are as appalled at the Akali agitation and tactics as those in authority, they too did not go into the history of the constitutional provision. So the “debate” between the supporters and opponents of the Akali demand would have gone on with no reference to facts generating more heat than light if the Prime Minister had not brought up the issue in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday on the basis of a note sent by a member of Parliament. Accordingly Mrs. Gandhi made the point that Article 25 had been drafted specifically in order to accommodate the Akali demand then that mazhabi Sikhs be granted the same privileges by way of reservations as Hindu scheduled castes. This should have made the Akali chief, Sant Longowal, sit up. But instead of checking the facts, he, as is his style, rushed a public statement charging that the Prime Minister had misled the country. Dr. Rafiq Zakaria has now recalled the facts in detail and thereby clinched the issue. The Akali Dal was a party to Article 25 if only because it had no choice since it wanted mazhabi Sikhs to receive certain advantages.
It was open to question then whether or not the same safeguards should be extended to mazhabi Sikhs as were given to Hindu scheduled castes and it is open to question now. Whatever Sardar Patel might have said in the Constituent Assembly, and whatever arguments the Kaka Kalelkar commission might have advanced, it is legitimate to take the view that the mazhabi Sikhs do not suffer from the same disabilities as the Hindu scheduled castes. For whether the Sikhs are a separate community or not, they are different from the Hindus inasmuch as they have not practiced un-touchability. Indeed, the most orthodox Hindus too have not treated the mazhabi Sikhs as untouchables. Thus this issue will need to be reopened if the Akalis continue to press their demand for amending Article 25. They can argue that positive discrimination in favour of mazhabi Sikhs should continue on the ground that they are still backward in economic and educational terms. But this argument is pretty thin. Backwardness is very different from the social disabilities that the Harijans among the Hindus or even the neo-Buddhists suffer from. Moreover, if this distinction is blurred in the case of the mazhabi Sikhs, it will be extremely difficult to resist the demand for a similar treatment from other converts. And such a concession will effectively undermine the constitution and the political system based on it. The Akalis should, therefore, review their stand. Even they cannot expect to gain anything by disrupting the whole system.