Report of the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (Ranganath Misra Report)

The National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM) also known as Ranganath Misra Commission after its chairman Justice Ranganath Misra was constituted in October 2004 by the the Government of India to recommend practical measures for the welfare of socially and economically backward sections among religious and linguistic minorities.

The Prime Ministers High Level Committee, PMHLC (also known as Sachar Committee) constituted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, studied and identified the socio-economic and educational backwardness of the Muslim community in India and these findings became a topic of national discussion in India.

The Ranganath Misra Commission was entrusted by the Government of India to suggest practical measures for the upliftment of the socially and economically backward sections among religious and linguistic minorities and to include the modalities of implimentation for the same.

The final report of the Ranganath Misra Commission (NCRLM) was submitted to the government in May 2007 but it was not tabled in the Parliament until it got leaked to the media. Amidst sustained pressure from Members of Parliament the NCRLM Report was finally tabled in the Lok Sabha on Friday, Dec 18, 2009 by Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid.

The Ranganath Misra Commission (NCRLM) made the following important recommendations:

Atleast 15 percent of seats in all nonminority educational institutions should be earmarked by law for the minorities as with 10 percent for the Muslims (commensurate with their 73 percent share in the total minority population at the national level) and the remaining 5 percent for the other minorities.

15 percent share be earmarked for the minorities – with a break-up of 10 percent for the Muslims in all government schemes like Rural Employment Generation Programme, Prime Minister’s Rozgar Yojna, Grameen Rozgar Yojna, etc.

15 percent of posts in all cadres and grades under the Central and State Governments should be earmarked for the minorities – with a break-up of 10 percent for the Muslims.

The Commission thorugh an amendment was entrusted with an additional term of reference with regards to the Scheduled Caste status, and the commission made the following recommendation:

“…we recommend that Para 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950 – which originally restricted the Scheduled Caste net to the Hindus and later opened it to Sikhs and Buddhists, thus still excluding from its purview the Muslims, Christians, Jains and Parsis, etc. – should be wholly deleted by appropriate action so as to completely de-link the Scheduled Caste status from religion and make the Scheduled Castes net fully religion-neutral like that of the Scheduled Tribes.”

You can read or download the full report at the link below.

National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM) or Ranganath Misra Report.

Annexure to the NCRLM Report.