No Clarity if Centre Implemented National Commission for Minorities' Recommendations in Last 10 Years

Srinagar: In the past decade after the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) came to power at the Centre, the Union government received 1495 recommendations from the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) but it is unclear whether any of them have been implemented, official data shows. 

The disclosure attains significance against the backdrop of accusations that after decades of neglect and discrimination, the situation of minorities particularly Muslims was getting worse in the country since 2014 when the saffron party first came to power.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union government has faced accusations of turning India into a Hindu nation and its largest Muslim minority into “second class citizens” while independent watchdogs such as Early Warning and Genocide Watch have warned that there are telltale signs of genocide in India, a charge denied by the government. 

In response to a Right to Information (RTI) query, the NCM has disclosed that 127 recommendations were sent to the Union government in 2015-16, 53 in 2016-17, 246 in 2017-2018, 206 in 2018-19, 150 in 2019-2020, 16 in 2020-21, 55 in 2021-2022, 226 in 2022-23, 245 in 2023-24 and 171 in 2024-25. 

“These recommendations are under consideration in the Ministry of Minority Affairs,” the commission said in response to a RTI query by Srinagar-based transparency activist M.M. Shuja.

Former central information commissioner (CIC) M.M. Ansari said that the commission was established as a watchdog for protecting the constitutional interests of minorities, mainly in the areas of education, healthcare, human rights violations and other discriminatory practices.

In the past, the commission has made recommendations for meaningful integration of madrasas with the formal education system, financial assistance to poor minority students, opening schools and Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) where Muslim population is concentrated and removing encroachment from the graveyards of Muslims. 

“Sadly, pre-matric scholarships given to meritorious students has been discontinued which has adversely affected performance and participation of students from poor families,” he said. 

Muslims (14.2%) are the country’s biggest minority group followed by Christians (2.3%), Sikhs (1.7%), Buddhists (0.7%), Jains (0.4%) and Parsis (0.006%).

“The commission has also demanded the status of a constitutional body at par with the National Commission for Scheduled caste/Tribes. Unfortunately, these recommendations have not been accepted and implemented,” Ansari said.

The RTI data shows that NCM received 9824 complaints from 1 August, 2020 to 31 August, 2025 out of which 8586 were disposed of. However, the commission didn’t provide details about the complaints “addressed” and “disposed off” during this period.

“The commission didn’t disclose figures about the incidents from 2014 to 2025 either in which people from the minority community were injured or killed and whether any compensation was provided to the next of kin of deceased or injured victims,” Shuja told The Wire.

The NCM which works under the Union ministry of minority affairs presently headed by senior BJP leader Kiren Rijuju was set up in 1992 with quasi-judicial powers under the National Commission of Minorities Act 1992.

The act empowers the Union government to appoint “persons of eminence, ability and integrity” from six minority communities which make the country’s 19.3% population presently to “make recommendations for the effective implementation of safeguards for the protection of the interests of minorities” and look into “specific complaints regarding deprivation of rights and safeguards of the minorities”.

Under rules, the NCM should be made of seven members including the chairperson and the vice-chairperson. However, the commission which was last headed by Iqbal Singh Lalpura, former Indian Police Service officer and a BJP leader has been functioning without chairperson or members since April 2025. 

“At present, the position of members in the commission are vacant,” the RTI reply states.

Stating that the commission fell short of living up its legal mandate even under the previous governments at the Centre, Ansari regretted its present “defunct” state which he said highlighted the BJP-led Union government’s indifference and apathy towards the country’s minorities. 

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"Earlier when the commission was functional, it didn’t have all the members from different recognised minorities. Now if there are genuine grievances of any kind with any minority community, there is no forum where they could approach and take up their matter. They have nowhere to go. If anyone files a complaint of human rights violation or deprivation of their rights, there is no one to investigate it to take remedial action,” he said.

“To expect that the commission will look into the interests of minorities is a bit far-fetched. There are deliberate attempts to marginalise the Muslim community, both politically and economically,” he said, citing the recent incident in Indore where Muslim salesmen were forced out of businesses.

Under the BJP, the political representation of the minorities in the parliament has also come down. Before the BJP came to power, there were 30 Muslim lawmakers in the parliament out of 543 and only one was a member of the saffron party. 

Now, there are only 25 Muslim lawmakers and none belong to the BJP.

The delay in the appointment of chairperson or members of the NCM is also reported to have impacted the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions, an advisory body to the Union government which is aimed to safeguard the educational rights of minorities.

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A statement by the Press Bureau of India (PBI) in December last year noted that the Union government has identified 90 districts (out of 780 districts or 11.54%) with a high concentration of minorities to “focus resources on their upliftment,” even though minorities make up 19.3% of the country. 

The commission has 33 staff members and 26 vacancies, per RTI data. Ansari said that the Union government was “unnecessarily” keeping it running and “wasting resources” on their salaries. 

“The government is showing as if they are spending money on the minorities because the salaries paid to NCM officials and other day-to-day establishment expenditure of the commission will be counted as expenditure on the welfare and development of minorities which is very misleading,” he said.

The commission has also said that it doesn’t have any information about the land of minorities which has been encroached. 

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