Was the Delimitation Commission Unfair to Muslims?

In the Sachar Committee report, a report from 2006 about the socio-economic status of Muslims in India, it was stated that a number of constituencies (electoral districts) reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs) have a high proportion of Muslims and a low proportion of SCs, while there are many general (unreserved) constituencies with fewer Muslims and more SCs. Some have interpreted this as an allegation that the Delimitation Commission in the 1970s willfully assigned constituencies reserved for SCs to areas with a high Muslim population. Since this delimitation was in force for more than 30 years (1974–2007), this could have seriously undermined the representation of Muslims in India. In this article I use archival evidence from the Election Commission records as well as unique statistical data of the Muslim population across Indian constituencies in the 1970s to show that there is no evidence that such a systematic discrimination took place. Looking at data from 14 Indian states, I show that the Muslim population is on average lower in reserved constituencies than in general ones. This is mainly due to the fact that reserved seats by construction have a high concentration of SCs, and therefore a lower concentration of other groups. On comparing reserved and general constituencies with similar proportions of SCs, I find that there is no statistically significant difference in the proportion of Muslims in reserved and general areas. These results do not suggest that Muslims have been adequately represented in Indian politics, but simply that it is unfounded allegation that Muslims have been over-represented in reserved constituencies.