The 126th Amendment act allows for continuing the reservation of seats for SC & STs in the Lok Sabha (Article 330) and state assemblies (Article 332) for another 10 years, upto January 25, 2030 which was due to end on 25th Jan 2020. Recently, several reports has been also remarked that the Anglo Indians protesting against the 126th Amendment Bill, let us know a bit who these Anglo Indians are what actually they are demanding for?
Historically, during the colonial time, the British East India company managed the male officers to marry Indian women and the vice versa some of the Indian men also married to the British and their children’s further are known to be as Anglo Indians, being small in numbers they were among the administrative family. Then this minority community was officially recognized under the Government of India in the year 1935.
The reservation for Anglo-Indians in the form of “nomination” (Article 331 & 333) is set to expire on 25th Jan 2020 as this Bill does not extend the facility to the community.
But after the Independence, their declining of population was rapidly increasing and the leader of the association (AIAIA) All India Anglo Indian Association Frank Antony a prominent leader of the community demanded the constitutional assembly to provide satisfactory representation for their community it was because that the community was very less in numbers and it was impossible for them to elect the representative and their demand was accepted, by then Anglo Indian were defined under article 366 and the reservation of seats have been provided in the Parliament and state legislative assembly and it has been mentioned in the Article 331 and Article 333.
Read Also, Status of ‘Savar’ tribes in India
Notably, There are 545 seats including 2 seats from Bangalore Indian community. According to census 2011 the numbers of Of this community was just 296 whereas they claim to be more in numbers and are suppose to in some thousands, Reservation of seats in the Parliament and the state legislative assembly have been provided to the SC-ST also, but these reservations are not permanent according to the constitution. As per the Article 344, the constitution-makers said that the reservation that has been provided to SC, ST and Anglo Indian shall cease to exist in 1960, but it was extended by the several governments once every 10 years through amendments.
Consequently, The Government of India introduced 126th Constitution Amendment Bill in the Parliament and the same was passed in December 2019 and this bill provided the extension of reservation only for SC and ST till 2030 and nothing was mentioned for anglo-Indians, it means the reservation has been removed now the 126th Amendment However, Bill has been passed by both the houses of the Parliament and it has become 104th Constitutional Amendment Act.
(Author: Zamir Azad is with founder of Azad Khabar here).
