‘Unclean job’ junked, only in name

Geetanjali Gayatri

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 13

A week after a controversy erupted around the mention of “unclean occupation” in the admission form to identify beneficiaries for a pre-matric scholarship among school students, its nomenclature stands changed.

The “Pre-matric Scholarship Scheme for Children of Those Engaged in Unclean Occupation” 2011, in the latest circular from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, has been referred to as “Pre-Matric Scholarship to the Children of Those Engaged in Occupations Involving Cleaning and Prone to Health Hazards”. The circular about continuation of the scheme is dated April 2, 2018.

The Manohar Lal Khattar government hoped that the change in name would silence opposition parties, essentially the Congress, which had raised the issue. The BJP had already gone to town to drive home the point that “unclean occupation” was borrowed from the name of the pre-matric scholarship scheme and coined by the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre in 2011.

While the changed nomenclature found mention in the ministry’s latest circular, it was unclear when this had been effected. Though the Education Department maintained that the change had been conveyed in the circular for continuation of the scheme, it could well be an oversight that the change in name and use of “unclean occupation” went unnoticed in the past and got noticed only after the Congress raised a red flag.

Government sources maintained that though the controversial name of pre-matric scholarship for children of parents in “unclean occupation” was conceived during the UPA regime, they admitted that it did not find its way into admission forms till the BJP government assumed power in Haryana.

“It was after the BJP government came to power in the state that emphasis shifted to use of information technology, MIS portal was set up and online admission forms conceptualised. It was during the present government’s tenure that the question pertaining to unclean occupation found its way into the form,” said a government functionary, adding that it had been in admission forms for the past three years, but went unnoticed, even by the Congress.

Former Education Minister and Congress MLA Geeta Bhukkal insisted that the term was not used by the previous Congress government during its term to identify beneficiaries under the scheme. “The scheme may have been named so during the UPA tenure, but it was never circulated in admission forms,” she pointed out.

Rajya Sabha member Kumari Selja said the UPA government did not introduce any such questionnaire during its tenure and the “100-point student admission” form seeking Aadhaar number of students, besides religion and caste, was violative and demeaning.

Congress caught on back foot

The term (‘unclean occupation’) was not used by the previous Congress government during its term. The pre-matric scholarship scheme may have been named so during the UPA tenure, but it was never circulated in admission forms — Geeta Bhukkal, Congress MLA