Amid quota cacophony, Muslim youth in Telangana & Andhra Pradesh turn the corner

HYDERABAD: Some journeys are planned and a few happen, paved with opportunities that drive transformation. Munsif's* began in 2009, and it wasn't just about travelling the 300-odd km between the fields of Asifabad and the classrooms of Osmania University in Hyderabad.

Born to farmer parents, he is the first from his family to go where he has, with three higher-education degrees and a job that pays him more a month than his kin combined would have ever hoped to earn.

This first-generation learner acknowledges that he might have been tilling a patch of land with his siblings had the seed of change not been sown through an administrative decision .

In 2007, after debate and deliberation, the then Y S Rajasekhar Reddy-led govt of undivided Andhra Pradesh declared a 4% quota for 14 economically backward sections of Muslim community in educational institutions and jobs.

Depending on which side one is in, the decision remains a hot-button topic. But Munsif and scores of others like him who grabbed that opportunity can't help but wonder where they would have been without the benefit of reservation.

"It worries me that the current political discourse centres on reservation. I have no qualms about admitting to being a beneficiary of the quota system, but I don't want to become a target of any political group," says the 34-year-old with a PhD in economics. A decade after the reservation tweak , the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led BRS govt in Telangana proposed to raise the quota to 12%. The Centre refused.

It is estimated that over 20 lakh Muslim students have benefited from the BC-E quota in the state to date, earning degrees in engineering, medicine, pharmacy, and business administration, among other fields.

Amer* is one among them. Just over a decade ago, his autorickshaw driver father would struggle to put food on the table. Life changed for the better after Amer completed his master's in pharmaceutical sciences. "I have a job in a pharmaceutical company that pays me well," says the 30-year-old, who lives and works in Secunderabad.

When the going was tough, he would take up odd jobs-even drive an auto, like his father-to supplement the family income. His engineer brother, who is employed with a large tech company in Hyderabad's IT corridor, would do the same. "Yes, I am a beneficiary of the quota system. But I am scared to admit it these days," says Amer.

He had initially invited TOI to his house for a chat, only to change the plan at the last minute.

IT analyst Shabbir*, too, was reluctant to speak, agreeing to a conversation only when he was assured that his real identity wouldn't be divulged. "Growing up in AP's Anantapur, I thought - like most people from my background - that I would maybe open a cybercafe or run a cable dealership. But then, I got a BTech seat at a college in Kurnool through the BC-E quota, and my life changed, recounts the young man, the oldest of three siblings.

Shabbir, whose father was a cement dealer before an accident left him unemployed, bought a house in the city to give his parents the life they never dreamt of.

"The other benefit of reservation has been that I have got married. Otherwise, who would give their daughter to a man without a decent degree or job?" Shabbir quips.

Similar success stories resonate across AP and Telangana. Mohammed Shabbir Ali's book, The Struggle, narrates dozens of accounts of Muslim girls and boys who embraced transformative change.

*Names changed to protect identities