Patna: To add to the cases of religious profiling of Muslims by banks, several cases have been reported from Seemanchal region of Bihar where discrimination by banks has not only created problems for Muslim students, but has also put the nation to shame.
“When we received complaints that banks were not ready to open accounts on zero-balance for Muslim students for scholarship purpose, we visited the banks. The officials told us that they did not receive direction from concerned department to open nil-balance accounts,” said Mohammad Adil Hassan who has been working for the awareness among Muslim students of Semanchal region regarding minority scholarship.
Talking to TwoCircles.net, Mr. Adil highlighted the way profiling of Muslim students is being done by none other than State Bank, Allahabad Bank, Utter Bihar Garamin Bank and Central Bank. In some cases when students approached these banks, the concerned officials told them that forms were unavailable.
State Bank of India, Patliputra Branch, Patna [TCN Photo: By Mudassir Rizwan]
Mr. Adil is the convener of Surjapuri Vikas Parishad (SVP). To create awareness among Muslim students about scholarship, SVP has organized 42 camps in different places of Katihar, Purnia, Araria, Kishangunj, west Champaran, East Champaran and Nalanda districts. SVP has also distributed 50 thousand scholarship forms among them.
“We met Home secretary of Bihar Government Amir Subhani and DMs of all the concerned districts in this regard. They promised swift action in this regard but so far I don’t see any impact on the ground level,” he added.
He informed that SVP is going to submit 22 thousand forms of scholarship but thanks to religious profiling, out of 22 thousand only 12 applicants are those of account holders.
He has decided to meet union minister for Minority Affair, Mr Salman Khurshid. He will request Mr. Khurshid to take immediate action on this whole issue, so that millions of poor students won’t get deprived from getting the scholarship.
Problems arising out of discrimination against Muslims are being reported across the country. Recently, a report of the RBI revealed that the number of bank account-holders in the 121 Minority Concentration Districts increased by only four per cent during 2008-2009, compared with an increase of 83.80 per cent during 2007-2008.
According to Andhra Pradesh state Minorities Commission report last year over 90,000 Muslim students in the state could not open scholarship bank accounts thanks to bank officials’ behavior. The National Commission for Minority also received twice the number of banking-related complaints during 2009-2010.
This disturbing trend has emerged in spite of the RBI circular to banks which clearly mentions that “…with a view to achieving the objective of greater financial inclusion, all UCBs are advised to make available a basic banking 'no-frills' account either with 'nil' or very low minimum balances as well as charges that would make such accounts accessible to vast sections of population…”
However, taking these disturbing reports seriously, the Ministry of Minority Affairs wrote to the Chief Secretaries of all the states asking them to put this illegal behavior on an end and pave the way for Muslim students to open the accounts in the banks, as per reported by The Hindu.
Mr. Vivek Mehrotra, secretary, Ministry of Minority Affair also wrote to Union Financial Services Secretary, R. Gopalan and to Reserve Bank Governor D. Subbarao and sought enforcement of the 2005 RBI guidelines to the banks on opening basic no-frills accounts.
However, it is yet to be seen, how these new instructions to the banks will help minority students in getting easy access to banks, without facing this vicious monster called religious profiling.
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