Q.Muslims ~14.2% of population but <6% Lok Sabha MPs. Hilal (unfair FPTP, need PR), Arif (need Muslim reservation like SC/ST), Saba (need separate Muslim-women quota). Agree/disagree with each?

Each of the three views captures part of the real problem but not the full picture, and they point toward different, not fully compatible, fixes. …

Hilal — "this shows the unfairness of FPTP; we need PR." There is a real basis for this: FPTP can under-represent any group that is a minority in most constituencies, even if it is sizeable nationally, and Muslims being about 14.2% of the population but under 6% of Lok Sabha MPs is consistent with that pattern. But this diagnosis somewhat overstates its case — PR helps any dispersed group's proportional representation generally, not Muslim representation specifically, and a country adopting PR for this one reason would also change outcomes for every other group and party, with trade-offs (weaker constituency accountability, less stable government) the chapter discusses elsewhere. So: partly right, but a broad structural fix for a specific, targeted concern.

Arif — "extend SC/ST-style reservation to Muslims." This is the most constitutionally sensitive of the three. The Constituent Assembly deliberately created reserved constituencies for SC and ST specifically, while explicitly rejecting separate electorates and any comparable arrangement organised around religion — Tajamul Husain's own words in the debates ("keep your hands off reservation for the Muslim community") were a direct rejection of exactly this kind of religion-based reservation, out of concern that it would function like the separate-electorate system communities had already rejected. So while the underlying under-representation Arif points to is real, the specific remedy of SC/ST-style religious reservation runs against the Constituent Assembly's own considered, debated choice — this view deserves scrutiny rather than automatic agreement. …