On Thursday, 7th of April 2022, a controversy broke out on Indian social media over the recruitment practices of Pawan Hans Limited, a Mini Ratna of the Government of India.

As per the viral message circulating on social media, all the new apprentices joining Pawan Hans are ‘Muslims’, with no representation of any other religion.

The controversy started when Pawan Hans limited shared the list of new graduate apprentices to join the organization, and all of them were from one religion.

List of Pawan Hans Apprentices

Once this information go viral, many netizens criticized the Government of India for recruiting People from only one religion for this apprentice program.

Pawan Hans Limited is a government-owned outfit under the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India, that is tasked with providing exclusive helicopter services at offshore locations for Indian Oil companies, and at holy pilgrimage destinations like Kedarnath and Vaishno Devi shrine. They are also used by state governments while dealing with Maoist insurgency.

The controversy reminded people of a similar list of all Muslim candidates selected by West Bengal Police in the year 2020. However, that turned out to be a case of reservation as many Muslim castes are also listed under OBCs in the state of West Bengal. One wondered if this list by Pawan Hans Limited had a similar reason.

However, it seems that this is not a case of reservations for Muslim candidates due to any OBC list, but due to an exclusive agreement of Pawan Hans Limited (PHL) with Jamia Milia Islamia, a ‘minority educational institute’ based in New Delhi.

In the year 2017, Pawan Hans Limited had entered into an agreement for a two and a half years full-time basic aircraft maintenance training course in collaboration with Jamia Millia Islamia University. In all probability, the list viral on social media is the list of students enrolled in the aforementioned course of Jamia Milia Islamia being run in collaboration with Pawan Hans Limited.

This possibility is confirmed when one searches for the names of the students as seen on the list along with the name of Jamia Millia Islamia University. The search results take us to LinkedIn profiles of these students, which confirm them being students of Jamia Milia Islamia, pursuing courses like B.Sc. (Aeronautics) and B.Sc. (Aviation).

It thus indicates that Jamila Milia Islamia could be admitting only Muslim students in their courses being run in partnership with Pawan Hans Limited. We tried to confirm the same by calling Mohammad Ameer, the Joint General Manager (Aviation Academy) with Pawan Hans Limited but we could not get any answer. We will continue to pursue the story and will update this article as and when we get more updates.

If the list indeed is of Jamia Millia Students being given apprenticeships at Pawan Hans Limited, it raises a serious question as to how come not a single non-Muslim student could find their way to the list. Did the university not find a single non-Muslim student worth enrolling in the aviation courses being funded by a government outfit?

The incident also points out the merits in demand of many activists who have been asking that reservations for SC/STs must be implemented in ‘minority institutes’ because such institutes have poor diversity in admissions, perhaps owing to a prejudicial admission system. A constitutional change will be needed in order to make institutes like Jamia Millia Islamia implement reservations for SC/STs to avoid a repeat of such a scenario.

References:

opindia.com