Holy cow! Decoding UP’s ‘sanatan’ funds

Temple improvement stays the central focus. (Rajasthan’s funds speech talked about a direct announcement of Rs 541 crore for temple improvement. A deeper dive might reveal a fair greater allocation.) Aside from temple improvement, cattle welfare and non secular tourism, what may be the opposite defining options of ‘sanatan budgeting’? Most pointedly—its deafening silence on minorities, who discovered no point out within the funds speech.

The Uttar Pradesh funds not solely revealed omissions but in addition cuts. Within the 2024–25 funds, Rs 2,000 crore was earmarked for minorities; this 12 months, the quantity has been diminished to Rs 1,998 crore. For a group comprising 20 per cent of the state’s inhabitants, the allocation now falls beneath that for stray cattle. It is usually value noting that in 2016–17, the funds for minorities stood at Rs 3,055 crore, highlighting a major decline through the years. Madrasas, which stay the first supply of schooling for a lot of economically deprived Muslims in UP, will not be touched upon within the funds. There was no enhance in scholarships for minority college students, regardless of the pressing want for particular provisions, notably for the schooling of Muslim ladies.

Census knowledge reveals that solely 50 per cent of Muslim ladies make it to high school, and of those that do, almost 80 per cent drop out. These issues discover no place within the funds. After his state funds was offered, Yogi Adityanath declared it was “devoted to sanatan”. If prioritising temple improvement over important public companies, allocating extra funds for stray cattle than for sports activities or minority welfare and pumping assets into spiritual tourism over well being and schooling is what ‘sanatan’ is all about, then that imaginative and prescient has been realised.

The query is, at what price?