Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala and Karnataka stand out for extending reservation to Muslim community through the policy of affirmative action since the colonial days, according to Justice Rajinder Schar Committee on Social Economic and Educational Status of Mulsims in India. In terms of their policy of reservation for backward classes, Kerala and Karnataka stand out having extended the benefit of reservation to their entire Muslim population, the Committee report said.

In both the states, Muslims have been included as a distinct group within the broad category of backward classes and then provided with exclusive quota. In the erstwhile princely state of Mysore (now Karnataka), affirmative action began as early as 1874 when a government decision reserved 80 percent of the posts in police department for non-Brahmins, Muslims and Indian Christians, the report said.

In Kerala, the demand for reservation for under-represented communities was accepted as early in 1936 in the princely states of Travancore and Cochin and even earlier in 1921 in British ruled Malabar (north Kerala). As part of this, quotas were fixed not only for caste groups such as Ezhavas, but also for Muslim and sections of Christians.

On reorganisation of the state of Mysore as Karnataka after independence, all non-Brahmin Hindu castes and all non-Hindu minorities were declared as backward classes, it said.