{"id":176835,"date":"2022-03-30T19:55:20","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T14:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=176835"},"modified":"2022-03-30T19:55:20","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T14:25:20","slug":"hindu-as-minority-governments-affidavit-is-consistent-with-the-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/hindu-as-minority-governments-affidavit-is-consistent-with-the-constitution\/","title":{"rendered":"Hindu as minority: Government\u2019s affidavit is consistent with the Constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

News: <\/strong>This week, the Government of India submitted a detailed affidavit in the Supreme Court on the issue of who is a minority, and how minorities are defined in the Constitution.<\/p>\n

About Government\u2019s affidavit:<\/strong><\/p>\n

It states about granting minority status to Hindus in Kashmir, Ladakh, Punjab, a few Northeastern states, and Lakshadweep<\/strong>. The affidavit says Hindus can be declared a minority in a few states, and avail minority welfare schemes under Articles 38 and 46.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The affidavit says minorities are defined both nationally and at the level of states.<\/p>\n

The definition of minority<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMinorities\u201d (or \u201cminority\u201d) appears at four places in the Constitution <\/strong>\u2014 in the headnotes of Articles 29 and 30, and clauses (1) and (2) of Article 30<\/strong>. The Constitution does not define \u201cminority\u201d.<\/p>\n

First, <\/strong>a minority is a group that is numerically smaller<\/strong> than the majority in a society. Lack of numbers alone is not a guide to any authoritative definition. In apartheid South Africa<\/strong>, minorities exercised power and domination over the rest of the society.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong> definition of minority is that the group must be non-dominant in society and the polity. <\/strong>Minorities, such as, Muslims satisfy both the tests, viz. numerical inferiority and non-domination. Their representation in Parliament and state Assemblies is at an all-time low.<\/p>\n

The Constitution talks of only religious and linguistic minorities. It does not recognise sexual minorities such as LGBTQ+. Also, the Supreme Court has accepted only the numerical inferiority test, i.e., less than 50% <\/strong>in a state\u2019s population, for a group to be recognised as a minority under Article 30(1).<\/p>\n

Supreme Court Judgements:<\/strong><\/p>\n

In \u2018Re: The Kerala Education Bill\u2019<\/strong> (1958) the court explicitly rejected districts as a unit to determine the minority status of a group within the state. The apex court took the \u201cstate\u201d as a unit <\/strong>to determine the minority status of groups claiming themselves as minorities.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018TMA Pai Foundation<\/strong>\u2019 (2003) laid down that in the absence of any special definition of \u201cminorities\u201d, any community, religious or linguistic<\/strong>, which is numerically less than 50 per cent of the population of a state is entitled to the protection of minority rights.<\/p>\n

Thus, Hindus are entitled to recognition as a linguistic minority in the whole of India, not just seven states\/UTs.<\/p>\n

Religious, linguistic minority<\/strong><\/p>\n

Article 30<\/strong> gives the same rights to religious and linguistic minorities, but does not say that these minorities must necessarily be determined at the level of the state.<\/p>\n

Two views are possible<\/strong> as to the recognition of minorities.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. One approach<\/strong> can be to define religious minorities nationally and linguistic minorities on the basis of the state.<\/li>\n
  2. The second approach<\/strong> can be to accept the dissenting opinion of Justice Ruma Pal in TMA Pai Foundation.<\/strong> It states that if a law of Parliament is being challenged, minorities must be defined nationally; if it is a state law, then minorities must be determined at the state level keeping in view numerical inferiority within the state concerned.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In 1930, the erstwhile Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ)<\/strong> had defined community not in terms of numbers, but in terms of shared religious, racial, and linguistic traditions.. The existence of a community is not dependent upon recognition by law. In N Ammad <\/strong>(1998), the Supreme Court rightly held that minority status is a matter of fact, and does not require state recognition or declaration.<\/p>\n

    Source: This post is created based on the article \u201cGlobalization is dying: Long may the phenomenon live\u201d published on 30th<\/sup> March in <\/strong>Indian Express.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    News: This week, the Government of India submitted a detailed affidavit in the Supreme Court on the issue of who is a minority, and how minorities are defined in the Constitution. About Government\u2019s affidavit: It states about granting minority status to Hindus in Kashmir, Ladakh, Punjab, a few Northeastern states, and Lakshadweep. The affidavit says… Continue reading Hindu as minority: Government\u2019s affidavit is consistent with the Constitution<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10500],"class_list":["post-176835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}