Govt to reconsider minority tag for Hindus in some states
NEW DELHI: The Union government will initiate a “wide consultation” with states and other stakeholders to examine a plea as to whether Hindus can be granted minority status in states where their numbers are less than those of other communities, an affidavit filed by the Centre in the Supreme Court said on Monday, indicating a withdrawal of its previous stand on the issue.
To obviate “unintended complications for the country in future”, the government said, it is submitting a fresh affidavit in supersession of its previous affidavit filed on March 27 when the Centre sought dismissal of a bunch of writ petitions and defended the 1992 National Commission for Minorities (NCM) Act and the 2004 National Commission for Minorities Educational Institutions (NCMEI) Act.
Under the NCM Act, the central government has notified only six communities, namely Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists, Parsis and Jains, as minorities at the national level. The NCMEI Act entitles the six communities notified under the NCM Act to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.
At that time, the Centre put the onus on states and Union territories (UTS) to take a call on whether or not to grant minority status to Hindus where they are numerically less. It also said that both the Centre and states have the legislative competence to enact laws on the protection of minorities.
“After filing of the aforesaid affidavit, the central government undertook a detailed intraministerial discussion based upon which it is decided to file the present affidavit in supersession of the earlier affidavit...the question involved in this writ petition has far-reaching ramifications throughout the country and, therefore, any stand taken without detailed deliberations with the stakeholders may
result in an unintended complication for the country,” stated the affidavit, filed through the Union ministry of home affairs.
It underlined that although the power is vested with the central government to notify minorities, the stand to be formulated by the Centre with regard to issues raised in the batch of petitions on the issue will be finalised after a wide consultation with the state governments and other stakeholders.
The government has apparently made a retreat from the stand it previously took in the clutch of petitions, led by Delhi BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, in 2020. In its previous affidavit, the Centre termed Upadhyay’s plea “untenable and misconceived in law”. However, in the affidavit filed on Monday evening, the government said that the question involved in Upadhyay’s petition “has far-reaching ramifications throughout the country”.
On March 30, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that his government favours redefining the minority status of religious groups district–wise instead of taking the country as a whole. Addressing the state assembly, Sarma said that Muslims are a majority in several districts of Assam, adding even Hindus can be termed as minority if there is a threat to their religion, culture and education. He added that the state will try to become a party to Upadhyay’s petition in the top court.
Upadhyay, in his petition, has challenged the validity of Section 2(f) of the 2004 NCMEI Act on the ground that it gives unbridled powers to the Centre to restrict minority benefits to the notified six religious communities.
The petition further sought directions to the Centre for laying down guidelines for the identification of minority communities at the state-level “to ensure that only those religious and linguistic groups which are socially, economically, politically non-dominant and numerically inferior, can establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.”
The petition, filed through advocate Ashwani Dubey, stated that Hindus are merely 1% in Ladakh, 2.75% in Mizoram, 2.77% in Lakshadweep, 4% in Jammu & Kashmir, 8.74% in Nagaland, 11.52% in Meghalaya, 29% in Arunachal Pradesh, 38.49% in Punjab, and 41.29% in Manipur.
The petition also questioned the creation of the National Minority Commission (NMC) and the Minority Education Commission.
After a bench headed by justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, on January 31, imposed a fine of ₹7,500 on the Centre for not taking a stand on whether Hindus can be declared as minorities in six states and three UTS due to lower numerical strength, the government filed its affidavit on March 27 to oppose the prayers.
The Centre’s affidavit maintained that notification of any community specific to a state as a minority comes under the purview of the state concerned. “The state governments can also declare a religious or linguistic community as a ‘minority community’ within the state,” it said.
To illustrate this, the Centre pointed out that the Maharashtra government notified Jews as a minority community in 2016. The Karnataka government notified Urdu, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, Tulu, Lamani, Hindi, Konkani and Gujarati languages as minority languages, the affidavit said.
It added that the 1992 National Commission for Minorities Act does not give any absolute power to the central government for notifying minorities and that the states and UTS can also declare any specific community, including Hindus, a minority if they deem appropriate.
While responding to another petition challenging the validity of the schemes framed by the Centre for religious minorities, the Union government in July 2021 had defended the welfare schemes meant exclusively for religious minorities, stating that these schemes do not violate rights of the Hindus and are not against the principle of equality.
The plea, filed jointly by six members of the Hindu community, had contended that the petitioners are being unconstitutionally deprived of benefits available to similarly situated members of religious minorities in violation of their fundamental right to equality (Article 14), right against discrimination on grounds of religion (Article 15) and the right against paying taxes for the promotion or maintenance of any particular religion or religious denomination (Article 27).
“The petitioners and other members of [the] Hindu community are suffering because they have been born in [the] majority community... The State cannot promote or give any benefit to any religious community whether minority or majority keeping in view the secular ethos embedded in the Constitution of India,” stated the petition, filed through advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain.
The petition, filed by Neeraj Shankar Saxena and five others, also made specific submissions against welfare schemes for Waqf properties, contending that by giving such “undue advantage”, the Centre is treating the Muslim community above the law and the Constitution since no such benefits are given to the institutions of the Hindu community.