Define ‘minority’: SC asks panel to review state-wise populations

The Supreme Court has directed the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) to “consider” a representation to include Hindus as minorities in eight states of the country. A bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi said the decision should be taken “preferably, within three months.”

The direction came when the court heard a petition filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay. According to the petition, Hindus in eight states — Lakshadweep (2.77% of the population according to Census 2011), Mizoram (2.75%), Nagaland (8.75 %), Meghalaya (11.53%), Jammu and Kashmir (28.44%), Arunachal Pradesh (29%), Manipur (41.39%) and Punjab (38.49%) — are numerically in minority in terms of population despite being the majority community in the entire country. To be sure, the petition seems to have got the facts wrong about Manipur, where Hindus account for the majority, although the state also has a Christian population of roughly the same size.

The Centre, the petition alleged, was acting in an arbitrary manner by designating only Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis as minorities in the country, not Hindus.

Senior advocate professor Bhim Singh said the issue of minority and majority was settled once and for all by the constituent assembly while drafting the Constitution. “The Constitution framers held that the issue of majority and minority should be viewed nationally and not at state levels. So, there is no question of following any other model once the matter is settled,” he said.

Upadhyay said Muslims are actually the majority in Lakshdweep and Jammu and Kashmir and in significant numbers in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. “Hindus are real minority. But, their minority rights are being siphoned off illegally and arbitrarily to majority population because Central Government has not notified them a ‘minority’ under Section 2 (c) of the NCM (National Commission for Minority) Act,” he said in his petition. Therefore, the members of the community are being deprived of their rights under the Constitution, he added.