Why in the news?

• The Supreme Court will take up a petition seeking identification of minorities at the state level and granting minority status to Hindus in states and union territories where their numbers have gone below other communities.

What is the definition of minority under Indian laws?

• The expression “minorities” appears in some Articles of the Constitution, but is not defined anywhere.

What does the Constitution say about minorities?

• Article 29, which deals with the “Protection of interests of minorities”, says that “any section of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part thereof having a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same”,
• No citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them.
• Article 30 deals with the “right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions”.
• It says that all minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.
• It says that “in making any law providing for the compulsory acquisition of any property of an educational institution established and administered by a minority, the State shall ensure that the amount fixed by or determined under such law for the acquisition of such property is such as would not restrict or abrogate the right guaranteed under that clause”,
•  Another clause about  “the state shall not, in granting aid to educational institutions, discriminate against any educational institution on the ground that it is under the management of a minority, whether based on religion or language”.
• Article 350(A) says there shall be a Special Officer for linguistic minorities to be appointed by the President. 
• “It shall be the duty of the Special Officer to investigate all matters relating to the safeguards provided for linguistic minorities under this Constitution and report to the President upon those matters at such intervals as the President may direct.
• The President shall cause all such reports to be laid before each House of Parliament, and sent to the Governments of the States concerned”.

So, who is a minority in India?

• Currently, only those communities notified under section 2(c) of the National Minorities Commission Act, 1992, by the central government are regarded as minority.

And which are the minorities notified by the Government of India?

In the exercise of its powers under the Section 2(c) of the NCM Act, the Centre on October 23, 1993, notified five groups — Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis — as ‘minority’ communities. Jains were added to the list in January 2014.