MINORITY RIGHTS AND NATIONALISM

Abstract

The Indian Constitution ensures “justice, social, economic and political” to all the citizens. The Indian Constitution has adopted measures for the protection of the rights of the religious and ethnic minorities and of the socially and disadvantaged classes such as the SC/ST.1 The Constitution of India doesn’t define the word ‘Minority’ but has used the word minorities considering two attributes religion and language of a person and uses its plural form in some Articles including Article 20 to 30 and Article 350A to 350B. To provide enough equality and dwindle the discrimination, makers have spelt out various things in Fundamental Rights (Part III), Directive Principles of State Policy (Part IV) and also the Fundamental Duties (Part IVA). The expression ‘minority’ has been derived from the Latin word ‘minor’ and the suffix ‘ity’, which mean ‘small in number’. Certain sociologist defined minority as “ a group of people who, because of their physical or cultural charactertics, are singled out from the others in the society in which they live for differential and unequal treatment, and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination.2 This definition include both objective and subjective criteria: membership of a minority group is objectively ascribed by society, based on an individual’s physical or behavioural charactertics, such as ethnicity and race or gender and sexuality. It is also subjectively applied by its members, who may use their status as the basis of group identity or solidarity. Members of the minority groups are prone to different treatment in the countries and societies in which they live. The discrimination may be directly based on an individual’s perceived membership of a minority group, without consideration of that individual’s personal achievement.