Model answer & approach
- Define minority. Elaborate the patterns of linguistic and religious minorities in India. (Answer in 250 words)
Introduction
A minority is not simply a smaller number. Capotorti's formulation adds non-dominance, distinctiveness and a will to preserve it, and in India the unit of reckoning decides everything.
Body
1. The definition: a group numerically inferior to the rest of the population, in a non-dominant position, whose members have ethnic, religious or linguistic characteristics differing from the majority and a solidarity directed to preserving them. The Constitution offers no definition; Articles 29 and 30 speak of minorities based on religion or language, and T. M. A. Pai Foundation held the State, not the country, to be the unit. Six religious minorities are notified, Jains added in 2014.
2. The linguistic pattern: twenty-two scheduled languages, over 120 with ten thousand speakers or more, and Hindi returned by about two-fifths of the population in 2011. Every state therefore has linguistic minorities — Urdu across the north, Bengali in Assam, Nepali in West Bengal. Protection runs through Articles 29 and 30, mother-tongue primary instruction under Article 350A and the Special Officer under Article 350B.
3. The religious pattern: on the 2011 Census, Muslims 14.2 per cent, Christians 2.3, Sikhs 1.7, Buddhists 0.7 and Jains 0.4. They are concentrated rather than spread — Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Kerala and Assam, and a majority in Lakshadweep; Christians in Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Kerala; Sikhs a majority in Punjab; Buddhists in Maharashtra as Ambedkarite converts and in Ladakh. Their socio-economic profiles diverge sharply, as the Sachar Committee showed for Muslims.
4. What both share: relativity of scale.
Conclusion
A national minority is frequently a state majority, and a state majority a district minority. Minority policy must fix its unit of reckoning before it fixes its beneficiaries.
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