Minority rights are the rights which are applicable to the minority people of a country. In india there exists two types of minorities- liguistic and religious. Minority rights find its relevance in the Constitution of India though there is no mention who these minority people actually are.
India is a diversed country. There are many challenges to its diversed nature and composite culture of the society. The challenge to India's plurality is enormous as people from 8 major and various minor religions and 800 languages of which 8 are 'official' and 22 are 'scheduled' languages live. As for the religious groups, Hindus dominate the Indian society and for language, Hindi, Tamil and Bengali are the most spoken language. But there are so many religions or languages which are used by only a handful.
The draftsmen of the constitution had put some extra previleges to the people belonging to the minority groups. The Preamble to the constitution of India describes the country as a ' SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC'. So in order to keep this essence the constitution ensures some education, cultural rights etc. to them. Minority rights are in true sense not some extra previleges. It is a part of general human rights and ensures social, economical and political justice to them. Everyone should get the equal chance to protect their own religion and practice it, should have the right to freely use their own language and hold on to their own culture. So it can be said that the these rights ensure that the vernacular cultures are not menaced and lost. Being a 'welfare state', it is important to maintain the 'integrity' of the nation. It could be seen as a threat to the democratic pattern but it should never be forgotten that minorities are also a part of the country. Most of the times they belong to the backward portion of the society or a particular class that is not adequately represented in the service of state which needs the support to come forward for the betterment of the country . The UN Declaration of Minority Rights, 1993 also states that the rights of liguistic, enthnic or religious minorities are a part of the development of a society living within a democracy which can contribute to the string friendship and bond between a State and its people.
Equality is always desiable. These rights could be seen as unethical. But it is also true that laws are made for everyone's good. The main focus of a law is to create confidence in the mind of those for whose the law is made. These laws gives confidence to the mind of those minority people that they are protected under the State and treated equally on par of the majority so there could be no discrimination among people.
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Comments
Post a Comment