Every person in India can be a minority in one State or the other. Minority status of religious and linguistic communities is “State-dependent”, the Supreme Court said on July 18.
“Every person in this country can be a minority. I can be a minority outside my State, Maharashtra. Similarly, a Kannada speaking person may be in minority in States other than Karnataka… Every person in this country can answer this description,” Justice U.U. Lalit, heading a three-judge Bench, said.
The court was hearing a petition filed by a Mathura resident, Devkinandan Thakur, complaining that followers of Judaism, Bahaism and Hinduism, who are the real minorities in Ladakh, Mizoram, Lakshadweep, Kashmir, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Punjab and Manipur cannot establish and administer educational institutions of their choice because of non-identification of ‘minority’ at State level, thus jeopardising their basic rights guaranteed under Articles 29 and 30.
