oppn parties Minority Status For Hindus: Now Assam Chief Minister Says It Should Be At District Level

News Snippets

  • For the first time ever, Mukesh Ambani buys a 29% stake in Gautam Adani's Mahan Energen, a subsidiary of Adani Power to source 500MW of electricity from the company's power plant in MP
  • Stocks continue to rise on Thursday - Sensex gains 639 points to 73635 and Nifty 203 points to 22326
  • Golf - Indian Open: 3 Indians at tied 14th as Joost Luiten takes the lead with a wonderful 7-under 65
  • IPL: RR beat DC by 12 runs as Riyan Parag (84 off just 45 balls) shines
  • SP drops two candidates owing allegiance to Azam Khan from Rampur and Moradabad
  • In Assam, a controversy erupted after a picture of UPPL leader Benjamin Basumatary, lying on a stack of Rs 500 notes circulated on social media. UPPL is an ally of the BJP
  • AAP's Jalandhar-West MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joins the BJP. He was the only AAP Lok Sabha MP
  • Supreme Court dismisses Centre's plea to review its 2023 verdict in the PMLA case
  • Close save for passengers as they remain unhurt after the wings of two planes graze at Kolkata airport. Pilots derostered and inquiry ordered by DGCA
  • Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh gets notice from the EC as well as the BJP for making ugly remarks about Mamata Banerjee's parentage
  • Sadanand Vasanth Date, who faught terrorists in the 26/11 attack and was awarded the Preisent's Police medal, has been appointed the head of the NIA
  • Centre will borrow Rs 7.5L cr in the first six months of FY25, nearly 50% of the target for the full year
  • 25 stocks, including SBI, will see same day trade settlements from today in the world's fastest settlement mode in both BSE and NSE
  • Stocks recover smartly on Wednesday: Sensex rises 526 points to 72996 and Nifty 118 points to 22123
  • Tennis: Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden reached the semifinals of the Miami Open
Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena says government cannot be run from jail, hints at President's Rule in the capital ////// In a dangerous incident, the wings of two planes grazed while taxiing on the runway at Kolkata airport, all passengers were safe but DGCA ordered an inquiry and the pilots were derostered
oppn parties
Minority Status For Hindus: Now Assam Chief Minister Says It Should Be At District Level

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2022-03-31 14:27:16

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

After the Centre took the stand in the Supreme Court that Hindus can be granted minority status in states (J&K, Punjab and some states in the Northeast) where they are a minority, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sharma has added a twist to the issue by calling for district-wise definition of minority. According to him, since the Hindus are a minority in many districts of the state, the government will push for minority status for them in those districts and the state would try to be party to the ongoing case on the issue in the Supreme Court.

This was bound to happen. Once the status quo is sought to be changed, there is no limit to where the issue will be stretched. If reservation is granted to a class, hundreds of sub-classes in that class start demanding separate reservation. Now if the minority status of a religious community is brought down to the state level, demands will start coming for district-level, taluka-level, thana-level or even ward/panchayat-level definition of minority. This has to be resisted.  Although a state is a definite administrative mass and the demand for allowing states to grant minority status to Hindus where they are in minority is legitimate, any further downstream tinkering is fraught with danger.

The Assam chief minister's idea is perhaps borne out of the fact that as per the 2011 Census, more than 9 densely populated districts in Assam have a Muslim population of more than 50%, with Dhubri district topping the list where Muslims make up nearly 80% of the population. Earlier, the BJP used to allege that the demography of these districts had been changed by Muslim infiltrators from Bangladesh. Now with the question of granting minority status to Hindus in some states, Himanta Biswa Sharma has hit upon this idea of demanding the same for them in these districts where they are outnumbered by Muslims.

There are many issues that will crop us if this is allowed. Would the Hindu minority from any of the above districts have minority rights in the rest of Assam or even the rest of the country? Will the Hindu minority educational institutions that will operate with minority rights in these districts be allowed to start branches elsewhere (where Hindus are in majority) and will those branches enjoy minority institution benefits? Would a Hindu, originally resident of any of these districts and enjoying minority status, continue to enjoy the same if he or she relocates to a Hindu- majority district or elsewhere in India? These same questions will also come up when some states declare Hindus as minority in their states but the issue will have wider ramifications if district-level minority status is allowed within the same state. The Supreme Court will have to consider all these questions and many more that will come up before deciding the matter.