Minorities and
Development
The Indian
Constitution is committed to the equality of citizens and the responsibility of
the State to preserve, protect and assure the rights of minorities in matters
of language, religion and culture. That is why our national leaders while
framing the Constitution, emphasized the doctrine of unity in diversity.
The
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National,
Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities says that the promotion and
protection of the rights of persons belonging to such minorities contribute to
the political and social stability of the countries in which they live.
Meeting
their aspirations and ensuring their rights acknowledges the dignity and
equality of all individuals and furthers participatory development. This in
turn contributes to the lessening of tensions among groups and individuals.
These factors are major determinants for stability and peace. All developed
countries and most developing ones give appropriate emphasis to looking after
the interests of minorities. Thus, in any country, the faith and confidence of
the minorities in the functioning of the State in an impartial manner is an
acid test of its being a just State. As the processes of economic development
unfold, pressures are likely to build up and intensify when there is unequal
development and some groups or minorities lag behind in the development
process. Ideally, development processes should remove or reduce economic and
social obstacles to cooperation and mutual respect among all groups in the
country. If development processes are misdirected, they may have the opposite
effect. It is this aspect which is important and needs to be addressed so as to
give confidence to minorities.
Since Independence, India has achieved
significant growth and development. It has also been successful in reducing
poverty and improving crucial human development indicators such as levels of
literacy, education and health. There are indications, however, that not
all religious communities and social groups (henceforth socio-religious
communities – SRCs) have shared equally the benefits of the growth process.
Among these, the Muslims, the largest minority community in the country,
constituting 13.4 per cent of the population, are seriously lagging behind in
terms of most of the human development indicators. While the perception of
deprivation is widespread among Muslims, there has been no systematic effort
since Independence to analyze the condition of religious minorities in the
country. Despite the need to analyze the socio-economic and educational
conditions of different SRCs, until recently appropriate data for such an
analysis was not generated by Government agencies.
There have been welcome
change in the scope of data collection with respect to SRCs in the 1990s,
which, in turn, has made this report possible. The current effort is the first
of its kind to undertake a data-based research on the Muslims in India.
(Excerpts from sachar committee Report page 1-2)Available on http://www.minorityaffairs.gov.in/sites/upload_files/moma/files/pdfs/sachar_comm.pdf
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