Panel to decide on minority status of Hindus in NE

NEW DELHI: The issue of minority status of majority Hindu community in North East, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir has been referred to the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) by the Supreme Court.
The court on Monday directed the NCM to take a decision within three months on a representation seeking guidelines for defining the term ‘minority’ in the context of state-wise population of a community instead of the national average.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked BJP leader and lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay to refile his representation to the minority panel which, in turn, will take a decision on it within three months from Monday.
Upadhyay, in his plea, has said that the term minority needed to be redefined and reconsidered in the context of population of a community in a state, instead of nationwide population data. The plea said that Hindus, who are a majority community as per national data, are a minority in several northeastern states and in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Hindu community is deprived of benefits which are available to the minority communities in these states, the plea said, adding that the minority panel should reconsider the definition of minority in this context.
However, there is opposition from minority communities to accord the same status of majority community on state’s population basis. The minority status is given on national basis from the beginning after thorough consideration and the same should remain so, they argued.
The plea had sought minority status for Hindus in the states and one Union Territory where the number of the community has fallen down, according to the Census 2011.
“According to 2011 Census, Hindus are minority in eight states — Lakshadweep (2.5 per cent of the total population), Mizoram (2.75 pc), Nagaland (8.75 pc), Meghalaya (11.53 pc), J&K (28.44 pc), Arunachal Pradesh (29 pc), Manipur (31.39 pc) and Punjab (38.40 pc).”
Their minority rights are being siphoned off illegally and arbitrarily to the majority population because neither Central nor the state governments have notified Hindus as a ‘minority’ under the National Commission for Minority Act. Therefore, Hindus are being deprived of their basic rights,” the plea had said.