As it has been seen that India is a country with conglomeration of people from different religions, culture, language, caste, race etc. There are over eight hundred linguistic and 560 ethnic groups of different race, religion, caste and tribes. Although, people of India are strongly united on the issue of nationhood but emotional unity and integration are yet to be seen. People of India are maintaining strong personal and social identity on which makes any ethnic group different from another. Their faiths and values, religious practices, dressing patterns and living style are not the same as those of majority community. This distinctiveness sometimes becomes causes of conflict and differences between one another. India has a record of over hundred years of minority problem. The major problem has been of the Muslims which split the country in 1947. Communal riots have become a recurring phenomenon in the present day Indian society.

Definitional Problems

The Constitution of India uses the term minority but does not define it any where. The Supreme Court and various High Courts have so far depended on the statistical criterion. Any community that does not constitute more than Minorities 50% in the state is thus called a minority. Furthermore, the Indian Constitution recognizes two types of minorities based on language and/or religion.

Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Zoroastrians (Parsis) have been notified as minority communities under section 2(c) of the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992. The Muslims in India constitute the largest religious minority in the country. According to 2001 Census, 18.4 per cent of our population belongs to Minority communities. Muslims constitute 13.4 per cent, Christians 2.3 per cent, Sikhs 1.9 per cent, Buddhists 0.8 per cent and Parsis 0.07 per cent of the country’s total population. In absolute numbers, Muslims (nearly 140 million) account for 72.8 per cent of the total minority population of 189.5 million..

Linguistic minorities too have not been defined in the Constitution or by any statue. They get defined when their mother tongue differs from the regional language of the area. They are identified by the State Governments/Union Territories Administrations on the basis of the Census data.

The Constitution does not recognize minorities based on culture, race or nationality. This criterion of defining minorities suffers with a number of problems.

Firstly, statistically a religious group may be minority at national level, but may be majority in a particular state. For example Muslims in India are a minority group on the basis of their religion in comparison to the majority of Hindus. But they constitute a majority in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Similarly, Christians are a majority in Nagaland,. Meghalaya, Mizoram and so on.

Secondly, But. besides having an identity on the basis of religion, a group may also identify itself on the ethnic basis. Thus, a Muslim may identify not only on the religious basis but also on the ethnic basis. He or she could consider himself or herself a Bengali or a Malayalee. But identification of religion and language by the government creates dissatisfactions among others.

Thirdly, state policy does not acknowledge other newly emerging minorities like sexual, displaced populations, historical constructed minorities like criminal tribes etc. This result in lack in the comprehensiveness and dynamism in the policy towards minorities.

Other Problems of minorities

Minority problem is not just related to its numerical representation in a society,  it is related to its oppression. Besides, it is to be perceived on the basis of language, culture, religion, etc. in relation to that of a dominant group which is, very often, a majority group in a society. Minority-majority relationship is perceived with doubts and suspicions.  Because of these doubts and suspicions, relationships among different groups are less harmonious and tenser. Minorities feel a threat to their identity.

The minorities claim that as compared to majorities, they are relatively deprived in areas like employment, politics and social facilitation. According to them, they are poorly represented in civil services as well as in medical and engineering colleges. Discrimination, prejudice and exclusion by the dominant group and self segregation by the subordinate or minority constitute the basis for minority identification

Minorties in India also feel a threat of physical security. There is now ample evidence to show that at times the administrative machinery of the state does not operate impartially at the time of communal riots; those responsible for ensuring law and order act in non-secular way, and tend to victimize members of minority groups. This creates a very serious and fundamental feeling of physical security in the mind of minorities. For example , Modi government in Gujarat was unable to provide protection for the Muslims after the Gujarat massacre, in which huge numbers of Muslims were killed. Again, the then Rajiv Gandhi government at the Centre was severely criticised for its failure to provide adequate security for the Sikh community of Delhi because of the communal riots that broke out after the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984.

There may be no discrimination in law or even by state functionaries. But the psychological insecurity of minorities is such that they perceive themselves to be the targets of discrimination. Sociologically, perception of discrimination is as detrimental as actual discrimination for members of minority groups and affects their motivation, aspirations and achievements. It was, indeed with good reasons Nehru had observed that the test of Indian secularism lay not in what the majority thought, but now the minority felt.

The interests of ethnic minority groups, though well protected by constitution, have given rise to many caste, religion and language related problems, which were experienced and reflected upon by the Secondary Education Constitution (I952-53) and the Indian Education Commission (1964-68). While the Secondary Education Commission observed that some of the minority administered schools were creating unhealthy trends in admission and recruitment of staff. The Indian Education Commission felt that these schools encourage and promote divisive tendencies and caste loyalties. Growing incidence of caste, class, religious intolerance and conflicts, violence and fanaticism may

Apart from these general problems which as faced by different minorities in varying degrees, there are certain specific grievances too.

Specific problems

• Economically, Muslims are the most backward community with the lowest employment rate. With such backward economic status, there was hardly any incentive for a modern secular education. Literacy rates among Muslims, both for men and women, have been the lowest among all the religious Minorities. Work participation Rate for Muslims at 31.3 percent  is the lowest. Furthermore, about 35.7% Muslims live in urban areas and 36.92% of them are below the poverty line.
• Christian missionaries of the country have been alleged to be involved in conversion activities that led to communal conflicts which witnessed large scale attacks on the churches and Christians in Gujarat, Orissa and several other states. The very recent attacks on Christians and churches in the Kandhamal district of Orissa shook the entire Christian community of the world.
• The Constitution provides for reservation to scheduled castes even if they profess Buddhism & Sikhism and as such the members of these communities should not be deprived of their rights. Dalit Christians have also been demanding reservation for long.
• The rise of numerous Sikh sectarian organisations that emphasised the distinct Sikh identity. Claiming Punjab as their motherland, the Sikhs had developed a very strong sub-national identity, leading to wide spread disturbances in the state of Punjab.
• Sikhs (786) and the Jains(870), who have better female literacy figures, the sex ratio is alarming.