“Hindus are minorities in 8 States/UTs including J&K and Punjab.”
The Central Government has told the Supreme Court that both the Center and State Governments have the power to declare a religious or linguistic group as a minority in a particular state.
Earlier, in his Public Interest Litigation (PIL), Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay stated that followers of Hinduism (also Judaism and Bahaism) are minorities in a few states and UTs, like J&K, Punjab, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, and Lakshadweep.
Although they are minorities in these states and UTs, they do not get minority benefits because they are majority communities at the national level. However, Muslims in J&K and Sikhs in Punjab, despite being majority communities in these states, continue to get the ‘minority benefits’ because of their national population percentage.
In its affidavit to SC, the Central Government replied that concerned states could confer minority status to religious communities so that they may accrue the benefits given to minorities.
It gave the example of Maharashtra, which notified Jews as a minority community, and Karnataka, where Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Urdu, Tulu, Konkani, Lamani, Hindi, and Gujarati as minority languages.
The Center said, “Religious and linguistic minorities are spread all over the country and are not related to or restricted to any single state/UT of India. India is a country with very unique characteristics. A religious group in majority in one state may be in minority in another.”