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The UPA government has planned to redefine the word ‘minority’. For this, the government is thinking to go for an amendment in the Constitution. The report says that the bill would help the government to redefine the minority status on the basis of population at the state.
The Union Cabinet has given the green signal to the 103rd Constitutional Amendment Bill 2004. The government would table the bill in the monsoon session of Parliament. Earlier, the parliamentary standing committee had incorporated several recommendations also.
Currently, there are six states and Union Territories such as Jammu & Kashmir, Lakshadweep, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Punjab where Hindus, generally the national majority, are in a minority on population basis.
Now, the minority bill would not allow Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsees rated as minorities in these states. Similarly, Muslims are minority at national level but would not enjoy the same staytus of minority in Jammu and Kashmir.
Earlier in August 2005, the seven-judge Bench of Supreme Court had asked to prepare the most appropriate level to decide on minorities is the state level. Once the bill would get parliamentary node, states will have to show the data as to who is a minority on population basis. The President of India would then notify the minorities in that state. However, the President would not be bound to act on advice of the states.
Recently, a single-judge Bench in Allahabad High Court had stated that Muslims (18.5 per cent of the state’s population) were not a minority in the state. The ruling got an stay very next day and fetched criticism too.
However, the new amendment Bill does not have the specific criteria or percentage level to decide a minority community in the state. That has been left to the government to work out in coming days.
RSS 
Defining minority is not an easy task.Following yardsticks may be used-
1.Numerical Inferiority
2. Non-Dominant Status
3. Desire to preserve distinctive identity
Protection of minorities is the hallmark of a civilization. Lord Acton added another dimension: “The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.”
The debate on the status of minorities and on minority rights should be lifted from communalism versus secularism, and the nationalism versus sectarianism debate, and placed in the theoretical field of democracy, equality and rights.
These guarantees are essential in a democratic and pluralistic polity because as Franklin Roosevelt, former United States President reminded us, “No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of minorities.”
As of today, there is no consensus even on the issue of the definition of a minority. The most obvious definition of minorities and majorities is in terms of numbers. A minority is a group that is numerically smaller than the majority in society. This basic definition is, however, not enough. For, the preponderance of or lack of numbers alone are not a guide to any authoritative definition. Minorities have, in apartheid South Africa for instance, exercised power and domination over the rest of society.
It is also true that in several countries, the numerical line dividing the minority and the majority may be so thin that it may be impossible to delineate a minority group. Alternatively, a society may be composed of different groups, none of which forms a minority, numerically speaking. The criterion of numbers, therefore, is an important but not a sufficient condition for any definition of a minority.
Ideally, we need to go further than just a numerical definition to conceptualise minority rights. We may do this by putting forth a second consideration. The second component of the definition of minority is that the group must be non-dominant in society and the polity. A group can be conceptualised as a minority when its values and worldviews are either not reflected at all, or insufficiently reflected both in the public sphere and in the constitution of societal norms. Both these factors reinforce each other.
Both non-recognition or inadequate recognition of the minority group in the public sphere, or in the constitution of those norms that define a society, signifies marginalisation and exclusion. Moreover, these two characteristics — numerical size and non-dominance — may still not necessarily result in what can be referred to as the minority/majority problem. A group may be numerically smaller than the others, and its values may be incompletely reflected in dominant political or social norms, but this may not logically lead to either despondency or a feeling of exclusion.
We can easily conceptualise a situation where a minority group may be perfectly willing to give up its practices and merge into the mainstream for various reasons. Alternatively, the minority group may not wish to be considered as a minority at all. The group’s desire to preserve its distinctive identity is thus another key consideration.
Allahabad decision was wrong as it was contrary to apex court’s consistent stand.Even if a group is 49% of population in a state, it is entitled to minority status.UPA government should define term minority, keeping in view above considerations.