National Commission for Minorities

Constitution of India doesn't define the word 'minority' but has used the word minorities considering two attributes religion or language of a person. For minorities constitution of India has envisaged a number of rights and safeguards. To provide enough equality and to dwindled the discrimination, makers have spelt out various things in Fundamental Rights (PartIII); Directive Principles of state policies (Part IV) and also the Fundamental duties (Part IV-A). However, with rising right and rising wedge between right and left and also the ephemeral political aspirations of various political parties have diluted the discrimination safeguards.

The Union Government set up the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992. Six religious communities, viz; Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Zoroastrians (Parsis) and Jains have been notified in Gazette of India as minority communities by the Union Government all over India . Original notification of 1993 was for Five religious communities Sikhs, Buddhists,Parsis,Christians and Muslims.

The NCM adheres to the United Nations Declaration of 18 December 1992 which states that "States shall protect the existence of the National or Ethnic, Cultural, Religious and Linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories and encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity.”

The Commission has the following functions:

The Commission has the following powers:

The Commission shall consist of a Chairperson, a Vice Chairperson and five Members to be nominated by the Central Government from amongst persons of eminence, ability and integrity; provided that five Members including the Chairperson shall be from amongst the minority communities.

Although Indian Constitution does not define word Minority but it has provided constitutional safeguards and fundamental rights to minorities:

Indian state is committed to administer these rights which can be enforced by judiciary

On March 9, 2005 the Prime Minister issued a Notification for the constitution of a High Level Committee to prepare a report on the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community of India. Recommendations contained in the Report of the High Level Committee on Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India headed by Justice Rajindar Sachar (Retd.) :-

The Committee suggested that policies should “sharply focus on inclusive development and ‘mainstreaming’ of the Community while respecting diversity.”

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