The Supreme Court has said that the practice of listing religious groups as 'minority communities' should be discouraged and the list be gradually be done away with as it promotes divisive tendencies to weaken the nation.
A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice R C Lahoti, Justice D M Dharmadhikari and Justice P K Balasubramnyan reminded minorities commissions set up by the centre and state governments that the goal of the Constitution was to create social conditions where there was no need to shield or protect rights of minority or majority communities.
"The commissions, instead of encouraging claims from different communities for being added to a list of notified minorities under the Act, should suggest ways and means to help create social conditions where the list of notified minorities is gradually reduced and done away with altogether," said Justice Dharmadhikari, writing for the bench recently.
The ruling was given while disposing of a petition demanding minority status for the Jain community. The bench accepted the centre's stand that it was for the states to determine whether Jains were a minority community depending on their social condition in their respective states.
The Court said "in a caste-ridden Indian society, no section or distinct group of people can claim to be in majority. All are minorities amongst Hindus. Many of them claim such status because of their number and expect protection from the state on the ground that they are backward."
It said if each minority group felt afraid of the other group, an atmosphere of mutual fear and distrust would be created, posing serious threat to the integrity of the nation leading to sowing of seeds of multi-nationalism.
Claims for minority status-based on religion would increase as various sections would hope for getting special protections, privileges and treatment as part of constitutional guarantee, it added.
"Encouragement to such fissiparous tendencies would be a serious jolt to the secular structure of the constitutional democracy," the bench said, cautioning that "we should guard against making our country akin to a theocratical state based on multi-nationalism".
