Sikhs as minorities

·         On April 7, 2008 state governments of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh notified Sikhs as minority communities - Sikhs are not a minority in Punjab, as recently ruled by the Supreme Court

·         Under the National Commission for Minorities Act of 1992, five religious communities namely Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Zoroastrians (Parsis) were notified as minority communities.

·         As per the 2001 Census, these five religious minority communities constituted 18.42 per cent of the country’s population.

·         In line of the Act, the state governments were expected to notify the said religious groups as minorities.

·          But not all the states granted minority status to the aforesaid groups — a problem that’s still alive for the Commission, which considers the development in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh as “heartening”.

·         include Muslims, Christians, Jains, Buddhists and Parsis. Significantly, Jains are not a minority as per the central Act.

·         Another, interesting fact is that the notifications of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh come close on the heels of the Supreme Court order ruling that Sikhs are not a minority in Punjab.

·         In February this year, the Supreme Court of India agreed with the Punjab and Haryana High Court verdict on the matter last year.

·         A Bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan refused to suspend the high court verdict of December 2007 saying: “It is strange to assume that Sikhs in Punjab are in minority.”