Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Alqama Mam Khansaiby2ss
Alqama Mam Khansaiby2ss
Research work
Of
ON
1st TRIMESTER
LLM
SCHOOL OF LAW
2
CONTENT OF SYNOPSIS :
Introduction
Aim and object
Research methodology
Research question
The UDHR and Indian constitution :A comparison.
Minority Group: Meaning and Scope.
Purpose ofthe Study.
Rights of minorities (supreme court judgement)
Conclusion
Bibliography
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1. Introduction:
There is hardly any country in the world that does not have minorities with in its
territory characterised by their ethnic religious identify didence from that of the
majority population .although there are no accurate statistics ,the united nations
estimate suggest that 10 to 20 percent of the world population belong to minority
group. In most cases minorities are among the most disadvantage group in society and
thrie member to often subjected to injustice and socio economic discrimination . they
are also excluded from meaningful participation in public and political life .The
central thread woven through this Digest is the concept of vulnerability. Minority
status, broadly construed, represents a core characteristic that carries with it particular
human rights implications. Historically, minorities are frequently targeted for
exploitation and scapegoated when things go badly. Without the capacity to protect
themselves and without spokespersons to stand with them in solidarity, minority
groups are specifically susceptible to gross exercises of power and abuse and too
often denied access to channels through which to make claims and demand redress.
Violations of minority rights are commonly structural in nature, as discriminatory
practices are built into political and economic systems to deny fundamental rights,
such as to vote or to own property. Violence and deprivation that disproportionately
affect minority groups are symptomatic of the inequality and humiliation that human
rights seek to remedy. Minority rights, as a category of rights, are intended to direct
special attention to the plight of those people under attack by virtue of their
vulnerability. ‘Minority rights’ as a concept consists of more than a numeric
determination, however. Distinction as a minority group refers to the group’s lack of
dominance within society, not necessarily tied to its status as less-than-half of the total
population. Traditional minority groups include ethnic, cultural, national, and
linguistic categories that constitute cohesive, self identifying units. Digest entries that
feature the plight of the Roma in Europe, Tibetans in India, and indigenous
movements in Latin America fall neatly into familiar conceptions of minority groups.
Additionally,
children are the focus of two entries. This inclusion represents an expansion of the
conception of “minority” because age-based discrimination is not commonly thought
of in this context. However, access to education and vulnerability in a warzone, for
instance, speak to concrete human rights issues that affect children in unique ways.
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3.Research methodology.
4. Research question
Minority Group means a group of people sharing common ethnic, racial, orreligious
backgrounds, especially when constituting a comparatively small proportion ofa given
population in a society. Minority groups often have fewer rights and less powerthan
majority groups. A'primary factor in the existence ofminorities is immigration,
butsettlement by one people can also result in the indigenous or conquered people
becominga minority, It is an open-ended research since various enforcement and
implementation machineries on minorities will not be discussed at length.
Article 29. Protection of interests of minorities. – (1) Any section of the citizens
residing in the territory of India or any part thereof having a distinct language, script
or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same
(2) No citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained
by the State or receiving aid out of the State funds on grounds only of religion, race,
caste, language or any of them.
Reservation
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Separate electorate
Educational rights
Secularism
Education is an occupation
7. Every religious denomination or section thereof has the same right to establish and
administer educational institutions – as charitable institutions under Article 26(a)
Article 26. Freedom to manage religious affairs – Subject to public order, morality
and health, every religious denomination or any section thereof shall have the right –
Affiliation
Recognition
Syllabus
Examination
Appointment of Headmaster/Teachers/Principal
Governing body
Indian leaders set about drafting their Constitution also with same moral and ethical
convictions. Indian Constitution adopted on 26 January 1950 is as unique as the freedom
movement.
It is the longest written constitution in the world. It also is one of the foremost Constitutions
to have a separate chapter on Fundamental Rights signifying sovereign obligations to uphold
human rights and freedoms to its citizens. Among its unique features, is the supremacy of the
constitution and Supreme Court over every other institution, including legislatures, when it
comes to upholding rights. Unique again is the power vested in the Supreme Court to strike
down any other law, Union or State, which is against the spirit of the Constitution.
The drafters of Indian Constitution had undertaken a careful comparison of the Constitution
of the United States, Ireland and the UDHR and ingrained their principles that had stood the
test of time. The Supreme Court of India have on their part, religiously and diligently, upheld
the spirit of the constitution and have expanded the meaning of its provisions to apportion
larger freedoms to citizens and non-citizens as well.
The Preamble
It is important to remember the Preamble to the Indian Constitution in order to appreciate the
true import of its guarantees. The preamble reads thus:
We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign
Socialist Secular Democratic Republic and to secure to all its citizens:
Justice, Social, economic, and political;
Liberty, of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
Equality, of status and of opportunity;
Fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation;
In our constituent assembly, this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do hereby adopt, enact
and give unto ourselves this Constitution.
The Spirit of the Constitution
From the above it may be noticed that Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity are the four
fundamental pillars of the Constitution. The wordings have attained a status of a touchstone
that is used by the Indian courts wherever the intent and purport of a particular Act is
question. In the Keshavananda Bharathi2 case, a majority of the full bench of the Supreme
Court held that the objectives specified in the preamble contain the basic structure of the
Constitution which cannot be amended in exercise of the power under Art 368 (amendment to
Constitution). From then on, Indian courts have held the Preamble as containing the basic
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structure of the Constitution and have used it to validate an act or its provisions as
constitutional or unconstitutional.
Through Indira Gandhi election case, Minerva Mills case and Waman Rao case, Supreme
Court of India has clarified the basic feature of the Constitution and held that they are beyond
the power of parliament to amend even though the parliament had such power under Art 368.
Art 32 and 226 of the Constitution are of special relevance in the context of upholding human
rights. These articles concern with the power of Supreme Court and High Court to issue
certain writs.
The UDHR and Indian Constitution
The Indian Constitution drew on the principles enshrined in UDHR, not merely because of
their philosophical value but because the founders of the country realized that the social-
political-economic exploitation of the masses of India in the hands of centuries of foreign rule
cannot but otherwise be rectified than by Constitutional guarantees. In incorporating them
into the letter and spirit of the Constitution, they also made certain fundamental rights like
Right to Life, absolutely non-derogable than through due process of law. Later, in
Keshavananda Bharathi, Menaka Gandhi, and a couple of more cases referred earlier, the
Supreme Court of India expanded the Right to Life into ‘Right to Life with dignity’. The
import of such an interpretation is truly unique in the annals of Constitutional Law anywhere
in the world. A comparative list of freedoms listed in the UDHR and Articles of Indian
Constitution is provided below:
8.Conclusion.
Minorities - groups held together by ties of common descent, language or religious
faith and feeling different in these respects from the majority of the inhabitants of a
given political entity .As can be seen above in the table, the Constitution of India has
absorbed and reflected the basic spirit and intent of the important provisions of
UDHR, thereby reflecting the will of the Indian State in being a part of the wider
comity of nations to promote Human Rights and Justice everywhere, not merely in
words but in its spirit. The provisions of the Constitution are part of a dream that the
founder-fathers of India shared. The dream of a world where all humans will enjoy
their freedoms guaranteed by the collective will of the people. In his Gitanjali,
Rabindranath Tagore spells out the dream in the following words:
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9.BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Rabindranath Tagore Omnibus I, Rupa & Co., New Delhi, 2003, p 15.
The Author is currently a Ph D scholar with UMISARC, Pondicherry
University, India.
Blackstone’s International Human Rights Documents, (P.R. Gandhi Ed.,
New Delhi: Universal Law Publishing Co., 1999)
Jaswal, Paramjit & Nishita, Human Rights and the Law, (New Delhi:
APH Publishing Co., 1996)
Mangalwadi, Vishal, India: The Grand Experiment, (Surrey: Pippa Rann
Books, 1997)
Mehta, P.L. & Verma, Neena, Human Rights under Indian Constitution,
(New Delhi: Deep & Deep Publication Pvt. Ltd., 2000)
Seervai, H.M., Constitutional Law of India, 155, (New Delhi: Universal
Book Traders, I, 4th ed., 1999)
Sen, Shanker, Human Rights in a Developing Society, (New Delhi: APH
Publishing Corporation, 1998)