Are Parsis to gain the benefits granted by the government to minorities? Justifying the Union government’s various schemes for religious minorities the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) told the Supreme Court that minorities "have to be treated as the ‘weaker sections’ in India, where Hindus are ‘predominant,’” [Hindustan Times, (HT) August 2, 2021].
In an affidavit made before a bench headed by Justice Rohinton Nariman, NCM submitted that "In a country like India where the majority community is predominant, the minorities have to be treated as the weaker sections.” Nariman noted that Article 46 of the Constitution obligates the center to promote educational and economic interests of the weaker sections. NCM’s affidavit was filed in response to a joint petition by six Hindus against the creation of the Commission and special schemes meant exclusively for religious minorities, reported HT.
NCM maintained that "numerically smaller or weaker classes are bound to be suppressed and overpowered by the dominant majority groups” if special provisions and schemes were not framed by the government, according to the news report. NCM’s affidavit added that "the pertinent constitutional provisions on framing special schemes could not be limited to caste-based identities and must include in its fold religious minorities to ensure practical and empirical equality of all groups and classes in the society.” Besides Zoroastrians, the center and the NCM have notified Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains as minorities. "Contending that only Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists could get benefits as scheduled castes, the Commission argued that if these special provisions were valid despite being religion-specific, special provisions for religious minorities were also justified in the same manner.”
Farrokh Jijina