Minority rights in India: Liberal and constitutional perspectives

This article tries to situate the minorities in the context of their rights and liberties guaranteed in the democratic constitutional set up. This paper intends to bring about theproblems and challenges before the minorities in terms of asserting their rightful claims as a citizens of liberal democracy. In the first part, this article extensively discussed onminorities and their constitutional rights with special reference to Constituent Assemblydebates. Therefore, minorities ’ rights have gained greater visibility and relevancein India too. It is in this context that minority rights have assumed added significance inpost-independent India right from the inception of Indian Constitution. In the second part, this paper discusses on India ’s experience and its constitutional arrangements in providing various kinds of political safeguards to its minorities. The third and fourth partthrows light on the nationalist discourse on minority rights and question of Muslim representation respectively. Last part of this paper focuses on some of the major aspects of minorityrights enshrined in the Indian Constitution essentially a response to India ’s composite and pluralist social fabrics.