How are the rights and interests of the minorities protected in a democratic society
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multicultural society, for the preservation of distinct cultural traits and patterns, exclusive rights may be recognised as fundamental for religious denominations and cultural and linguistic minorities. Such special rights may include educational rights. Religious, cultural or linguistic organisations provide a forum to co-ordinate the demands of individual members. These collective rights can be better exercised only by the use of freedom of speech, expression, assembly, association, and religion and right to property. Protection against effacement of identity is made possible more by an active assertion of their distinct characteristics through the use of freedom rather than by mere artificial insulation by the state. Insofar as members of these minority communities are concerned, the guarantee of conservation of cultural and educational rights extends several advantages to them including means of livelihood.
Amidst fundamental rights, cultural rights occupy a unique place as they enable both cultural pluralism and compositeness of culture. The social and political fabric of a nation, instead of reflecting a sum total of collective intolerances of various culture-specific communities, would be tending to unite their insight for co-existence and tolerance in the backdrop of a guarantee of cultural and educational rights.[1] The UN Declaration of Minority Rights 1993 believes that constant promotion and realization of the rights of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities as an integral part of the development of society as a whole, and within a democratic framework based on the rule of law, would contribute to the strengthening of friendship and cooperation among peoples and states.[2]
The Indian cultural tradition of protecting the insular minorities against exclusion ‘from the shores of a vast sea of humanity’[3], ultimately culminated in the constitutional guarantee of collective right. The principled approach so emerged is one of equal opportunity for conservation of culture and protection of linguistic and religious minorities against coerced assimilation in the educational front. The cherished aim was to hold India’s many peoples, languages, culture and religion into an atmosphere of tolerance and intellectual growth.