Material for specialized media EURASIA-Net project - EURAC

“A group, numerically inferior to the rest of the population of a State, in a nondominant
position, whose members- being nationals of the State- possess ethnic,
religious or linguistic characteristics differing from those of the rest of the
population and show, if only implicitly, a sense of solidarity, directed towards
preserving their culture, traditions, religion or language.”
UN Special Rapporteur Francesco Capotorti
Study on the Rights of Persons belonging to Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic
Minorities, UN Document E/CN.4/Sub.2/384/Add.1-7 (1977)
Francesco Capotorti’s definition is the most widely accepted theoretical definition of a
minority. It establishes certain objective criteria such as numerically inferiority along
with non dominant position and subjective criteria that include the sense of solidarity
towards preserving the common culture, tradition, religion and language. However, it is
argued that this definition could not be applied to the reality of South Asia, as it cannot
accommodate groups or peoples that do not wish to preserve their distinct features. For
instance, Dalit (a so called lower caste or depressed caste in the Hindu Caste system in
India and Nepal, which are considered as untouchable by so called higher
castes/dominant caste group) do not wish to preserve and transfer all their distinct
features to future generations because they perceive their identity as beeing imposed by
the dominant group.
Often it is argued that the identification of minorities is a matter of self identification
rather than state demarcations, and that defining minorities should be a practical
subject rather than a theoretical one. In fact, as already pointed out, it is widely
recognized that ethnicity, culture, language and religion are the basis for distinguishing
the minority from majority. However, not all ethnic, cultural, linguistic or religious
differences between people do lead to the creation of recognized minorities. The major
reason behind the failure to agree on a definition of minority is connected to the fact
that a couple of countries do not recognize their minorities as distinct and separate
groups. For instance, governments like France, Greece or Turkey have problems in
officially recognizing their minorities. In South Asia a country like Bhutan does not even
recognize its cultural and ethnic diversity.
In the European context the issue of minority protection in the stricter sense of the
terms refers to historical minority groups that are the permanent residents of the state
and desire to preserve their ethnic and cultural traits. Other categories of groups in a
non-dominant position such as migrant people, refugees or tribes are generally not
addressed in this context. Moreover, religious communities are referred to as smaller
religious communities rather than as minority groups.
In conclusion one can say that the definition of what is a minority and who belongs to
such a group is rather open. At the international level there is only a (legally non
binding) consensus on the basic cornerstones of such a definition. The major problem in
defining minority is that if the definition is too wide, the term ‘minority’ becomes
meaningless and if it is too narrow it will hardly apply at global level. Whereas the
Capotorti definition does reflect the prevailing understanding of minorities in
international law, there is in South Asian still conceptual ambiguity in identifying the
minorities due to existence of deeply rooted caste system, hundreds of ethnic groups,
varieties of indigenous languages and culture.
6