ABSTRACT
The word “minority” is a loaded one. A quick look at its dictionary definition reveals references to “the period before attainment of majority,” “the smaller in number of two groups constituting a whole,” “a group having less than the number of votes necessary for control,” and “a part of a population differing from others in some characteristics and often subjected to differential treatment” (Mish, 1998, p. 757). Implications of being small, childlike, weak, and different in some important way—often negative—abound here. The notion of “minority” thus appears to exceed its numerical connotations. Actually being lesser in number does not always coincide with being a minority. The British colonizers of pre-independence India, though miniscule in population when compared to their Indian subjects, hardly conceived of themselves as a “minority.” The same was true of the white rulers of apartheid South Africa. And, Arabs who constitute only 20 percent of the world’s Muslim population are not referred to as a minority among the followers of Islam. Such numerical de-linkage also works in the opposite direction. For instance, women might exceed men in number in a given community but may still be regarded as a minority group.
