ABSTRACT
The dictionary meaning of the term minority is “the condition or fact o f being small, inferior, or subordinate” . This term was in use in religious literature as far back as 1533. In 1646 Sir T. Brown used it to indicate ‘smallness’ (“There may, I confess, from this narrow time o f gestation ensue a minority, or smallness in the exclusion”).3 In the political sense it is said to have been used first by Edmund Burke in 1790 (“In a democracy, the majority of the citizens are capable of exercising the most cruel oppression upon the minority”) although in 1736 minority was used by Ainsworth to indicate ‘a lesser number’ (Ermacora, 1983:287).
