Read the passage and answer the questions:
Constitution: Real Minorities are the Masses of this Country
Welcoming the Objectives Resolution introduced by Jawaharlal Nehru, N.G. Ranga said: Sir, there is a lot of talk about minorities. Who are the real minorities? Not the Hindus in the so-called Pakistan provinces, not the Sikhs, not even the Muslims. No, the real minorities are the masses of this country. These people are so depressed and oppressed and suppressed till now that they are not able to take advantage of the ordinary civil rights. What is the position? You go to the tribal areas. According to law, their own traditional law, their tribal law, their lands cannot be alienated. Yet our merchants go there, and in the so-called free market they are able to snatch their lands. Thus, even though the law goes against this snatching away of their lands, still the merchants are able to turn the tribal people into veritable slaves by various kinds of bonds, and make them hereditary bond- slaves. Let us go to the ordinary villagers. There goes the money-lender with his money and he is able to get the villagers in his pocket. There is the landlord himself, the zamindar, and the malguzar and there are the various other people who are able to exploit these poor villagers. There is no elementary education even among these people. These are the real minorities that need protection and assurances of protection. In order to give them the necessary protection, we will need much more than this Resolution.
According to N.G. Ranga, who were the real minorities?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → The tribals of free India
Ranga says the real minorities are “the masses of this country” — people so depressed and oppressed that they cannot use even their ordinary civil rights. His first example is the tribal people, whose lands are snatched by merchants; the poor villagers are the second.
Option (1) The Hindus in the Muslim majority provinces — Incorrect. Ranga rules them out first: “Not the Hindus in the so-called Pakistan provinces”.
Option (2) The Sikhs in the non-Sikhs majority provinces — Incorrect. He rules out “the Sikhs” as well.
Option (3) The Muslims in the Hindu majority provinces — Incorrect. “not even the Muslims”, he says; religious groups are not his real minorities.
Option (4) The tribals of free India — Correct. Of the four, only the tribal people belong to the oppressed masses Ranga calls the real minorities.
NCERT: Themes in Indian History Part III — Chapter 12: Framing the Constitution (2026-27)
|
