BackMinorities better represented in the Indian Parliament than in the US
Minorities tend to be under-represented in most major democracies of the world
PremiumThe recently concluded elections have shone the spotlight on the under-representation of Muslims in the Lok Sabha but India does not seem to fare too badly compared to major democracies of the world when it comes to minority representation. A Mint analysis of six democracies: India, US, UK, Germany, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh shows that minorities tend to be under-represented in these democracies, as the accompanying chart shows.
The analysis was based on the representation score for each minority group in each democracy, computed as the difference between the share of a minority group in the legislature and the share of that minority group in the total population.
When it comes to the representation of the largest demographic minority, India fares better than the US in the representation score. The largest demographic minority in India, the Muslims comprise 13.4% of the population according to the 2001 Census. But they make up only 4.24% of the Lok Sabha—that’s a representation score of -9.16 percentage points. Hispanics in the US, in comparison, have a representation score of -10 percentage points. African Americans don’t fare too better (despite the US having a President of that ethnic group), with a representation score of -5 percentage points.
That said, while the US isn’t representative of its ethnic minorities, it has an impressive record when it comes to its religious minorities. The largest religious minority in the US, the Catholics, represents 22% of the adult population and is over-represented in Congress by almost 9 percentage points. The Jewish community, which makes up only 2% of the US adult population, forms 6.2% of the US Congress.
In the UK, though Catholics make up around 18% of the population, they form only 12.7% of the House of Commons—that’s a representation score of -5.31 percentage points. Muslims are under-represented by 0.6 percentage points in the US and 3.5 percentage points in the UK, respectively. Overall, the non-white community makes up nearly 18% of the population in the UK but has only a 4.15% representation in the Lower House. Here, too, the Jewish community is over-represented with a score of 3.23 percentage points.
Germany’s largest minority group, comprising those with immigrant roots, makes up around 20% of the population but forms only 5.7% of the Bundestag.
Closer home, Sri Lankan Hindus make up 12.6% of the population, but have only a 9.3% representation in Parliament. Muslims are similarly under-represented with a representation score of -2.14 percentage points. Christians, on the other hand, are the only over-represented religious minority in Sri Lanka.
In Bangladesh, Hindus form 9.6% of the population but make up only 2.86% of the parliament, a representation score of -6.7 percentage points.
Smaller minority groups in general tend to find better representation, the analysis finds. The median representation score of smaller minority groups across the five democracies is -1 percentage point. Even in India, religious minorities other than Muslims find better representation in the Lok Sabha. Sikhs have a representation score of 0.3 percentage points while Christians, Buddhists and Jains each have a score of -1 percentage point or less.
India has a long way to go when it comes to fairer minority representation but so do other democracies.
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