A look back at the historical context of minority rights in the subcontinent offers a depressing contrast between the present-day situation and the colonial government’s efforts to secure minority representation and autonomous political participation in the legislature. In the three Round Table Conferences held in London during the early 1930s, the British government had invited representatives of the upper-caste Hindus, religious minorities and Scheduled Castes, then known as Depressed Classes, to come to an agreement for a common constitution. In November 1931, all the minority and Depressed Classes representatives agreed on a common draft, called the Minorities Pact, which first laid down measures such as reservation in legislatures and government jobs, and protection against caste atrocities and the monopoly of caste Hindus. Later, the Constituent Assembly incorporated some of these protections for the constitutionally recognised classes in the chapter on Fundamental Rights. But the Minorities Pact was rejected by MK Gandhi. The colonial government still went on to grant various protections, including separate electorates, to the minorities and Depressed Classes. For many minorities and oppressed communities across India, the passage of seventy-five years has brought no less than a fall from their past status—from negotiators at the table to helpless appellants whose voices rarely matter to the government.

Read Sagar's notes on how the minority legislators rued the erosion of the Constitution under the Modi government: