Linguistic Minorities Rights and Ethnic Federalism:

The Comparative Study of the Union of India and the Republic of South Africa

Abstract

The rights of linguistic minority groups in the third-generation and multi-ethnic federations of India and South Africa are the subjects of the article. More specifically, it has the purpose of identifying the separate as well as the comparative significance of the pluralistic federal constitutional polities of India and South Africa to the protection of the rights of federation and federal unit-level linguistic minority groups. Its findings underscore that the rights of linguistic minority groups in the arena of language policy, education, economic, and political participation have been more of individual rights based in South Africa than in India which follows the corporate approach of community-based diversity accommodation, remarkably minority schools and federal unit re-drawing. Despite of that co-official language policy and multilingual schools and public services have places in the constitutions and various acts of both South Africa and India. That proves the varied applications multi-ethnic federal system in terms of the rights of linguistic minority groups. It also calls in those institutional, social, historical and political factors not necessarily implied by the constitutional features of multi-ethnic federal policies.