For the purposes of Article 30 of the Constitution of India, what is the unit with reference to which the existence of a religious or linguistic minority is to be determined?

Paragraph 23The question now is what does minority means and how is it to be ascertained as to whether a set of people or community constitute a minority in a given case. A Constitutional Bench of the Hon'ble Supreme Court consisting of seven Hon'ble Judges, in the case of In Re: Kerala Education Bill, 1957, reported in AIR 1958 SC 956, set out a brief overview of the cultural and educational rights under the Constitution and their inter-se relationship, and went on to partly answer the aforesaid question as minority means any community less than 50% of the total population. The remaining part of the question, which forms the vital part, is 50% of the total population of what ? The Hon'ble Supreme Court was of the preliminary opinion that it would not be a satisfactory test to determine minority in relation to the particular region of the State where the educational institution is or intended to be situated, rather than the State as a whole. Though the Hon'ble Supreme Court refrained from expressing a final opinion on the question on what is to be considered as the unit for determining minority status, it was observed that as the law in question there applies to the entirety of the State, minority is to be determined in relation to the State. Thus, the principle advanced is that, when the matter involves a State law applicable throughout that State, then the unit for determining minority status is that State. Relevant extract reads thus: "Re. Question 2: 20. Articles 29 and 30 are set out in Part III of our Constitution which guarantees our fundamental rights. They are grouped together under the sub-head “Cultural and Educational Rights”. The text and the marginal notes of both the articles show that their purpose is to confer those fundamental rights on certain sections of the community which constitute minority communities. Under clause (1) of Article 29 any section of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part thereof having a distinct language, script or culture of its own has the right to conserve the same. It is obvious that a minority community can effectively conserve its language, script or culture by and through educational institutions and, therefore, the right to establish and maintain educational institutions of its choice is a necessary concomitant to the right to conserve its distinctive language, script or culture and that is what is conferred on all minorities by Article 30(1) which has hereinbefore been quoted in full. This right, however, is subject to clause 2 of Article 29 which provides that no citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them. 21. As soon as we reach Article 30(1) learned counsel for the State of Kerala at once poses the question : what is a minority? That is a term which is not defined in the Constitution. It is easy to say that a minority community means a community which is numerically less than 50 per cent, but then the question is not fully answered, for part of the question has yet to be answered, namely, 50 per cent. of what? Is it 50 per cent of the entire population of India or 50 per cent of the population of a State forming a part of the Union? The position taken up by the State of Kerala in its statement of case filed herein is as follows: