In some senses the term "minority" is disparaging as it denotes the weakness or powerlessness of a group. It also indicates that a group is inferior to another party and instills in that group a perpetual inferiority complex while implying it can expect to be further neglected and marginalized.
Yet being in a minority for many people and groups is an everyday reality, be it in a religious, ethnic, socio-economic or political sense.
Bangladesh has two major groups of minorities — religious and ethnic — who are visibly more weak and powerless, inferior and disenfranchised than the economically, politically and numerically dominant Muslim majority.
