We always talk of majority and minority and how both should behave for peaceful co-existence.Man is a social animal.Apart from  one's individual identity, one always  has many social  identities.Aperson  will belong to multiple social groups.These groups may be  represented by gender, age, profession, caste, economic class, region (place of birth, village, town, district, state, country, continent,coastal, plains, mountains, South, North, East  and West etc.), ethnic group, race, religion, language, eating habit,dressing styles, health status i.e. sick, healthy, handicapped etc. and so on.This is what constitutes as social groups and one may be part of majority in  one sense and  minority on other  count.For example, I may belong to a majority religion but language wise I may fall in minority group.Similarly, I may belong to identical majority group  in respect of religion, language and state but may be part of  a minority caste here.The majority and minority, therefore, go together in the same person.

Now, question comes how the majority and minority representing people should behave themselves for harmonious  living in a society.In fact both minority  and majority should  learn to co-exist togetther in a complementary manner.Both should follow an strict code of conduct  not to offend each other.The intrests of both the groups must be thrashed out  dispassionately in an orderly way sothat no group feels let down.The modern statecraft should evolve suitable mechanisms to safeguard  the interests of both minorities and the majority in a systematic manner through institutional  arrangements.The  state sponsored dialogue processes must be perfected to  settle the different view points.The people must be taken into confidence in matters of legislation of any kind that may have element of majority/minority considerations.The majority should not be allowed to impose its will on minority and at the same time  minority must see reason not to hurt thefeelins of majority.The minorities may be few women in an office dominated by men, few  gujarati speaking people in a marathi speaking  city, a few  Hindus in a Muslim dominated district, a few shias in a predominantly  sunni  state, a few  white people in a dominantly black population, a  few Indians in Australia, a few protestants among largely catholic  population and so on.At other places, the reverse would be true.

Since a same person may belong to a majority group and the minority at the same time, it is all the more important  for the  modern civilised world today to  devise mechanisms to regulate the  varying interests in a judicious manner.Instead of leaving the groups settle themselves, state  legislations, mechanisms and institutional  measures must be in place.The mutual consensus must be  ensured through all these means in a manner that  protects the interests of majority and minority both.Even when no consensus is reached, the state enforcement must be respected by all concerned and the rule of law must finally prevail.If not always, the will  and authority of the democratic  state must prevail over individual's conveniences.