The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Friday said Muslims and Christians in India cannot be treated as minorities as they have not come from outside the country.

It also called for an early end to what it termed as 'minorityism'.

Addressing the Akhil Bharat Pratinidhi Sabha, the highest policy-making body of the Sangh that began its three-day conclave in Mangalore, RSS general secretary Mohan Rao Bhagawat said the forefathers of 99.9 per cent of Muslims and Christians in India were Hindus.

The British had introduced the minority-majority schism to divide the society, Bhagawat said.

"In reality, minorities are those who have been uprooted from their respective countries and who take shelter in other countries. On that basis, our Jews and Parsees can be called minorities. But they refused to be addressed as minorities and completely submerged their identities in the national mainstream of our country," he said.

The Supreme Court, Bhagawat said, had in a judgment categorically stated that Hindu did not denote any religion and it was a way and view of life encompassing several ways of worship. "It is in the interest of the nation to put an early end to this concept of 'minorityism'," he added.

Nearly 1,200 delegates from the RSS and its 30 affiliated (Parivar) organisations are attending the conclave.