ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the Indian multicultural approach as a mixed and ongoing multiculturalism based on both the recognition of community and group rights in a democratic constitutional framework and a peculiar structure of the State based on asymmetrical federalism and grassroots self-government. It examines the Indian approach to the language question, the institutional federal organization, and the recognition of language rights in the fundamental charter. In contemporary multicultural States language constitutes a potential source of conflict. Language conflicts arise from different causes: the imposition of a dominant language in large States, the presence of historical linguistic minorities, the settlement of "new minorities" of migrants and more recently the advent of "superdiversity" in globalized societies, to quote a few. The Indian experience of prevention and management of language conflicts, demonstrates the viability of a pluralist and multicultural approach to face diversity in contemporary societies.
