ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the hypothesis inherent in the author's argument that negotiating difference has to be seen in a continuous mode of operation rather than in the format of, to borrow from a terminology common in cognitive networks of artificial intelligence that we use daily, the Control keys of Erase/Delete or Paste/Copy on our PCs and Laptops. The experience of the Indian nation-state to graft a cultural pluralism with a hard core centre to which is loosely attached the cultural diversity of India denies the organic links that these multiple margins had been with the core of an Indian civilizational identity in the past. The tendency in the pre-modern India to negotiate with the groups in regional and local contextual situations continued and this gave rise to new cultural identities based not only on the language, food, clothes etcetera, but also on belief and region.
