ABSTRACT

Multiculturalism in Contemporary India Harihar Bhattacharyya

Introduction

Multicultural concerns have informed India’s history and traditions, her constitution and political arrangements for a long time. Much of the writings on Indian history, culture and politics are marked by some kind of multicultural considerations. Even the recommendations of the successive Finance Commissions of India, to take an unusual example, show that its changing criteria for allocation of resources for states are accommodative of the country’s social and cultural diversity (Bhattacharyya 2001a). India’s constitution can be said to be a multicultural document in the sense of providing for political and institutional measures for the recognition and accommodation of the country’s diversity. But multiculturalism as a term of scholarly discourse of society and politics in India is a very recent vintage, originating in the 1990s when some scholars felt the need to respond to the global debate on the subject with Indian experience.