ABSTRACT
The explosion of ethnic conflict during the 1960s in many developed countries, and the resurgence of ethno-nationalism in the eastern European block and elsewhere in Third World countries, has raised serious questions about the survival of plural societies in the context of the nation-state as currently conceived. Political developments in the late-1980s and early-1990s have provoked a marked shift in our understanding of the nature of plural societies and their problems of in-group accommodation. Ethnicity is no longer regarded as a legacy of primordial social relations: it is being taken seriously as an analytical paradigm. The debate has become more urgent in a country such as India, where complex ethnic diversities are seen on the surface. The present chapter attempts to conceptualize the rise of ethno-nationalism in the geographically peripheral northern states of India. The developments are viewed within the paradigm of colonial contradictions, historical events and differential development.
