Introduction *

The conventional notion of democracy relies on national homogeneity without any cultural cleavage, the latter being seen as disruptive of the social and political equality of citizens. In the early nineteenth century, when European nation-states were being formed, homogeneities of race and of language were seen as sequent factors for the creation of democracy. The success or failure of a democracy depended on that homogeneity. If twentieth-century nation-states thrived on near homogeneity, the imperatives of colonialism with its demands for cheap labour in the metropolis brought immigrants and colonial subjects to Europe. The relationship between democracy and cultural diversity continues to remain contested and very often, democratic states struggle to reconcile the unity of the state with assertive demands of diverse groups. The politics of recognition attempts to arrest the fluidity of culture and ossify it into identity, binds culture to the notion of particularism and sees the salvation of individual in that particularism.