ABSTRACT
In our discussion of India we examined the thesis that human development differentials emanate from the larger patterns of politicization of difference, which in turn are embedded in histories of state formation and political-economy. For South Asia, these relationships between the politicization of difference and politicaleconomy need to be examined in terms of two contrasting state forms: the secular state form in India and the non-secular state forms in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Several questions arise here. For instance, does the situation of Muslims in India with respect to human development arise because they are a religious minority population within a secular nation-state where secularism does not require any specifi c forms of affi rmative action for religious minorities? I argued that there are certainly some contradictions of Indian secularism that have resulted in this unevenness, but there are certainly broader historical political-economic processes at play, which are responsible. This is particularly evident from the fact that not only Muslims but at least two other social groups continue to suffer huge disadvantages; most alarmingly, together these three groups make up more than half of a population as large as India’s. In other words, a much broader pattern of exclusion and disempowerment is at play, and one which emanates from the political-economic processes. This broader pattern is manifest in the deep schisms that divide all Indians: with 80 per cent of the population living under $2 a day; and 28 per cent of Indians falling below the human poverty threshold (UNDP Human Development Report database).1
