ABSTRACT
The cataclysmic events that took place in the town of Ayodhya in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in December 19922 compelled many to question the assumptions behind popular explanations of “communalism” in subcontinental politics. South Asianists have not been alone in this exercise. Theories about ethnicity and nationalism have come under new scrutiny by Western and non-Westem social scientists and historians. Long before these events, the “primordialist” analysis of ethnic identity was under attack by theorists who argued that ethnic identity was a political construction. Much the same kind of thinking is characteristic of press reports and commentary about contemporary “ethnic” conflicts in Europe, Africa, and the former Soviet Union. The membership of ethnic or religious communities, too often assumed to be monolithic in character, has divisions which complicate any effort to forge political consensus around any particular symbol.
