ABSTRACT
Anxieties about ‘identity’, a catch-all term that embraces a variety of contradictory perceptions and passions by a people about themselves and the ‘other’, and political mobilization exploiting such anxieties, are not unique to any one part of the country. Caste as a weapon of political mobilization has been a permanent given in Indian politics, reflecting an inescapable reality of social and political divide. Historians and anthropologists place ‘ethnicity’ at the very beginning of human history and civilization. However, the articulation of ethnicity in the Indian political idiom is a more recent phenomenon. For instance, though the term was not used, the consciousness of a unique identity that could not co-exist with the firang or foreigner was a crucial element in the mobilization of the 1857 uprising. Important and able tribal leaders had occupied leading positions in the governments formed under the Government of India Act of 1935.
