Author: Arvind N Das
Publisher: Manohar
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 270
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8173040818
Description
The future of India has been the subject of several pressing questions in the recent past particularly after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the country’s embarking on an adventurist globalisation-liberalisation programme. What constitutes India? And will it hold together?
Today the strains on India are showing. Over-centralisation, communal conflict, caste rivalries, linguistic and ethnic assertions-have all taken a toll of the ideals on which modern India is premised.
This book addresses itself to the problem of conceptualizing and understanding India. It concludes that what constitutes India is republicanism and if practice has subverted the ideal, it is perhaps time to devise another method of actualizing the vision. What we may be witnessing is the messy birth of India’s second republic and the re-invention of a nation in the image of its common people.
Contents
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
INTRODUCTION-Ethnicity: A Look into the Indian Kaleidoscope
PROLOGUE: India Invented, Disinvented and Re-invented
Concepts and Categories
Some Theoretical Considerations on Class
Class and Classification
Class Composition and Class Action
Villagers in the city: Workers in the Village
Categories into Concepts
Tribe in India: From Ethnicity to Class
Religion: Nationalism and Constitutional Order
Harijans into Dalit- From Caste to class
The Tower of Babel: Misunderstandings in Many Languages
National Integration in a Fragmented Society
Inconclusive Conclusions: some Theoretical and Practical Considerations
Epilogue: Another Republic for India
REFERENCES
INDEX