In This Collection Leading Academics And Intellectuals Reflect Upon The Concept Of A Minority And Examine Minority Rights In A Historical And Comparative Political Perspective, Covering The Experiences Of Minorities In India, China, The Eastwhile Soviet Union And Bangladesh.

The blood-laden birth-pangs of the Indian "nation-state" undoubtedly had a bearing on the contentious issue of group rights for cultural minorities. Indeed, the trajectory of the concept ‘minority rights’ evolved amidst multiple conceptualizations, political posturing and violent mobilizations and outbursts. Accommodating minority groups posed a predicament for the fledgling "nation-state" of post-colonial India. This book compares and contrasts Muslim and Sikh communities in pre- and post-Partition India. Mapping the evolving discourse on minority rights, the author looks at the overlaps between the Constitutional and the majoritarian discourse being articulated in the public sphere and poses questions about the guaranteeing of minority rights. The book suggests that through historical ruptures and breaks , communities oscillate between being minorities and nations. Combining archival material with ethnographic fieldwork, it studies the identity groups and their vexed relationship to the ideas of nation and nationalism. It captures meanings attributed to otherwise politically loaded concepts such as nation, nation-state and minority rights in the everyday world of Muslims and Sikhs and thus tries to make sense of the patterns of accommodation, adaptation and contestation in the life-world. Successfully confronting and illuminating the challenge of reconciling representation and equality both for groups and within groups, this exploration of South Asian nationalisms and communal relations will be of interest to academics in the field of South Asian Studies, in particular Sociology and Politics.

Contributed articles.

At the start of the 21st century, we are still debating various fundamental issues pertaining to core human values, popularly known as 'human rights'. Constituting an important contribution to the debate, the central purpose of this book is to demonstrate the essential link between human rights and democracy. Nalini Rajan maintains that human rights can flourish only in a state which promotes the democratic value of equal consideration of individual autonomy - i.e., each person's capacity to act independently. Taking up various important issues and concepts like multiculturalism, citizenship, economic rights, and the right to a certain quality of life, Nalini Rajan argues that minority rights are not the only way to counter majoritarianism. She also advocates structural and constitutional changes to render the Indian polity more federal, particularly through devolution and local self-governance.

The Book Suggests That We Should Focus On Identity Which Would Help Us Tackle The Divisive, Often Violent Strands Of Our Society In The Context Of Pressing Moral Crisis Of Democracy And Secularism. The Editors Have Provided A Valuable Forum For The Ordinary Concerned Citizen Who Aspires For A More Just Society.

"How did the founders of the most populous democratic nation in the world meet the problem of establishing a democracy after the departure of foreign rule? The justification for British imperial rule had stressed the impossibility of Indian self-government. At the heart of India's founding moment, in which constitution-making and democratization occurred simultaneously, lay the question of how to implement democracy in an environment regarded as unqualified for its existence. India's founders met this challenge in direct terms-the people, they acknowledged, had to be educated to create democratic citizens. But the path to education lay not in being ruled by a superior class of men but rather in the very creation of a self-sustaining politics. Universal suffrage was instituted amidst poverty, illiteracy, social heterogeneity, and centuries of tradition. Under the guidance of B. R. Ambedkar, Indian lawmakers crafted a constitutional system that could respond to the problem of democratization under the most inhospitable of conditions. On January 26, 1950, the Indian constitution-the longest in the world-came into effect. More than half of the world's constitutions have been written in the past three decades. Unlike the constitutional revolutions of the late-eighteenth century, these contemporary revolutions have occurred in countries that are characterized by low levels of economic growth and education; are divided by race, religion, and ethnicity; and have democratized at once, rather than gradually. The Indian founding is a natural reference point for such constitutional moments-when democracy, constitutionalism, and modernity occur simultaneously"--