Community and Identities: Contemporary Discourses on Culture and Politics in India

This important volume of original essays interrogates contemporary debates, popular as well as academic, on the place of communities and cultural identities in India’s polity. In recent years, India has witnessed the rise of a variety of new social movements, particularly among women, farmers, Dalits, tribals and ethnic groups. These movements have raised issues which cannot be easily encompassed within the framework of the dominant theoretical and political paradigm-that is, the paradigm of development. Further, these mobilizations have given rise to fresh debates on subjects like secularism, development and modernity, which are leading to important shifts in the social scientific enterprise and research agenda. Prominent among these is in increasing preoccupation with the study of social identities along with a renewed interest in the processes of both the dissolution and the formation of communities. It is against this background that this important volume of original essays interrogates contemporary debates, popular as well as academic, on the place of communities and cultural identities in India’s polity. In particular, the contributors. Analyse some of the emerging concerns in the social and political life of contemporary India. Deal with issues that are central to recent debates among social and political theorists, that is, community, identity, nation and civil society; and Present fresh perspectives on these issues which are of interest to most developing societies. The book has two broad stands. The first comprises essays which deal with conceptual issues relating to the notions of identity and community. The second presents specific contexts or case studies of various identity-based movements where the notion of community has been invoked as a central category. Bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines and fashioning g a new social and political discourse which can engage with these emerging processes, this volume will attract a wide audience among all the social science disciplines, especially sociology, political science, social anthropology, social theory and cultural studies.