000			01684 a2200193 4500
008			171021b c2011 xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780199453375
082			_a323.154 _bBAJ
100			_aBajpai, Rochana
245			_aDebating difference : group rights and liberal democracy in India
260			_b Oxford University Press, _c2011 _aNew Delhi:
300			_axiv, 324 p. ; _c 23 cm.
365			_aINR _b495.00
500			_aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
520			_aIndia is an outstanding example of multiculturalism, with wide-ranging policies of group preference dating back to the colonial period. Debating Difference presents the first systematic account of the structure of public reasoning over group rights primarily focusing on the landmark constitutional and legislative debates in the late 1940s and late 1980s. While the former saw a centralization of power, the latter marked a decentering of power in the Indian polity. Dr. Rochana Bajpai focuses, exclusively, on shifts in political discourses, even as she simultaneously illuminates the political events and junctures in which these are located. Through an analytical interpretation of the Constituent Assembly (1946-9), Shah Bano (1986), and Mandal (1990, 2006) debates, Debating Difference constructs a conceptual framework within which Indian arguments over group rights can be understood and evaluated. It argues that the interplay between five principal ideals--secularism, democracy, social justice, national unity, and development--has framed political debate in India.
650			_aMinorities--Civil rights--India.
650			_aIndia--Ethnic relations.
942			_2ddc _cTD
999			_c46497 _d46497