Define ethnicity . Discuss the factors responsible for the growth of ethnic movements in India.(UPSC CSE Mains 2022 - Sociology, Paper 2)
- India is a multi- ethnic, multi- religious, multi-cultural and multi-linguistic country where national unity is given priority. Different ethnic groups have been asserting their ethnic rights and privileges through different types of movements. Ethnic movements in Assam, Punjab, North-East states, West Bengal and Kashmir have created a separate consciousness for the minorities to establish their identity in these states. Some ethnic movements are democratic and peaceful while others are separatist movements engaged with ethnic violence. So ethnicity has been a prime issue in nation and Nation-State.
- Rajni Kothari, an eminent social scientist (1988) has argued that the process of formation of ethnic identity gets momentum when domination of the majority over the minority becomes an evident fact. Often, the dominant majority tries to assimilate and integrate the minority into the so-called mainstream. Kothari has therefore linked the ethnic movements in India with the movements of marginalised people and of those seeking indigenous authenticity. Pathy (2000) also equally argued that the Indian state has followed the western model of nationstate and undermined tribal identities. It has also deprived them of much of their land, livelihood, language, religion and culture. The western assumption of nationstate as a melting pot leading to a homogeneous national culture has not proved to be a myth. The tribal, non-tribal or Hindu-Muslim interactions in India did not result in the extinction of any particular culture in India.
Eminent Social scientists explain some of the critical factors responsible for inflamed ethnicity in India as below:
- India is a plural society. It is characterized by a large diversity in its population with multitudes of castes and several religious, linguistic, cultural and racial groups living here. Because of intense competition for scarce economic resources and the heightened consciousness among people of different groups to preserve their age .old cultures, India has always been vulnerable to assertions of ethnic identities.
- Lopsided economic development of the country because of which some groups feel that they have been marginalised and completely left behind in the process of development, makes them highly susceptible to the politics of ethnicity.
- Representative parliamentary democracy in India where different ethnic groups (castes, religious groups, linguistic groups etc.) compete for political power by stressing on horizontal solidarity and consolidation of shared interests.
- Increasing politicization of caste and religion: Caste and religious identities are often whipped up by political leaders to mobilize people for their vested interests and petty political mileage.
- Fear among minorities (both linguistic and religious) that they might get assimilated into the dominant culture, leading to the dilution of their cultural heritage. Hence, there is an increasing stress on ethnic identity to forge horizontal solidarity. Such feelings have also increased because of the process of globalization and cultural homogenization occurring everywhere. Cultural globalization is causing even the Hindu majority to assert itself and is spawning Hindu revivalism in India.
- Intense feeling of alienation among the tribes of India because of faulty development policies, leading to forced displacement from their age -old habitats, lands and forests reducing them to abject poverty.
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