DEBATING DIFFERENCE: GROUP RIGHTS AND LIBERAL DEMOCRACY IN INDIA

This ground-breaking study addresses a key question for contemporary liberal democracies—how can inequalities between groups be addressed, while sustaining common citizenship? It provides the first systematic analysis of the Indian Constituent Assembly debates (1946–9). Through a reconstruction of arguments in key legislative debates over minority rights and quotas, Bajpai develops a model for interpreting post-independence group rights, based on the interplay between a set of normative concepts—secularism, democracy, social justice, national unity, and development. This book also identifies the limits of Western-centric accounts of multiculturalism, and shows that liberal and democratic values have been more sophisticated and widely shared in the Indian polity than is commonly believed.