eprintid: 4717
rev_number: 26
eprint_status: archive
userid: 1
dir: disk0/00/00/47/17
datestamp: 2004-06-18 13:55:59
lastmod: 2016-01-18 12:17:40
status_changed: 2012-08-14 15:12:12
type: workingPaper
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Sonntag, Selma K.
title: National Minority Rights in the Himalayas
ispublished: pub
subjects: 320
divisions: 702000
divisions: 999904
keywords: India , Comparative Studies , Political Theory , Minorities , Multiculturalism
cterms_swd: Indien
cterms_swd: Vergleichende Forschung
cterms_swd: Politische Theorie
cterms_swd: Minderheitenrecht
cterms_swd: Multikulturelle Gesellschaft
abstract: India is a multicultural liberal democratic state. It is also a poor, overpopulated Third World country. Many modernization theorists have assumed that these two descriptors were at odds, or at least sequentially determined with economic development a necessary pre-condition for democracy, and hence predicted the failure of the Indian experiment because of its "fissiparous tendencies." More contemporary comparative political scientists have attempted more sophisticated and nuanced explanations of the Indian experiment than what modernization theorists offered. Also recently political theorists have increasingly turned their attention to multiculturalism. In this paper, I use a particular type of accommodation made by the Indian state to cultural diversity, constitutionally prescribed in the Sixth Schedule for parts of Assam but increasingly applied elsewhere in the northern stretches of Indian territory, to investigate contributions of recent liberal theory to understanding India's multiculturalism. One of the most prominent political theorists in recent times in the West is Will Kymlicka, who weds multiculturalism to liberalism in his liberal theory of minority rights. The mainstay of his theory is his distinction between national minorities and immigrant ethnic groups. Through this distinction he describes and prescribes accommodations made by the liberal state to cultural diversity. Although he admits that there are gray areas or "hard cases" that challenge his categorization, his "approach" has been "to draw clear lines in muddy waters." Can Kymlickian lines be drawn in the sediment-filled streams flowing down from the Himalayas? Do Kymlicka's categories, and, more generally, his theory help us understand India�s liberal multiculturalism as practiced in the Himalayan foothills of north India?
abstract_translated_lang: eng
date: 2004
date_type: published
id_scheme: DOI
id_number: 10.11588/heidok.00004717
portal_cluster_id: p-hdpaper
portal_order: 21
ppn_swb: 1643784714
own_urn: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-47177
language: eng
bibsort: SONNTAGSELNATIONALMI2004
full_text_status: public
series: Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics
volume: 21
issn: 1617-5069
citation:   Sonntag, Selma K.  (2004) National Minority Rights in the Himalayas.  [Working paper]     
document_url: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/4717/1/hpsacp_21.pdf