Amir Ali

Nigeria's recent turbulence has been an outcome of changes in its recent political past. The decision of its northern states to impose the sharia, the Bush administration's war on terror as well as the activities of multinational oil companies in the Niger delta has made Nigeria's fragile democracy look increasingly vulnerable.

Having successfully brought up the debate of dalit emancipation at the international level, it is necessary now to firstly contextualise the movement in the rising tide of Hindutva and secondly, within the logic of economic liberalisation. For, the movement for dalit emancipation has arisen as a major political discourse at the same time that Hindutva and economic liberalisation have emerged on the Indian political stage.

The particular manner in which the public sphere has evolved in India under colonial rule and during the national movement and hence the very nature that it has acquired has made it susceptible to the recent advance of Hindutva. It is in the backdrop of the ambiguities of the national movement, which were partly a result of nationalist responses to colonial rule, that one can understand some of the anomalies in the public sphere as it currently exists in India. In any consideration of the public sphere its relation to the private sphere cannot be neglected for it is in its relation to the private sphere that the public is itself defined and given shape. Institutionalising multiculturalism in the public sphere will involve a renegotiation of the relationship between the two spheres. Ways and means of recreating a public sphere so that it adequately reflects the diversity of the country must be seriously explored.