Evolution of Public Sphere in India

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.