Minorities

In North East India, the indigenous assertion and mobilisation of various ethnic communities often lead to the dislocation and impoverishment of the settled minority communities. The relationship between tribal communities and settled minority communities is often driven by conflicts in sharing resources and accessing political power. When the Khasis, the dominant ethnic community in Meghalaya, assert their indigenous claims over the minority Dalit Sikhs, it would displace their land and resources leading to further insecurity and impoverishment.

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Hindu–Muslim Relations: What Europe Might Learn from India by Jörg Friedrichs, Routledge India, 2018; pp 152, ₹695 (hardcover).

Institutionalizing Constitutional Rights: Post-Sachar Committee Scenario by Abusaleh Shariff, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016; pp xxix + 485, ₹ 1,195.

The fight against institutional communalism in India alerts us to a challenge bigger than merely inflicting electoral defeats on Hindu communal parties and organisations. Even if such parties are defeated electorally, institutional Hindu communalism remains pervasive in varying degrees in India's Constitution, judiciary, civil services, electoral and parliamentary institutions, security forces, prisons, academia, media, corporate business, and even non-governmental organisations, it will continue as a social, cultural and politico-economic force to disadvantage the lives of minority communities in India.