Is India unique in politically managing ethnic conflicts? This book evaluates critically the conventional wisdom which argues that it is. By focusing on India's nation and state-building in the peripheral regions since 1947 and contemporary developments, it suggests that India should be considered as a form of ethnic democracy. Within India's ethnic democracy, hegemonic and violent control is exercised over minorities, especially religious communities constituting majorities in the federating units. A detailed case-study is provided of the management of the 'Punjab proble' - the growth and...

'This fine study of the Sikhs in Britain is a splendid addition to the field. Not only does it provide an invaluable mapping of the community's origins and development which should make it a standard work of reference for years to come, but in its sophisticated interrogation of the sociological and political tensions which have marked that development it makes a uniquely informed wider contribution to the ongoing debates about the nature of 'multicultural' Britain'. - Professor Christopher Shackle, SOAS, University of London
'This book is of very great importance for anyone who wishes to...

This important new book critically evaluates the conventional reading of ethnicity and ethnic conflict in contemporary Indian politics. By focusing on India's nation and state-building in the peripheral regions since 1947, in particular Punjab, it argues that there is a case for considering India as an ethnic democracy.

The British divided and quit India in 1947. The partition of India and the creation of Pakistan uprooted entire communities and left unspeakable violence in its trail. This volume tells the story of partition through the events that led up to it, the terrors that accompanied it, to migration and resettlement. In a new shift in the understanding of this seminal moment, the book also explores the legacies of partition which continue to resonate today in the fractured lives of individuals and communities, and more broadly in the relationship between India and Pakistan and the ongoing conflict...

Religion, violence, and ethnicity are all intertwined in the history of Pakistan. The entrenchment of landed interests, operationalized through violence, ethnic identity, and power through successive regimes has created a system of 'authoritarian clientalism.' This book offers comparative, historicist, and multidisciplinary views on the role of identity politics in the development of Pakistan.

Bringing together perspectives on the dynamics of state-building, the book provides insights into contemporary processes of national contestation which are crucially affected by their...

This book brings together new approaches to the study of Sikh religion, culture and ethnicity being pursued in the diaspora by Sikh academics in western universities in Britain and North America. An important aspect of the volume is the diversity of topics that are engaged - including film and gender theory, theology, hermeneutics, deconstruction, semiotics and race theory - and brought to bear on the individual contributors' specialism within Sikh studies, thereby helping to explode previously static dichotomies such as insider vs. outsider or history vs. tradition. The volume should have...