Debating difference : group rights and liberal democracy in India / Rochana Bajpai.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [296]-310) and index.

The moment of containment : the Constituent Assembly debates, 1946-9. Minority rights in colonial India and the Constituent Assembly : a historical background ; Nationalist discourse and group rights : a conceptual approach ; From minority to backward : the nationalist resolution of the 'minorities question' -- The moment of crisis : preferential policies, 1986, 1990. Secularism and Muslim personal law : the Shah Bano case, 1986 ; Social justice and quotas in government jobs for other backward classes : the Mandal debate, 1990.

India is an outstanding example of multiculturalism, with wide-ranging policies of group preference dating back to the colonial period. Debating Difference presents the first systematic account of the structure of public reasoning over group rights primarily focusing on the landmark constitutional and legislative debates in the late 1940s and late 1980s. While the former saw a centralization of power, the latter marked a decentering of power in the Indian polity. Dr. Rochana Bajpai focuses, exclusively, on shifts in political discourses, even as she simultaneously illuminates the political events and junctures in which these are located. Through an analytical interpretation of the Constituent Assembly (1946-9), Shah Bano (1986), and Mandal (1990, 2006) debates, Debating Difference constructs a conceptual framework within which Indian arguments over group rights can be understood and evaluated. It argues that the interplay between five principal ideals--secularism, democracy, social justice, national unity, and development--has framed political debate in India.