Challenges of Cultural Diversity Class 12 Solutions

Concept used. Cultural diversity means the presence of many different types of social groups and communities living together in a society. The word diversity stresses differences rather than inequalities. These communities are marked off by cultural markers such as language, religion, sect, race or caste.

1. Diversity stresses differences. To call a society culturally diverse is to say that many distinct communities, set apart by their language, religion, sect, race or caste, share the same space. The focus is on difference, not on who ranks above whom.
2. Diversity can become a challenge. When diverse communities are also part of one larger nation, competition or conflict can break out between them. Cultural identities are very powerful: they stir strong passions and can mobilise large numbers of people, so differences can turn into tension.
3. India is diverse in many ways at once. India has a population of about 1.21 billion (Census 2011) who speak around 1,632 different languages and dialects. As many as twenty-two of these languages are officially recognised in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
4. India is religiously diverse too. About 80% of the population are Hindus, who are themselves regionally varied and divided by caste, sect and language. About 14.2% are Muslims, making India the second or third largest Muslim country in the world, along with Christians (2.3%), Sikhs (1.7%), Buddhists (0.7%) and Jains (0.4%). Because the total population is huge, even small percentages add up to large absolute numbers.

Cultural diversity is the presence of many different communities, marked off by language, religion, sect, race or caste, living in one society. India is considered very diverse because its billion-plus people speak about 1,632 languages and dialects (22 constitutionally recognised) and belong to many religions, with Hindus a regionally and caste-divided majority and large Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain communities.

Concept used. Community identity is the sense of stable identity a person draws from belonging to a community such as a family, kin group, caste, region, language group or religion. It is based on birth and belonging rather than on any acquired qualification, so it is called an ascriptive identity: it is given at birth and involves no choice.

1. Identity comes through socialisation. Every person needs a stable sense of who they are. We learn this through socialisation, the process by which our families and community teach us how to live in society. The community gives us our mother tongue and our cultural values, and so anchors our self-identity.
2. It is based on birth and belonging, not accomplishment. Community identity rests on what we are rather than on what we have become. We do not have to do anything to be born into a family, community or country, so these identities are ascriptive: fixed by birth, with no choice on the individual's part.
3. It is unconditional and almost inescapable. Membership in a family or religious or regional community has no preconditions, unlike a profession or a sports team that demands proven skill. Even if we try to disown such an identity, others may keep identifying us by those markers of belonging.
4. It is emotionally powerful and universal. Because belonging is accidental, unconditional and hard to shake off, people are deeply, emotionally attached to it and may react violently when it feels threatened. Ascriptive identities are also universal: everyone has a motherland, a mother tongue, a family and a faith, at least in a general sense.

Community identity is the stable, emotionally charged sense of self we get from belonging to communities of family, kin, caste, region, language or religion. It is an ascriptive identity, formed at birth and through socialisation, based on belonging rather than achievement, unconditional, hard to shake off, and shared universally.

Concept used. A nation is a special sort of large-scale community whose members share the desire to be part of the same political collectivity. A state is the abstract political-legal entity that, in Max Weber's definition, successfully claims a monopoly of legitimate force over a particular territory. The hard-to-pin-down link between the two produces the nation-state.

1. No defining feature works. We can describe many nations founded on a shared religion, language, ethnicity, history or regional culture, but for every such criterion there are exceptions. Many nations do not share a single common language, religion or ethnicity, and many languages or religions are spread across several nations, so no single feature defines a nation.
2. No hard line from other communities. Conceptually there is no firm distinction between a nation and an ethnic group, a religious community or a regional community. Any kind of community may one day become a nation, yet no kind is guaranteed to become one, which is why the nation is easy to describe but hard to define.
3. The state is the closest distinguishing criterion. The one thing that sets a nation apart is that nations are communities that have, or aim to have, a state of their own. That is why the two words are joined by a hyphen as the nation-state. In modern times there is usually a one-to-one bond: one nation, one state.
4. States and nations need each other. This bond is recent. In the past a single state could represent many nations, as the Soviet Union recognised over a hundred internal nationalities. Today, however, would-be nations work to acquire a state, and existing states work to claim that they represent a nation. The nation is the most accepted justification for a state, and the people are the ultimate source of a state's legitimacy, so states need nations as much as nations need states.

The nation is hard to define because no single feature, language, religion, ethnicity or history, marks off every nation, and there is no firm line dividing a nation from other communities. The one criterion that comes closest is the state: a nation is a community that has, or wants, a state of its own. In modern society the two are tightly linked as the nation-state, each needing the other for legitimacy.

Concept used. States have historically sought to build their political legitimacy through nation-building, securing the loyalty of their citizens. They fear that recognising cultural difference will lead to social fragmentation, so many adopt policies of assimilation or integration that try to impose a single national identity.

1. Fear of fragmentation. Citizens often feel a strong sense of identity with their own community, whether ethnic, religious or linguistic. States have feared that recognising such differences would lead to social fragmentation and prevent the building of a harmonious society, so cultural diversity was seen as a threat to the unity of the state.
2. Assimilation and integration. Because accommodating differences is politically challenging, many states resorted to suppressing diverse identities or ignoring them in the political domain. Policies of assimilation try to erode cultural differences outright, while policies of integration confine all non-national cultures to the private sphere and reserve the public sphere for a single national pattern. Both assume a single, homogeneous national identity.
3. Community identity as a rival. Because community identities can act as the basis for forming new nations, an existing state sees every form of community identity as a potential rival. The state therefore tends to favour a single homogeneous national identity in the hope of being able to control and manage the population more easily.
4. Suppression backfires. Yet suppressing cultural diversity is costly: it alienates the minority or subordinated communities whose culture is treated as non-national, and the very act of suppression can provoke the opposite effect, intensifying community identity. So allowing or even encouraging diversity is wiser policy, on both practical and principled grounds.

States are suspicious of cultural diversity because they fear that recognising community differences will cause social fragmentation and threaten the unity they need for legitimacy. They see community identities as rivals that could form new nations, so they favour a single homogeneous national identity through assimilation or integration. But such suppression alienates minorities and can deepen the very identities it tries to erase.

Concept used. Regionalism in India is rooted in the country's diversity of languages, cultures, tribes and religions. It is encouraged by the geographical concentration of these identity markers in particular regions and is fuelled by a sense of regional deprivation. Indian federalism has been the main means of accommodating these regional sentiments.

1. Rooted in cultural diversity. Regionalism grows out of India's diversity of languages, cultures, tribes and religions. These markers of identity are not spread evenly but are geographically concentrated, with particular languages, tribes or cultures clustered in particular regions, and this concentration encourages regional feeling.
2. Fuelled by regional deprivation. A sense of regional deprivation, the feeling that a region has been treated unfairly or left behind in development, fuels regionalism. When a region feels neglected or exploited, regional identity is asserted more strongly.
3. Language as the strongest base. Language coupled with regional and tribal identity, and not religion, has provided the most powerful basis for ethno-national identity in India. The reorganisation of states on linguistic lines after Independence shows how strong the link between language and region can be.
4. A mix of factors, not just language. Language is not the only basis. In the creation of three new states in 2000, Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal and Jharkhand, language did not play a prominent role. Instead a combination of tribal identity, regional deprivation and ecology provided the basis for statehood, showing that regionalism rests on several overlapping factors.

Regionalism is the assertion of regional identity rooted in India's diversity of languages, cultures, tribes and religions, encouraged by the geographical concentration of these markers and fuelled by a sense of regional deprivation. It is usually based on language (the most powerful factor), coupled with regional and tribal identity, ecology and a feeling of being left behind in development.

Concept used. Linguistic reorganisation refers to the redrawing of India's state boundaries on the basis of language, formally recommended by the States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) and implemented from 1 November 1956. The question asks for a reasoned opinion, and the text gives strong evidence that, on balance, it has helped India.

1. The fear at the time. In the early 1950s many leaders, including Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, feared that states based on language would hasten a further subdivision and break-up of India, so the Congress leadership hesitated. The fear was that linguistic loyalty, like religious loyalty during Partition, might tear the country apart.
2. The reverse actually happened. Far from undermining Indian unity, linguistic states have helped strengthen it. It has proved perfectly consistent to be Kannadiga and Indian, Bengali and Indian, Tamil and Indian, Gujarati and Indian, so regional pride and national belonging sit comfortably together.
3. The comparison with neighbours. The contrast with India's neighbours is telling. The same year as the SRC, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) made Sinhala its sole official language against Tamil protests; a Sinhala MP warned, ``Two languages, one nation; one language, two nations.'' Sri Lanka's civil war from 1983 and the 1971 break-up of Pakistan both flowed from the denial of linguistic rights, which India avoided.
4. My opinion: it helped. Weighing the evidence, the linguistic reorganisation has clearly helped India. It let India escape an even worse fate, for had the aspirations of Indian language communities been ignored, the result might have been ``one language, fourteen or fifteen nations.'' The only cost is that linguistic states sometimes quarrel with each other, but these disputes are minor and could have been far worse.

In my opinion the linguistic reorganisation of states has helped India. The early fear that it would fragment the country proved wrong: it allowed people to be regional and Indian at once, and so strengthened national unity. The contrast with Sri Lanka and Pakistan, which suppressed linguistic rights and suffered civil war and partition, shows that India was right to accommodate language. The occasional inter-state quarrel is a small price for having escaped a far worse fate.

Concept used. In sociology a minority is more than a numerical category. It usually means a group that is both relatively small and relatively disadvantaged, and whose members share a strong sense of group solidarity or collectivity, a feeling of togetherness and belonging.

1. Not merely a numerical idea. The sociological sense of minority is not just about numbers. Extremely wealthy people are a small group but are not called a minority unless the term is qualified, as in privileged minority. Used on its own, minority means a group that is relatively small and disadvantaged.
2. It implies collectivity. A minority in the sociological sense forms a collectivity: its members have a strong sense of group solidarity, of togetherness and belonging. The experience of being subjected to prejudice and discrimination heightens this intra-group loyalty. So statistical groups like left-handed people or those born on 29 February are not minorities, because they do not form a collectivity.
3. Disadvantage can vary. A minority may be disadvantaged in one sense but not another. The Parsis or Sikhs, for instance, may be relatively well-off economically yet remain disadvantaged in a cultural sense because of their small numbers relative to the Hindu majority.
4. Why they need protection. Religious or cultural minorities need special protection because of the demographic dominance of the majority. Without it, the normal working of the political system can place them at a disadvantage, since there is a strong tendency for the dominant group to treat its own culture, language or religion as synonymous with the nation. Special constitutional provisions are therefore required to safeguard the rights of all groups, and of minorities in particular, so that the nation can be strong, united and democratic.

A minority, in the sociological sense, is a group that is relatively small, relatively disadvantaged, and bound together as a collectivity with a strong sense of solidarity, not merely a numerical category. Minorities need protection from the state because the demographic dominance of the majority, and its tendency to equate its own culture with the nation, can leave them disadvantaged in the normal political process; special constitutional safeguards are needed for a strong, united and democratic nation.

Concept used. Communalism refers to an aggressive political ideology linked to religion. In everyday South Asian usage it means aggressive chauvinism based on religious identity, where chauvinism is the attitude that sees one's own group as the only legitimate or worthy group and all other groups as inferior, illegitimate and opposed.

1. An aggressive political ideology. Communalism is, to put it simply, an aggressive political ideology linked to religion. It is a peculiarly Indian or South Asian sense of the word, different from the neutral English ``communal,'' which merely means something relating to a community. The South Asian meaning is strongly charged.
2. It is about politics, not faith. Communalism is about politics, not about religion. Although communalists are intensely involved with religion, there is no necessary link between personal faith and communalism. A communalist may or may not be a devout person, and a devout believer may or may not be a communalist. What defines a communalist is belief in a political identity based on religion.
3. Religion overrides everything else. A key feature of communalism is its claim that religious identity overrides everything else. Whatever one's class, occupation, caste or political belief, it is religion alone that counts: all Hindus are treated as the same, as are all Muslims and Sikhs. This constructs large and diverse groups as single, homogeneous blocs.
4. Hostility towards other groups. The crucial factor is the attitude towards those who do not share one's religion. Communalists cultivate an aggressive political identity and are prepared to condemn or attack everyone outside their group, which is why communalism has been a recurrent source of tension and violence in India.

Communalism is an aggressive political ideology linked to religion: an aggressive chauvinism that treats one's own religious group as the only legitimate one and all others as inferior and opposed. It is about politics, not personal faith; it claims that religious identity overrides everything else, constructs diverse people into single homogeneous religious blocs, and breeds hostility towards those of other religions.

Concept used. Secularism is among the most complex terms in social and political theory. The Western sense centres on the separation of church and state. The Indian sense includes this but adds another: secular as the opposite of communal, meaning a person or state that does not favour any one religion over others.

1. The Western sense, separation. In the Western context, the main sense of secularism is the separation of religious and political authority, the separation of church and state. This was tied to the process of secularisation, by which religion retreated from public life and became a voluntary personal practice rather than a mandatory obligation, alongside the rise of science and rationality.
2. The Indian sense includes the Western one. The Indian meanings of secular and secularism include the Western sense but also involve others. So the Western idea of separating religion from the state is part of the Indian meaning, but not the whole of it.
3. The Indian sense, opposite of communal. The most common everyday use of secular in India is as the opposite of communal. A secular person or state is one that does not favour any particular religion over others. In this sense secularism is the opposite of religious chauvinism and need not imply hostility to religion as such.
4. Equal respect, not distance. In terms of the state-religion relationship, the Indian sense implies equal respect for all religions, rather than separation or distancing. This is why the secular Indian state declares public holidays to mark the festivals of all religions, instead of keeping religion entirely out of public life.

In India secularism has been understood in two main senses. The first is the Western sense: the separation of religious and political authority, the separation of church and state. The second, more common in everyday Indian use, is secular as the opposite of communal: a person or state that favours no single religion. In the state-religion relationship the Indian sense implies equal respect for all religions rather than separation, which is why the Indian state honours the festivals of all faiths.

Concept used. Civil society is the broad arena that lies beyond the private domain of the family but outside the domain of both the state and the market. It is the non-state, non-market part of the public domain where individuals come together voluntarily to create institutions and organisations. It is the sphere of active citizenship.

1. What it is. Civil society consists of voluntary associations, organisations and institutions formed by groups of citizens. It includes political parties, media institutions, trade unions, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and religious organisations. The main criteria are that the organisation should not be state-controlled and should not be a purely commercial, profit-making entity.
2. Its wide range of activity. Today civil society organisations cover a very wide range. They take up advocacy and lobbying with national and international agencies and join many movements. The issues are diverse: tribal land rights, urban governance, campaigns against violence against women, rehabilitation of those displaced by dams, struggles against slum demolitions, housing rights, education reform and the rights of Dalits, among others.
3. Keeping a watch on the state. Civil liberties organisations have been particularly important in keeping a watch on the state and forcing it to obey the law. The media, especially its visual and electronic segments, has taken an increasingly active role. Civil society can protest against the injustices of the state or supplement its efforts, which becomes vital when the state turns authoritarian, corrupt, inefficient or short of resources.
4. A concrete example, the Right to Information. Among the most significant recent initiatives is the campaign for the Right to Information. It began with an agitation in rural Rajasthan demanding the release of information on government funds spent on village development, then grew into a nationwide campaign. Despite the resistance of the bureaucracy, the government was forced to respond and pass a new law (the RTI Act 2005) acknowledging citizens' right to information. This shows the crucial importance of civil society in ensuring that the state is accountable to the nation and its people.

Civil society is the non-state, non-market arena of voluntary citizen organisations, parties, unions, NGOs and the media. Its relevance today lies in giving citizens an active voice: it takes up diverse causes from land rights to violence against women, keeps a watch on the state and forces it to obey the law, and holds the state accountable, as the Right to Information campaign and the RTI Act 2005 show.