The Politics of Ethnicity in India - Part two

The 1981-census enumerates a tribal population of more than 50 million persons divided into hundreds of distinct groups.

Many political mobilizations have occurred among several of the tribal groups from the nineteenth-century up to the present, of which a few have developed into bitter, violent, and secessionist-movements directed against non-tribals, against particular state-governments, or against the 'Government of India' itself.

> The Politics of Ethnicity in India: Part one

Source > The Politics of India since Independence

The Politics of Ethnicity in India - Part one

India's linguistic, religious, ethnic, and cultural diversities are proverbial. So are the political mobilizations and the violent conflicts and antagonisms which have arisen from time to time among and between persons from its distinctive cultural groups.

However, it is important to note that neither political mobilization nor ethnic and cultural antagonisms flow naturally out of India's diversities.

The 1971 census of India enumerated 33 languages with speakers of more than one million, but only 15 of them have achieved any form of significant political recognition.

> The Politics of Ethnicity in India: Part two

Source > The Politics of India since Independence