Multiculturalism and minority rights in India: Interface between theory and practice

Abstract

Multiculturalism's entry into the theoretical realm has helped many societies to solve the problems and conflicts on the basis of religion, language, and ethnicity. Many countries are making an effort to protect the rights of minorities on multicultural lines. India, being one of the plural countries, has several provisions in its Constitution to protect the rights of the minorities. Certain similarities between prescriptions of multiculturalism and provisions on rights of minorities in the Indian Constitution have led to consider Indian Constitution as multicultural document. Such considerations can be assessed by looking at the interface between ideas on protection of minority rights and practice of the same in country's more than six decades of democratic life.