Casteless, Raceless India: Constitutive Discourses of National Integration

Abstract

This study analyzes the Indian Government's “official” national integration campaigns from the pre-liberalized era, and the Times of India's “Lead India” campaign from the post-liberalized era. It discusses how these national discourses constitute a homogeneous Indian people based on an idealized depiction of “unity in diversity” and a “youthful,” modern India. Such discourses depict a casteless, raceless Indian people, and ignore the disenfranchised groups excluded from India's march toward globalization. This article reveals the far-reaching consequences of the absence of racial and caste identity discourses within the political and cultural ideology of postcolonial India.