India as a model for multiethnic Europe

Abstract

One of the distinctive features of our globalizing world is the increasing salience and recognition of cultural diversity. Most contemporary societies have become or are in the process of becoming multiethnic. By and large, multiethnic societies are faced with two formidable challenges: reconciling the compulsions of ethnic diversity and the imperative of societal cohesion, and integrating immigrants and minorities into mainstream society. The paper suggests that present-day European societies seem to follow three distinct models of societal integration: assimilation, differential integration and exclusion, and multiculturalism. Proceeding from the argument that these models have become highly problematic in the context of the rapidly changing international scenario, the paper offers multicommunitarianism as an alternative perspective on societal integration and cohesion. This perspective is derived mainly from the Indian context, supplemented by certain positive developments in some of the contemporary multiethnic societies. The paper focuses, in a comparative framework, on five key themes which arguably have great relevance for European societies. These are (a) India’s inclusive, interactive openness (b) secularism (c) national identity (d) minority rights (e) civil society.