India, Octavio Paz y los retos de la multiculturalidad. Un ensayo sobre la diversidad cultural en India

Abstract

Only China and India overpass the barrier of one thou- sand million inhabitants and they will be key players of the XXI century.  Transformations of the Indian econo- my and its social modernization have deepened in the last decades, but visible features of its culture and poverty are difficult to understand from the western point of view. The exuberant multiculturality of India expresses in the coexistence, sometimes explosive, of several religions (Hindus 81%, Muslims 13%, Christians 2%, Sikhs 2%, Buddhists 1%, others 1%); a multiplicity of languages (there are 22 officially recognized languages that reflect the strength of cultural minorities at the regional level); and deep socioeconomic inequalities (42% of the population lives with less than 1,25 dollars per day and the traditional cast system is still alive). In particular this work analyzes the extraordinary chal- lenge of the cultural diversity in Indian society, inter- prets the way Octavio Paz understood this problem, and explores what can be said from the theory of culture.