1SOCIAL CLEAVAGES, MULTICULTURALISM AND EMERGING SPACE FOR STATE IN INDIA UNDER GLOBALISATION REGIME

The multiculturalism,social cleavages and ongoing globalization movement has profound impact on the role of the state. This paper makes a historical analysis and examines the validity of Weberian discovery of the influence of religion on the political economy of India. Machiavelli had reckoned deception, falsehood and tricks to defeat an enemy as acceptable part of the statecraft, which Chanakya propounded 2000 years before. Stealing an election has been a common place event of late in the greatest democracy as much as in the largest one on the earth. This paper attempts to examine this Indian syndrome. There are several evidence of links of social fragmentation resulting in political conflict over economic policy. The conventional view of social fragmentation fails to account for a critical determinant of conflict incentives: the extent to which social cleavages based on different politically salient characteristics act to mutually reinforce versus cut across one another. This paper focuses on social cleavages based on class, caste,religion and ethnicity in India. It examines the political salience of caste and class conflicts and addresses the translation of social cleavages into political oppositions in India. This paper argues that political conflict becomes more severe when social cleavages based on class, caste and ethnicity help to mutually reinforce one another. It presents Indian evidences in order to demonstrate the link between social fragmentation and fiscal policy outcomes under liberalization regime