Multiculturalism is now in vogue, not only as a theoretical critique of the liberal paradigm in political philosophy but also as an important weapon in the armoury of social and political activists fighting for divergent conceptions of justice. The disillusionment with liberalism and its basic ideas of the open society resting on the cardinal principle of individual choice and individual fulfillment is not a new phenomenon. The concept was challenged, and challenged powerfully, by Marxism in its different versions, including social democracy, in the 1930s and well after the Second World War, throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. The history of revolutions and of national liberation movements in the twentieth century bears testimony to mass upheavals for social and political arrangements that would at long last realise the age old dream of combining liberty with equality.
���� Professor Mahajan?s treatise on Multiculturalism is especially welcome, dealing as it does with a complex theme in political philosophy with the sure touch of a master in total command of her material, going back as far as Aristotle and Xenophon, and of a stylist who avoids jargon, that enemy of clear thinking, without oversimplifying and trivialising what are inherently difficult, and at times, even abstruse, areas of discourse bristling with controversy and dispute.
���� In her introductory chapter, she points out how multicultural theory differs from pluralism.� Whereas pluralism denotes the co-existence of many communities and cultures within a single political realm and a single public space, it is only when the concern for equality becomes ? a central norm? is it possible to conceive of citizens not merely as abstract, disembodied, autonomous individuals exercising their free choices in, as it were, a political sphere emptied of all context, but also alongside as members of cultural communities with separate cultures and separate world-views, deriving their identities from such cultures and striving for meaning and fulfilment with reference to the values of that inheritance. Thus individuals have multiple loyalties and multiple selves, giving rise to conflicts over ends they wish to pursue.
���� Why does multiculturalism attract such hostility, even from mainstream thinkers? Professor Mahajan elaborates some of these reasons in chapters two and three of her book that discuss cultural discrimination, community identity and the value of diversity. In essence, multiculturalism entails a profound revision of the Enlightenment view of the individual self, which is the bedrock of the liberal belief, and replaces it with a community centric view of the self. Bhikhu Parekh, a leading thinker in multicultural studies, suggests that respect for an abstract humanity must be replaced by respect for ?historically articulated humanity? as expressed in different cultures. As Klimicka points out cultural membership is ?crucial for personal agency and development?.
�In chapter four, Professor Mahajan deals with the political kernel of multiculturalism, the concept of differentiated citizenship. The principle of universal and uniform citizenship assumes a homogeneous public and hence mandates equal treatment for all; irrespective of different affiliations and loyalties individuals have as members of different communities. The assumption of sameness and identity serves to handicap communities with different experiences and capacities. Hence the concept of differentiated citizenship is a way of enriching democratic theory and practice to make it more inclusive and to fortify it against the threat of assimilation. Differentiated citizenship involves special rights for minorities and other disadvantaged groups needing special assistance and protection from the state. The Indian Constitution contains detailed provisions for special rights for cultural and religious minorities, representation rights for members of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and protection for traditional political institutions and land rights of the tribal communities in specified locations. Professor Mahajan illustrates the expanding field of minority rights by copious references to legislations and policies of other plural polities, largely of developed countries.
���� At first sight it would appear that feminism can have, at best, a peripheral relationship with multicultural theory as basically its assertion of gender rights and elimination of discriminatory practices embedded in patriarchy was universal in scope as almost all cultures had placed women in a subordinate position and subjected them to oppression in different ways. Hence a theory that purported to give special rights to minority cultures and their traditional institutions and practices in the name of preserving diversity could hardly be fair to women. However, as Professor Mahajan explains in chapter five of her book, the idea of difference that is central to much of contemporary feminism also plays an important role in multicultural theory. Nevertheless, feminist theory critiques multiculturalism for focusing largely on inter-group equality but neglecting issues of intra-group equality.
��� �Professor Mahajan endorses this critique by stressing that culture should be viewed as an arena of contested meanings and practices. Tradition itself has to be treated as a socially and historically formed object, not a fixed and timeless entity incapable of being changed. Even time honoured and at times highly venerated practices like Sati are sites of contestation. Thus Mahajan provides a valuable corrective to some Indian feminists? ungrudging support to minority rights in regard to women?s rights by pointing out that prevailing diversity is itself a political construct, as capable of homogenisation as the overpowering influence of majoritarianism. In fact her extended and nuanced discussion of the Shah Bano case highlights the pitfalls of the theory of group rights as understood and implemented by the ardent advocates of identity politics. She trenchantly sums up the multicultural dilemma by juxtaposing community rights and closure of options and choices for the members of the community.
���� Chapters 6 to 8 deal with the criticisms that have been voiced by thinkers coming from different traditions of the fundamental assumptions of multiculturalism and with the current status of the debate. The final chapter contains Professor Mahajan?s reflections on the subject.� She points out that if liberalism makes the mistake of assuming that individuals move freely between cultures, in a culture supermarket, as it were, multiculturalism makes the analogous error of assuming that because individual identity is shaped in part by community memberships, we must try to make community cultures secure. Moreover groups do not have fixed or nature given boundaries; identities, like group boundaries, are context specific.
��� The commitment of the multicultural theory to the idea of difference, diversity and heterogeneity is an important element of the effort to enrich liberal theory and should be recognised as such. We have to be always on our guard against the assimilative threat of a majoritarian outlook but it is incumbent on the multicultural theorists to delineate what is acceptable or is not acceptable within a democratic framework in terms of community practices sought to be protected.
��� In her concluding chapter Mahajan stresses that multicultural theory is heavily stamped by the western experience where the state was directly implicated in construction of an ethnic majority and its persecution-in fact, on occasions, in extermination-of communities that did not conform to the ethnic and cultural norms propagated by the nation-state. Hence, the identification of the nation-state as the primary site of cultural and ethnic discrimination. But in other societies different sources and forms of discrimination may occur, especially at the hands of the majority community. In India, communal violence, accompanied by wilful misrepresentation of minority communities and culture in pejorative terms, poses a more insidious threat to minority communities and cultures, negating the promise of democracy of a life of dignity and equal opportunity. Against this kind of cultural and political behaviour on the part of the majority community in some areas and on some occasions, special cultural rights offer at best a very weak defence. Assaults of this nature on life and property of minorities require remedies of a different kind to which it has not been possible to pay attention in this book. Although Mahajan has referred to this phenomenon, it has not had the kind of analysis that would have brought out the underlying factors behind religious prejudice and state inaction.
���� At the heart of the multicultural theory lies the dilemma of reconciling two inherently incompatible views of human nature. Mahajan draws attention to this aspect again and again in different places in the course of her argument. The Enlightenment view of human nature stresses the abstract equality of all human persons. The rolling periods of the American Constitution and of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen bear witness to this fundamental discontinuity in political thought. But another view deriving from the historical-hermeneutic school (Herder, Ranke, Dilthey) emphasises the uniqueness of each personality and culture which have equal worth. This leads to the politics of recognition. Both approaches contend for supremacy within the bosom of contemporary liberal society. There are these two mutually contradictory supports to each individual, one based on his abstract humanity and the other on his unique particularity. The two find it difficult to inhabit the same universe, vast though it is. As Taylor, a Canadian philosopher, notes with rare acuity:
��� The reproach the first makes to the second is that it violates the principle of non-discrimination. The reproach that the second makes to the first that it negates identity by forcing people into a homogeneous mould that is untrue to them.

�The politics of identity and the culture wars that have dominated so much of the Western theorising have tended to neglect the crucial determinants of class and economic power, thus opening the door wide open to a more reactionary appropriation of the multicultural agenda. Thus it was odd, but not surprising, to note the defence of sati by intellectuals whose democratic and liberal credentials could not be questioned. Likewise, many progressive writers could be found taking shelter under the identity roof to uphold the regressive features of the Muslim Personal Law. In appropriate circumstances the politics of difference leads to a stifling of dissent
�and free speech.