In spite of the dictums of the nativist discourse, plurality is a concept endemic to Indian society. The country could be said to be a nation of nations. With a long history of empires and regional kingdoms, contemporary India comprises peoples of Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, and Zoroastrian religion among others within its almost a billion and a half inhabitants. Although there are 22 official languages, 122 are actually listed in the census.2 With a system of ‘caste-based exclusion’ and tribes also being in a vulnerable position,3 Rochana Bajpai contends that in India ‘hardly any group [...] lacks a claim to minority status’.4 Taking this state of affairs into consideration, the editors of Revolving Around India(s): Alternative Images, Emerging Perspectives have focused on the dissonance between tradition and newness, and their present coexistence for putting this volume together. They have organised their articles around three different concepts or, as the editors express it in the Foreword, ‘Indian idiosyncrasies’ (p. 1): tradition(s), distance(s), and difference(s). This choice reflects the great influence these concepts have had in the shaping of national identities. Hence, the attempted deconstruction of these concepts by the volume’s contribu- tors can be said to engage in a broader sense with the demystification of nativist attitudes towards culture.
