Perspectives on Ethnic Conflict in Indian Politics

Abstract This article seeks to evaluate three main perspectives for understanding contemporary ethnic conflicts in India: instrumentalism, primordialism and state revisionism. Whereas instrumentalism has historically provided the main analytical framework for evaluating the causes and consequences of ethnic conflicts, recent developments have rekindled interest in primor- dialist analyses. In contradistinction to these two schools of thought is state-revisionism which draws inspiration mainly from the indigenous intellectual tradition.