Community and identities - Interrogating contemporary discourses on India

The notion of community is being invoked not only by social scientists enga ged in understanding Indian, social and political processes, but also by pa rties art the right and the left in their mobilisation and in the official discourses on development law and common civil code. But in most of these d iscourses, the internal structure of the supposed communities invariably ge ts elided in favour of a notion of moral bonds and cultural authenticity.