The Future of Multicultural Britain : Confronting the Progressive Dilemma

This book identifies two key themes: that contemporary global politics has rendered many of the world's democracies susceptible to the rhetoric and policy of majoritarianism; and that majoritarianism plays on popular anxieties that invariably gravitate towards cultural identity. Britain and India are used as case studies to assess the role of political actors and intellectuals opposed to majoritarianism, examining how support for identity politics has debilitated resistance to it in both countries. Pathak challenges the conflation between state and philosophical multiculturalism and explains why the latter's attentiveness to identity is invaluable if we are to arrive at a nuanced and effective anti-majoritarian politics.The Left, historically reticent on such issues, has to ask important questions about how its political solidarities might engage with culture when the principles of multiculturalism are in crisis. The author suggests that the challenge for those who speak in opposition to majoritarianism lies with dismantling hierarchies of inherited and created culture, since it is only from this ground zero that a truly progressive agenda for citizenship and culture can be tabled