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Discuss the impact of the question of race in colonial society,
Answers
During the later nineteenth century, Indian political activity exploded in many new and different directions. One of these was the politics of ethnicity and race. The political stage became filled with groups and associations, defined by reference to common features of caste or religion or vernacular culture, each battling for polical rights and/or social status in relation to one another.1 Sometimes, indeed most often, such movements claimed to be responding to perceived oppressions which they sought to escape by promoting equity within a continuing ethnically “plural” social order or by pursuing autonomy through territorial separation. Movements of tehse types I shall term “ethnic”. Occasionally, however, aims were rather different and centred on the attempt by one group to legitimate claims to political dominance or superior social status over others. Movements of this type I shall term “racialist” From this period, ethnic and racialist movements have come to establish a permanent place in the politics of India.