Introduction: Multiple Dimensions of Marginalities

Marginalities can broadly be defined as entities that represent relative peripheries, which fall into opposition with centrality or the ‘mainstream’ within a common discourse of knowledge and power. In much of India, contemporary marginalities are a product of the evolving liberal discourse since colonial times when extant liberal premises lent themselves to the Orientalist framing of religion, caste, gender, civilizational progress and geographical location as marginalities by deploying anthropology and universalistic history as intellectual anchors. Some continue to exist in the post-colonial period (despite promises of liberty and equality), while new marginalities have emerged from the interface of a developmental state with the new liberal constitutional order. Examples of new forms of marginalities include constructs around politico-social categories, majoritarianisms in their various expressions, lifestyle choices (food, dress, sexuality), regions, relationship to resources and societal location with respect to the institutional architecture of the state and law. The intellectual anchors for such formulations are provided by economics, history and political science in various guises of modernization, economic development, nationhood and politics.