I must begin with a conceptual clarification. The first point I want to make is that diversity has qualitatively different sources and we must take into account the implications of these qualitative differences. For example, diversity arising out of rural-urban or gender differences is quite different from diversity arising out of religion, or language and, caste or race. They are differently implicated in the context of diversity and if so we must take into account the quality of the element concerned. Otherwise, we will not be really making much of an analytical leap. I propose to categorise them into three in terms of their qualitative characteristics.

The first set divides or stratifies society. The second informs the society of cultural heterogeneity, and the third, the most problematic to my mind is the set of race and caste, which would create hierarchy in the society. This, I think, is the most important point to be kept in mind when we deal with the notion of diversity. There is a fourth element that could be brought in because of the contemporary movement of population in the context of modernization: immigrants versus natives, insiders versus outsiders. This happens more within a heterogeneous country like India. I am talking about internal movements, but there is a lot of international or inter-state movement of population also. USA, for example, is a country that always receives people, and newcomers have their own set of problems.

The second conceptual clarification that I want to make is that there is a persisting confusion between diversity and pluralism, Diversity, whether you take it as something that is given or something that is constructed. I would say it is a fact whereas pluralism is an attitude towards that fact. So, diversity can be an instrument of domination and oppression, but it can also be viewed as a tool for building mutual respect and dignified coexistence, if invoked for building pluralism.

It is important to remind ourselves here the two trajectories involved. First, we have had the idea 'different and hence unequal'. This was true in India, pre-modern India, and in slavery-infested United States of America. But the democratic impulse radically changed this orientation and provided the ideological underpinnings of what you call affirmative action in the USA and protective discrimination in India. The second trajectory relates to the entity called the nation-state. The two elements in the hyphenated term 'nation-state', I would suggest are pulling in two different directions. The state always wants to homogenise, to categorise, and to label for policy purposes. The nation, on the other hand, is incessantly in search of roots, identity. It wants to retain its identity, its plural identity. So if state wants to homogenise, nation wants to pluralise. Now, the diversity project as I see it, goes more with the realm of nation. It recognises diversity and it wants to endorse pluralisation.

My third conceptual comment emanates out of this observation. I would suggest, at least for the purpose of debate, that diversity is not a problem in itself but in conjunction with inequality, it is beset with problems. Contrarily, diversity coupled with equality is an asset. Diversity along with inequality is a liability. Some argue that if the notion of diversity is replaced by identity, culture being the content of both, the problem is solved. I am not convinced of this, semantic solution, because identity can also be seen in two different directions. Identity can be hegemonic; it can also be emancipatory. For example, in the US, when one talks about White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) we know that it is a hegemonic identity as 'brahmanvad' in India, as against the, phrase 'black is beautiful'. The latter does not offend anybody. Similarly, dalit liberation in this country is a search for an emancipatory identity. So we must squarely recognise the quality of identity that we are talking about -- is it hegemonic and dominating or is it emancipatory? Obviously, the diversity project in its very nature will have to be concerned with the emancipatory identity.

Even the recognition of multiple identities will not solve the problem in so far as there is a hierarchy in this set of identities. The way out, I suggest, is to recognise the contextual relevance of identities. Much of the problems in the world today arise out of the fact that we invoke identities that are contextually irrelevant. Therefore we must, in this project of diversity, not only understand the importance of identity, recognise the existence of multiple identities, but also endorse the contextual relevance of identities. Otherwise, it would be problematic. Now, what is the way out? Some people argue, and very rightly according to me, that deepening democracy is the solution. I would suggest to you that democracy always existed. Think of the former Greek city states where direct democracy existed, but the problem was participation. Patricians were full-fledged participants, plebeians had very limited participation and slaves were not to participate at all, i.e., the issue is the universality principle of participation. That is the proof of deepening democracy.

In the case of higher education, it was available in countries like India and the USA, for quite some time. But it was not accessible to the disadvantaged, to the women, to the so-called ex-untouchables, the black slaves, for a set of cultural reasons. So it is one thing that something is available, it is quite another that it is accessible. But even when slavery or untouchability is abolished, higher education was not affordable, because of the congruence between race and class and caste and class. That is, availability, accessibility, and affordability should coexist to render the diversity project meaningful. Once again the importance of protective discrimination or affirmative action becomes salient. It is true that there is a Black bourgeoisie in the United States and a Dalit elite in India, but the majority among the Blacks and the Dalits is still cumulatively dominated. The way out is not to scrap the policy but to apply it judiciously. My prescription is to recognise groups and communities, but to de-recognise the individuals and families who have experienced upward mobility for purposes of protecting them. Here the issue of financing education is crucial. There was the conventional division of labour, between state, civil society and market. But that is no more applicable as the state is rolling back; it is getting minimalised. The market is surging forward and after all who is the biggest beneficiary of education, particularly higher education? Indeed, the market. If that be so, the institutions of market should be willing to plough back at least a part of the profit, to the society from which it profits.

When we talk about state, market, and civil society, we rarely talk about the responsibility of the market and I think it is time that we start thinking about it. The argument put forward by the people who favour the market is that education will have to be operating like firms; they argue for meritocracy. But it is an untenable proposition. Please remember, in a deeply stratified and hierarchical society, to speak about meritocracy is to endorse elitism, indeed, Social Darwinism. This is antithetical to the very spirit of deepening democracy that I have referred to. Meritocracy is an instrument of exclusion and a tool to endanger the ongoing process of diversification in higher education. The diversity project should be highly participatory in the process of production and dissemination of knowledge.

In the 1960s and 70s academic colonialism came in for much of interrogation. The plea was for indigenisation of knowledge that actually meant nationalisation'. But the process of indigenisation, if occurred, often meant incorporation of traditional knowledge produced within the nation by the elite categories. But gradually, the demand for widening the knowledge-base incorporating the experiences of diverse populations within the polity, particularly the traditionally disadvantaged, is in vogue. The demands for what is called Afro-American courses, or the teaching of dalit literature, etc., are echoes of this articulation. Such articulations are very much in tune with the objectives of the diversity project.