Mini-India

Chapter 4 highlights how, as a consequence of migration and place-making processes, the discourses of locality, nation, and community came to be equated with the term ‘Mini-India’. Here, three intersecting meanings of the notion of Mini-India are discussed: The first section describes how the term ‘Mini-India’ is appropriated by the state to encompass diverse ethnic and religious identifications under the nationalist slogan ‘unity in diversity’ and to declare the pluralist Andaman society as a secular example of communal harmony. The second part considers Mini-India as a subaltern consciousness, which the author calls the ‘island mentality’. From this perspective, Mini-India refers to a localized sense of belonging that can also be termed a ‘rural cosmopolitanism’. Thirdly, it is argued that the notion of Mini-India must, at the same time, be regarded as an arena of politics in which ethnic communities compete with each other for funds and recognition by the state.