Enhancing social cohesion in a hetero-ethnic country

Abstract

India is the home of about 1.21 billion populations originating from various ethnic as well as racial groups like Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Mongoloid, Aryo-Dravidian, Mongolo-Dravidian, Scytho-Dravidian, Turko-Iranian etc. Among these populations, we have approximately 540 tribal groups representing about 8.6% of the total population. Each of these tribal groups has their own indigenous culture, social structure or religious belief. It is easy to understand the difficulty in living together peacefully with so much diverse cultures. The cementing substance which binds these diverse communities together is known as the social cohesion. In this paper, we will discuss about social cohesion, various problems of hetero-ethnicity and lastly we will try to identify various factors of social cohesion which can provide crucial solution to these problems.