How will the Indian State confront the serious challenges it faces from the urgent and often conflicting demands of national, class, communal, and caste identities? Whereas most studies on the Indian State have emphasized the primacy of the political process, this volume recognizes the central importance of the relationship between the State and the social forces which influence State action. Most importantly, this book makes a pioneering effort to analyze Indian State identity from both Marxist and non-Marxist perspectives and will be stimulating reading for those in development and Third World studies, political science and theory, political sociology, and history.