ABSTRACT
It is an old adage that only cricket or war can unite the people of India. The stereotypes are well known: the perennial Hindu-Muslim communal divide; the unrest in Punjab and Kashmir; tribal separatism in north-east India; the occasional and considerably restrained Hindu-Christian rivalries in some parts of the country; and friction between followers of the same faith (e.g., caste problems among the Hindus, Shia-Sunni clashes among the Muslims and vicious differences between puritanical Sikhs and adherents of the Radha Soami and Nirankari sects). It is impossible to put sociological labels on such conflicts, given the complicated and often contradictory meshing of the underlying factors. People fight over ethnicity, religion, language, caste, political autonomy, economic disparities and often over a combination of these.
