Similar and Different: Bengal Revisited  What have we learnt
from this extended discourse on similarities and differences? It
is time for a recap and a summary.  We started with Vir
Sanghvi’s angry pronouncement that Pakistanis and Indians were
no longer similar; they may have been 60 years ago but by now
‘they’ were fundamentalist and ‘we’ were secular.  There were
immediate rejoinders to this burst of annoyance with hurt
pronouncements of sharing the same music and the same sports.
It became immediately obvious that there were two flaws with the
framing of this discussion. First, human beings were not one
thing or another; rather, they were better characterized as
bundles of attributes. And it was quite possible for individuals
to share some attributes and differ along others. To take a very
simple example, Punjabis could share a language but differ in
religion.  Second, and because of that perspective, it became
clear that one could not generalize so broadly as to contrast
all Indians and Pakistanis. With