In his review, Dr. Provost considers the justification for bringing together studies of India and Canada, and in this brief response I would like to extend his question to both volumes. What might we learn, in general terms, from these studies of Canada, Israel, and India about the political management of religious diversity? What do they tell us about the virtues and pitfalls of multiculturalism as a paradigm for such management? While traditional liberal approaches view religion as a matter of individual conscience, the multiculturalist frame sees it as a form of group identity akin to culture. An advantage is that the latter perspective recognizes the communal character of religion. It is then better able to promote legal and social equality between religious groups, since multiculturalism's normative ideal is that, subject to certain constraints, the laws and policies of a nation should respect the identities of all of its citizens rather than privileging that of the majority.

We can also see, however, how far India, Canada and Israel are from actually implementing this ideal. Israel may seem the starkest case, given that it was founded as and remains an avowedly Jewish state. Yet the actual dominance of a majority is also visible in India and Canada, in how individual disputes are in fact resolved, in the interpretation and implementation of secularism, in defining the terms of recognition. It is a reality that, even when nations are formally committed to even-handedness across differences, the perspectives and interests of the majority holding the balance of power dominate the conversation.

Furthermore, being oriented toward relations between groups, multiculturalist approaches to religion must confront the problem of intra-group and especially gender inequality, in contexts where some of the beliefs and practices defining the identity of a group prescribe subordination. This too is an issue of power: who holds it and therefore gets to make decisions for the religious community, who has authority to speak on its behalf, who has a voice in shaping what a given religion has been, is, and will be. Religious identities, like cultural ones, evolve and change under a variety of pressures, but the trajectory they follow is at least partly dependent on who is given the opportunity to direct them and who is left out. At the same time, it needs to be understood that religious actors are not merely passive recipients of state management. They interact creatively with governmental policies, often reforming their communities and relations with others in the process, for better or worse.

The studies in our two volumes demonstrate the necessity of paying close attention to particular traditions, circumstances, and interactions, but they also illustrate these general lessons about the biases of majorities, hierarchical relations of power between and within groups, and the impacts of governmental policies on evolving identities. To be sure, the risks of ignoring or underemphasizing power and of interpreting identities as fixed rather than dynamic have been well-covered in critiques of multiculturalist theory. In going forward, however, the task is to formulate policies that manage these risks effectively, for contested and evolving communities are still real, and justice toward those placed within them cannot be assured through models that recognize individuals alone.