Racial diversity, linguistic diversity, religious diversity, ethnic diversity, caste-based diversity, and economic diversity. 

a)Racial Diversity :

✓ At the root of racial diversity are differences in physical features. This means that people belonging to different races can be identified on the basis of physical features.

✓ Herbert Risley studied the population of India closely as the supervisor of 1891 census operations in the country. He classified the population of India into seven races: (i) Turko-Iranian, (ii) Indo-Aryan, (iii) Scytho-Dravidian, (iv) Aryo-Dravidian, (v) Mongolo-Dravidian, (vi) Mongoloid, and (vii) Dravidian. ✓ Subsequently, Hutton and Guha proposed another scheme of classification. Hutton and Guha's classification had been applied to people in different parts of the world. They identified six races: (1) Negrito, (2) Proto-australoid, (3) Mongoloid, (4) Mediterranean, (5)Western Brachycephals, and (6) Nordic.

✓ These classifications differed from each other in terms of distinguishing characteristics.

b) Linguistic Diversity :

✓ Society in India is multi-lingual - that means consisting of people speaking different languages.

✓ Grierson identified 179 languages, and 544 dialects. There are more than 1,652 spoken languages including at least 63 non-Indian languages.

✓ The Constitution of India recognizes 22 languages. These are: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Santhali, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

✓ Each state provides adequate facilities for imparting education in mother tongue.

c) Religious Diversity :

✓ One of the distinguishing features of society in India is the plurality of religions. The scope of religion is not confined to adherence to a set of beliefs or performance of certain rituals.

✓ Each religion prescribes a way of life for those who practice it.

✓ The prominent forms of religion are: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism. In addition to these, there are many other forms of religion such as Judaism, Bahaism and of course, the religions of the tribal communities.

✓ We can distinguish between the ways of life of Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains and other communities.

✓ This means that there are variations in beliefs, myths and rituals even among people of one religion living in different regions

e) Caste-based Diversity :

✓ A prominent form of diversity in society in India, particularly among Hindus, is caste based. The term caste is used to refer to the four-fold division of Hindus on the basis of vama into Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra.

✓ The people belonging to the Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra were engaged respectively in learning and teaching of scriptures, warfare and protection of other members of society, trade and merchandise and service.

✓ A jati is an occupational, hereditary, endogamous group. People practicing the same occupation belong to one jati.

✓ Traditionally, the son inherited the occupation of his father. People belonging to one jati form a cohesive group. Their members usually know each other well, help one another and seek to resolve conflicts within the group itself particularly in villages through their own local associations and caste councils.  

f) Economic Diversity :

✓ India is a land of glaring differences in incomes and access to economic and employment opportunities.

✓ At one end there are very rich people who are able to consume the most nutritious food, provide best education to their children, and purchase all kinds of goods and services for their comfort. At the other end are people who live in extreme poverty, ill health and unhygienic conditions.

✓ Inequality in income is due mainly to maldistribution of resources in society. There is a divide between the 'haves' and the have-nots‘.

✓ It is felt that the rich seek to create conditions for the perpetuation of poverty, primarily because the poor remain available to perform the manual jobs for the rich. Further, the poor are forced to consume inferior goods and services (e.g., used clothes, utensils, low quality houses etc.) that are discarded by the rich.