Living with Secularism: The Destiny of India’s Muslims

The success of Indian secularism lies in the ways in which its minorities have lived and negotiated their existence with the State and the broader society at large. Yet it remains painfully true that over the past decade, the story of Indian Muslims has been circumscribed by the broader Hindutva agenda. An assessment of the future of Indian Muslims must necessarily be read with in the context of the rise militant Hindu nationalist politics and its impact on the secular fabric of the country. Hindu-Muslim unity, the defining moment of Indian secularism has come under renewed threat. The present volume tries to map the tensions and predicaments of Indian Muslims arising as a result of that threat. The papers included here study the ways in which Hindu Right forces such as the RSS and the Bajrang Dal view the Muslims and in a certain sense construct them. Does the rise of Hindutva necessarily force the Muslims towards alienation or is there a section, which looks at the BJP differently? How does the stress on Indian pluralism translate in terms of Muslims’ relationship with the State? What has been the response of the Stat to such demands? The volume also brings into focus ways in which Muslims themselves make their life meaningful: whether through investing in education or even a change in terms of practicing their own religion or the way they have historically related to other political formations. It is at the three inter-related levels of the state, politics and society that the state, politics and society that the present volume charts out the issues of Muslims and the multifarious ways in which they live and give meaning to Indian secularism.