Mushirul Hasan wrote Legacy of a Divided Nation: India’s Muslims Since Independence in the aftermath of the devastating destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya by the Indian government, on the grounds that it covered an earlier Jain temple. This removal of a sacred site important to Muslims as both a religious place and a historical treasure dedicated to the Emperor Babur sparked riots that eventually involved 150,000 people and killed more than 100. This was yet another low point in Hindu-Muslim relations, part of a pattern of fractured identity politics encouraged by India’s colonial rulers, then exploded in the murderous chaos after partition in 1947, in a string of riots in the 1960s which eclipsed local police and military ability to control them and for Hasan’s purposes, climaxing in the orgy of violence around loss of the mosque.
However, rather than seeing this pessimistically, Hasan analyzed the larger sweep of India’s history, and looked beyond the sectarian politicians to find a core of moderate Muslims who chose to stay in India rather than move to Pakistan, and who, while they might be very religious, see the maintenance of India as an egalitarian, socialist, secular state to be the best guarantee of freedom to practice their faith. This paper examines the reasons Hasan truly believes that this crucial population can support a less violent, more secular India, and ways in which policies based on those ideas have play out since 1993, especially in the wake of 9/11, the long intervention of the US in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the 2008 Mumbai Hotel attacks by Muslim extremists tied to Pakistan.
Deeper Indian history is important to understanding how recent the horrific animosity has be...
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...seethed with resentment at someone else’s good fortune.
It is a lot easier to stereotype Muslims (and Hindus) in India rather than approach them as fully rounded individuals with identities beyond their religions. The Muslim community has deep and complex roots in India, and their reactions have been shaped by powerful outside manipulation as well as their own intense feelings about their place in 21st century Indian society. There is hope, perhaps more than in 1993, that as the government thinks more inclusively and more secularly, that good economic times will continue to foster tolerance and well-being. All of the studies and projects recommend that there be more data collected, that people be encouraged to see one another as human beings, and that politicians avoid making cheap shots for short-term gains, but those are good policies for any one, any time.