Another India: The Making of the World's Largest Muslim Minority, 1947-77

Another India tells the story of the world's biggest religious minority. Weaving together vivid biographical portraits of a wide range of Indian Muslims--elite and subaltern, secular and clerical, activist and apolitical--it brings the experience of the country's Muslims under a single focus; and, by throwing light on the Indian Muslim condition during the first thirty years of independence, reflects on the true character of democratic India. What we have here is a rather different picture from received accounts of the 'world's largest democracy'.

Challenging traditional histories of Nehru's India, Pratinav Anil shows that minority rights were neglected right from independence. Despite its best intentions, the Congress regime that ruled for three decades was often illiberal, intolerant and undemocratic. Muslims had to contend with discrimination, disadvantage, deindustrialization, dispossession and disenfranchisement, as well as an unresponsive leadership.

Anil demonstrates how the Muslim elite encouraged depoliticization, taking up seemingly noble but largely inconsequential causes with little bearing on the lives of ordinary members of the community. There was no room for mass protests or collective solidarity in this version of Muslim politics. Another India explores this elite betrayal, whose consequences are still felt by India's 200 million Muslims today.


Author: Pratinav Anil
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 07/01/2023
Pages: 432
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 8.49h x 5.90w x 1.57d
ISBN13: 9780197694695
ISBN10: 0197694691
BISAC Categories:
- History | Asia | General
- Political Science | Comparative Politics
- Religion | Islam | General