Hindu - Muslim relations

HINDU-MUSLIM RELATIONS (1956-75)
is a perceptive and provocative pioneer field enquiry into the baſing problem of inter-
religious, communal relations in an Uttar Pradesh district close to Deoband Islamic
Seminary, a battleground of rival forces of the socalled nationalist, though obscurantist
revivalist Ulema of the Jamiat and Jamat-e- Islami, semi-secularist Muslim League and
Majlis-e-Mushawarat on the one hand & the Congress, Socialist, CPI and Jan Sangh par-
ties on the other. It essays the matrix of Hindu-Muslim relations through Muslim
eyes and attempts to reveal how Muslims in free India have been reorientating and rein-
terpreting religious, social, political ideology and endeavouring to integrate themselves
with the national mainstream. The emphasis of this study is on the real, day-to-day
Hindu-Muslim contacts and relationships. This work focusses on the behaviour of
Muslim community and delineates its internal social stratification, inter-group commu-
nication and interaction with the prepon- derant Hindu majority and other smaller reli-
gious minorities. It analyses the attitudinal reactions resulting from a minority complex,
unravels the major structural-functional factors that have moulded the Muslim mind
and influenced its social and political behaviour, which is not confined to a substantial
Muslim population in Hindu dominated city chosen for intensive investigation but also
covers the whole Indian sub-continent. The conclusions of this empirical investi-
gation have wider theoretical as well as prac- tical policy implications. It should therefore,
prove equally interesting to the social, politi- cal scientist and the inquisitive layman