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This paper analyses the manner in which over the past few years, the major political parties in the largest Indian state of Uttar Pradesh have calibrated their policies with the objective of wooing Muslim voters. It examines the factors which shaped Muslim electoral behaviour in the general election of 2014 to the Lok Sabha (Lower House of the Indian Parliament) and how the electoral arithmetic was transformed in the run-up to this election. By analysing institutional, political and intra-community factors, it explores the reasons for the declining importance and representation of Muslims in the electoral arena of Uttar Pradesh. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on problems of democracy and nation-building in Pakistan. Topics include Pakistan was established in 1947 as the state for the Muslims of India; Pakistan has failed to stabilise as a Muslim/Islamic democracy while in the regional and international arena it enjoys the unenviable reputation of being a sanctuary for terrorists and terrorist networks; and Jinnah had kept the idea of Pakistan vague, using Islamic identity as the main reason for a separate state outside India.

This paper conceptualizes security as a discourse of violence that masks violence in the name of counter-violence, killing in the name of protection. As the case of Hindutva in India illustrates, violence against minorities is normalized in the name of personal, communal, national and even international security. The will to secure the Self has as its corollary the will to make insecure the Other, the desire to control and use violence. Using the example of anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002, the paper examines some of the ways in which a stereotypical image of Muslim men (the figure of ‘the Muslim’) is seen as constituting the danger against which the Hindu body politic needs to be secured. The violence against minority Muslims is facilitated and justified in the name of achieving security for the Hindu Self at individual, community, national as well as international levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]