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There is an assumption that nationalist movements which are constituted by an ethnic majority are hostile towards all minorities, so how does one account for such a movement's affection for one minority and hostility for another? In this paper I explore this question using the case study of a Hindu nationalist movement in India called Hindutva which simultaneously expresses hostility towards Muslims and affection for another minority known as the Parsis. I argue in societies that imagine themselves as plural there is a type of nationalist thought premised upon the existence of both exemplary and threatening minorities. An exemplary minority is imagined as loyal and acculturating, illustrating both how a minority should relate to the majority and why other minorities are threatening. While an historical argument enables the distinction between the majority and minorities, a plural hierarchy of minorities is enabled by mythical stories of coexistence and conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the status of Indian Muslims in Malaysia from a historical perspective and its definition as a minority ethnic group. It also highlights the political reality of the Indian Muslims, particularly as a smaller and relatively insignificant minority group in comparison with the numerically larger Malays as well as the non-Muslim Chinese and Hindu Indians. It describes the social interactions of the various ethnic groups in Malaysia and the Indian Muslims as a minority fighting for their identity and survival. It discusses the “position” of the Indian Muslims with particular reference to Article 152 of the Malaysian Constitution which states that a Malay person is defined as one speaking the Malay language, practicing Malay customs, and following the religion of Islam. The great contributions of Indian Muslims are also elaborated. This inquiry highlights the reality facing the Indian Muslims in Malaysia today: they have no political power but remain a marginalized minority in the midst of Malay political domination and Chinese economic hegemony. Indeed they are facing the grim prospect of permanent bifurcation of their identity—some are slowly but surely being assimilated into the Malay cultural milieu, mainly through marriage and for political expediency, on the one hand and others stubbornly resist this cultural absorption, and resiliently retain and preserve their ethnic traditions and purity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose - This study sets out to examine conflict style preferences in India and the predictive effects of various demographic variables on conflict style preference. Design/methodology/approach - Data were gathered in India (n = 827) among Muslims and Hindus. Conflict was measured using Oetzel's Conflict Style Measure. To answer the research questions, repeated measures ANOVA and multiple regressions were conducted. Findings - The findings reveal that conflict style preference among Hindus in India differs significantly and that Hindus prefer the integrating and dominating styles, whilst showing the least inclination towards the avoiding and obliging styles. Muslims prefer the integrating and compromising styles and least prefer the dominating and avoiding styles. Analyses of the demographic variables' predictive influence reveal that age and sex are significant predictors for all five conflict styles for both Muslims and Hindus. Education has a mixed predictive influence on conflict style among Hindus and Muslims. Research limitations/implications - Use of self-report instruments and the majority of the participants coming from middle-class backgrounds could limit the generalizability of the study. Practical implications - The study calls for conflict mediators to consider the influence of group membership and educational level on conflict management/resolution. The research also discusses national/international conflict intervention. Social implications - This paper informs individuals regarding the way in which two large religious and cultural groups differ in their approaches to conflict. For a nation that has experienced a history of conflict between these two cultural/religious groups, this paper can help shed light on how to bridge the conflict between them. Originality/value - There are no studies directly comparing the conflict styles of Muslims and Hindus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of Hindu–Muslim relations in India, the present study (N = 87) utilized Integrated Threat Theory (Stephan & Stephan, 2000) to examine the mediating roles of intergroup anxiety, realistic and symbolic threats and the moderating role of group membership (Hindu vs. Muslim) in the relationships between cross-community contact, relative in-group status and prejudice. Overall, intergroup anxiety and realistic, but not symbolic, threat emerged as proximal predictors of prejudice and partial mediators between the predictor and criterion variables. But these findings were qualified by majority (Hindu) versus minority (Muslim) group membership. As predicted, while symbolic threat was a predictor of prejudice for Hindus, realistic threat was a paramount predictor for Muslims. In-group status was as a significant predictor for low-status minority group only. The results are discussed with reference to their potential implications for future research and interventions aimed at improving intergroup relations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Against the intensified communalization of civil society and the emergence of new modes of racism in contemporary India, this essay juxtaposes different histories of the Other through critical insights into the construction and demonization of the Indian Muslim. Working through anecdotes and fragments, bits and pieces of history, this disjunctive discourse on the Other attempts to trouble liberal assumptions of cultural identity by calling attention to the uncertainties of evidence by which ethnic identities are politicized in diverse ways. While critiquing the exclusionary mode of 'othering', the essay also calls attention to more internalized modes of disidentification and the double-edged benefits of political identity for the underprivileged and dispossessed, whose own assertions of the self invariably complicate official identitarian constructions. The enigmas of the self are perhaps most vivid in the brutal evidence of genocide, where the apparent 'dead certainty' of killing the Other has been interpreted as a means of making 'persons out of bodies' (Arjun Appadurai). Countering this position, the essay argues that ethnic violence is facilitated by the 'dead certainty' of (in)justice, reinforced by the 'banality of violence' legitimized through state-sponsored ethnic cleansing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports the memory of the author, a Hindu neurosurgeon, treating a particular Muslim patient at J.J. Hospitals in Mumbai (Bombay). Hesitancy of the patient to let a Hindu doctor treat him; Assumption of the doctor that he was just another religious fanatic; Success of the doctor's treatment of the patient; Way that the situation represents how medicine can touch hearts, unite minds, bridge religious divides, and provide memories to cherish life long.