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The article focuses on the conflict between Urdu and Hindi language as a marker of sociocultural and religious identity in North Western Provinces (NWP) in India. It states that several binaries have emerged as notion of Hindu-Muslim division have suggested which includes the partition into India and Pakistan, Urdu-Hindi language controversy, and battle between Persian and Devanagari scripts. It notes that some writers sees the binaries in the works at Fort William College.

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Ethnic violence in Gujarat in 2002 killed at least a thousand Muslims. Compiling data from the Times of India, we investigate variation across 216 towns and rural areas. Analysis reveals the political logic of violence. Killing was less likely where the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was weakest, but was even less likely where the BJP was strong; it was most likely where the party faced the greatest electoral competition. Underemployment and Muslim in-migration also increased violence. The political logic is confirmed by analysis of the subsequent election: the BJP’s vote increased most in districts with the worst violence. Police chiefs in districts where violence was severe were more likely to be promoted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Toward the end of his career, Catholic scholar of Islam and pioneer of Catholic-Muslim mutual understanding Louis Massignon focused increasingly on the life and work of M. K. Gandhi, whom he considered a saint. Massignon was convinced of a Muslim orientation in Gandhi's spirituality, which he believed to be nearly Abrahamic through Gandhi's devotion to truth/satya, which Massignon equated with the Arabic haqq, a primary Muslim name for God. This essay seeks to expose Massignon's indebtedness to, and understanding and appropriation of, Gandhi. It addresses his handling of Gandhi's actual lived Hinduism and anticipates a critique of Massignon's orientalism. It concludes that the Massignon-Gandhi relationship is a complicated but fruitful example in which Gandhi's Hindu-Muslim sanctity illuminates and encourages Massignon's Christian sanctity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I seek to examine some key mechanisms underlying the dichotomisation between Hindus and Muslims in Hindu nationalist history writing. Two arguments are central to this study. One is that the strict dichotomisation between Hindus and Muslims presupposes homogeneous categories. This is particularly clear if one examines how Hindu nationalist intellectuals made sense of ambiguities, of individuals and cultural traditions that did not fit directly into the categories, ‘Hindus’ and ‘Muslims’. Moreover, I discuss the role of the so-called hidden ‘Others’. I argue that these hidden ‘Others’ represent, in the form of alternative principles of grouping, the largest obstacle to the Hindu nationalist construction of a Hindu–Muslim dichotomy, both at the political level and within the field of history writing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It has often been alleged, most recently in the recommendations of India's National Advisory Council (NAC), that the Indian state promotes, or is complicit in, Hindu-Muslim violence for political or electoral reasons. But the evidence for the claim has historically been sketchy. In StevenWilkinson's work, Votes and Violence, the argument is that the evidence supporting state complicity is systematic.We examine this argument and find it to be fundamentally flawed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pakistan got independence from British Empire in 1947. The idea of liberating from both Hindu-English usurpation was to see the dream of self-governance and self-reliance getting fulfilled. The Muslims after the downfall of Mughal-India were disbanded on behalf of British and Hindus. Muslims of United India were also in a state of entire shock to believe that they are no more the owners of their own fate and destiny. The failure in joint political moves of Hindu-Muslim unity resulted in a separate independence movement for winning liberation. The state of affairs led to struggle for a piece of land to practice the principles of Islam to realize the self-governed development for the citizens of separate state for Muslims of India. Development Vision of Pakistan as perceived by Mr. Jinnah was to bring Pakistan among the global brethren of world to stand firm and to shun the western vision of development. The idea of development of Pakistan was through the Islamic principles based in Islamic notion of `welfare'. The colonial heritage after independence was carried by the bureaucratic and military set up that held the nation to see the actualization of true participatory development in Pakistan. The paper is intended to highlight the initial failures of Development planning and implementation due to over reliance over non-local and alienated development models and policies. The Authors of the paper are striving to advocate the nethssity of revitalizing once traditionally practiced, indigenously conceived, self planned and administered development model for Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the sack of Somnath by Maḥmūd of Ghazna in 1025–26, Somnath has been a byword for religious orthodoxy, intolerance and conflict between Muslims and Hindus. Yet looking further than Maḥmūd's greed for the temple's gold and later the Delhi sultans' appetite for territory, Somnath and most other towns of Saurashtra had long-established settlements of Muslims engaged in international maritime trade. The settlers, while adhering to their own values, respected their hosts and their traditions and enjoyed the support of the local rajas. It is only in recent years that Hindu nationalist parties have revived the story of Maḥmūd to evoke resentment against the era of Muslim domination, with the aim of inducing communal tensions and gaining political power. The inscriptions and many mosques and Muslim shrines in this Hindu holy city and its vicinity bear witness to the long history of harmonious co-existence between Hindus and Muslims. This paper explores the Muslim culture of Somnath by studying its major mosques. Through an analytic exploration of the typology of the mosques of Saurashtra, the paper demonstrates that while the old centres of power in Gujarat lay outside Saurashtra it is in Somnath and its neighbouring towns that numerous mosques dating from prior to the sultanate of Gujarat still stand. These monuments help illuminate our understanding of early Muslim architecture in Gujarat and its aesthetic evolution from the time of the peaceful maritime settlements to the establishment of the Gujarat Sultanate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines a seventeenth-century text that attempts to reconcile Hindu and Muslim accounts of human genesis and cosmogony. The text, Mir’āt al-Makhlūqāt (‘Mirror of Creation’), written by a noted Mughal Sufi author Shaikh ‘Abd al-Rahman Chishti, purportedly a translation of a Sanskrit text, adopts rhetorical strategies and mythological elements of the Purāna tradition in order to argue that evidence of the Muslim prophets was available in ancient Hindu scriptures. Chishti thus accepts the reality of ancient Hindu gods and sages and notes the truth in their message. In doing so Chishti adopts elements of an older argument within the Islamic tradition that posits thousands of cycles of creation and multiple instances of Adam, the father of humans. He argues however that the Hindu gods and sages belonged to a different order of creation and time, and were not in fact human. The text bears some generic resemblance to Bhavishyottarapurāna materials. Chishti combines aspects of polemics with a deft use of politics. He addresses, on the one hand, Hindu intellectuals who claimed the prestige of an older religion, while he also engages, on the other hand, with Muslim theologians and Sufis like the Naqshbandi Mujaddidis who for their part refrained from engaging with Hindu traditions at all. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article analyzes the 2002 outbreak of Muslim-Hindu violence in the Gujarat region, India, focusing on the city Ahmedabad. The author gives an overview of the violent events in 2002, identifies the political bodies that can instigate violence or prevent it, and claims that a traditional network of clients and patrons, like professional guilds, controls participation in state institutions and power. When these old structures were replaced with new ones, like municipalities, new elites emerge, but these new political elites are still functioning as intermediaries between their voters and state institutions. These patrons have the power to organize ethnic violence for political aims.

The article looks at the relationship between Hindu religious identity, masculinity, violence, and caste in colonial north India. Particular focus is given to the shuddhi and sangathan religious movements in the United Provinces (UP). According to the author, gender and especially masculinity became an important motif in these movements. It is suggested that they sought to strengthen supremacies of caste, religion, and gender and support both community identity and militant nationalism. Details related to the relationship between Muslims and Hindus in the UP are presented. Topics discussed include the role of Hindu women in the shuddhi and sangathan movements, abduction, and the Hindu revivalist and reformist movement Arya Samaj.

In one popular devotional poster the Indian god-man Shirdi Sai Baba (d. 1918) gazes out at the viewer, his right hand raised in blessing. Behind him are a Hindu temple, a Muslim mosque, a Sikh gurdwara, and a Christian church; above him is the slogan, "Be United, Be Virtuous." In his lifetime, Shirdi Sai Baba acquired a handful of Hindu and Muslim devotees in western India. Over the past several decades, he has been transformed from a regional figure into a revered persona of pan-Indian significance. While much scholarship on religion in modern India has focused on Hindu nationalist groups, new religious movements seeking to challenge sectarianism have received far less attention. Drawing upon primary devotional materials and ethnographic research, this article argues that one significant reason for the rapid growth of this movement is Shirdi Sai Baba's composite vision of spiritual unity in diversity, construed by many devotees as a needed corrective to rigid sectarian ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the complex personality and legacy of a mysterious saint known both as a Sufī (ǢH;ājji Ratan) and a Nāth Yogī (Ratannāth) and links his multiple identity as well as the religious movement originated from him, to the specific cultural context of the former North-West Indian provinces. The first part is devoted to Ratan in the Nāth Yogī tradition, the second to his many facets in the Muslim tradition, in connection with his dargāh in the Panjabi town of Bhatinda. The third and main part explores a particular movement, the Har Śri Nāth tradition. Presently centered around a "dargāh mandir" in Delhi, this movement, with its two branches issued from Ratan and from his "son" Kāyānāth, was rooted in what is now Pakistan. The influence of location and history has led to many peculiarities which lead us to stress the blurred boundaries between Islam and Hinduism and the essential part played by charismatic figures in the construction of religious identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust is measured using both survey questions and a trust experiment among a random sample of Muslim and Hindu household heads in rural Bangladesh. We found no significant effect of the social distance between Hindus and Muslims in the trust experiment in terms of the proportions sent or returned. However, the survey responses do indicate significant differences. Both Hindus and Muslims were found to trust others from their own religion more than they trust people from other religions. Moreover, Hindus, the minority, trust other people less in general, and Hindus trust Muslims more than Muslims trust Hindus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The seventeenth-century Mughal prince Dara Shikuh translated and authored many challenging works to highlight what he recognized as mystical parity between Hindu and Muslim traditions. His central hermeneutical claims were that, because the Qur'ān affirms the existence of other divine revelations, the Upanishads must be considered one such revelation. Furthermore, the Upanishads, because they preceded most other scriptures, should be regarded as invaluable for our understanding of the divine mysteries and even placed above the scriptures of Jews and Christians. Consequently, many Islamic authorities regarded Dara's position as heretical. Despite several methodological and hermeneutical problems, Dara's effort at rapprochement between Hindus and Muslims through his study of Hindu religious texts represents an opening for continued explorations and dialogue between scholars of Islam and Hinduism as well as between Muslims and Hindus. This essay recognizes Dara's efforts, while arguing for the need to adopt more appropriate methodologies for a comparative study of Hindu and Islamic textual sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research for this paper is based in a majority-Muslim neighbourhood in South Delhi, Zakir Nagar. As with most urban localities, the borders around Zakir Nagar are permeable—with residents frequently moving in and out of the neighbourhood and coming into contact with members of other religious groups. Many of the residents of Zakir Nagar have also lived in religiously mixed areas previously. Furthermore, although the neighbourhood is itself identified as 'Muslim', it is by no means homogeneous, so that multiple social boundaries operate even within this locality. This paper looks more closely at the issue of religious identity as it was narrated in relation to various and shifting 'others'. These 'others'—referred to in the context of friendship, neighbours and marriage as well as in terms of discrimination, riots and 'communalism'—were often identified as 'Hindus' or as 'non-Muslims', but were also often referred to members of different class, status or regional groups. Hence, boundaries around 'us' and 'them' shifted according to context and were contingent upon various factors alongside religious identity. Through the narratives of Zakir Nagar residents, religious identity emerged as itself a problematic category whose meaning and salience was continuously shifting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of the present article is marriage between local Balinese Hindus and non-Hindu Indonesians in Jembrana, West Bali. Since the 1950s, Balinese Hindus have fought for the right to claim Hinduism as their officially recognised religious practice (agama) within the parameters of Indonesian citizenship. Now, 50 years later, in the post-bomb(s) Bali world, ethnicity (suku) and Hinduism are increasingly conflated to 'authenticate' Balinese identity. This conflation has been aided by the popular ethnic Balinese discourse known as 'Ajeg Bali' ('Bali standing strong'). The present paper discusses tensions between national citizenship and local identities, particularly as challenged by mixed marriages. Increasingly, throughout Indonesia religion has become a substitute for ethnicity that, in Hindu Bali, is also complicated by heredity caste. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Bali over the past 10 years, the present paper examines marriages that cross social boundaries and highlights responses to mixed marriages between Hindus and Muslims in the Jembrana regency. Jembrana is significant to the discussion of mixed marriages because of its proximity to East Java across the Bali Strait and the histories shared by these regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relation between religious conflict and economics in Indian cities. The article describes how Muslim-Hindu conflict often arises due to a struggle over resources, and studies the various factors which lead to violence in localized areas of residentially segregated cities. The study uses neighborhood-level data on religious diversity and compares it to data on riot-related deaths in Ahmedabad, India to show that incidences of violence were more likely to occur in integrated areas. The study explains this phenomena by suggesting that weak tenancy rights prevented less-tolerant people from relocating to segregated neighborhoods.

This paper reconsiders the concept of “syncretism,” and identifies its range and implications when applied to the analysis of the saintly cult of the Hindus and Muslims in Bengal. The mausoleum of Manamohan Datta (1877–1909) is situated in what is currently eastern Bangladesh. Both Hindus and Muslims in the area join together in the various rituals held at the mausoleum. The article discusses the social and cultural factors that explain the sharing of rituals and beliefs by these people. In particular, word correspondences in the religious vocabulary facilitates the mutual acceptance of different cultural forms and norms. The article also examines the critical discourses on syncretistic situations related to the mausoleum in the context of contemporary Bangladesh. Finally, the article discusses the usefulness of the concept of syncretism in elucidating the social and cultural conditions which make possible religious pluralism and multiple discourses. The article opens with a literature review and a statement of the problems. This is followed by a brief history of Saint Manomohan and a description of the ritual practices at the mausoleum. The pluralistic structure of these practices is then examined, and the conditions for acceptance of pluralistic practices are discussed with reference to the critical discourses conducted by the local population. The findings are summed up in a conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses in verse format the conflict between Muslims and Hindus in India. Subjects presented include agitation of mob killings over rumors of animal slaughters, the propensity for blaming Muslims for the social ills of the country, and intermarriage between Muslims and Hindus. Several personal anecdotes and experiences are also included in the article.

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The tussle between freedom of expression and religious intolerance is intensely manifested in Indian society where the State, through censoring of books, movies and other forms of critical expression, victimizes writers, film directors, and academics in order to appease Hindu religious-nationalist and Muslim fundamentalist groups. Against this background, this study explores some of the perceptions of Hindu and Muslim graduate students on the conflict between freedom of expression and religious intolerance in India. Conceptually, the author approaches the tussle between freedom of expression and religion by applying a contextual approach of secular-multiculturalism. This study applies qualitative research methods; specifically in-depth interviews, desk research, and narrative analysis. The findings of this study help demonstrate how to manage conflict between freedom of expression and religion in Indian society, while exploring concepts of Western secularism and the need to contextualize the right to freedom of expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]