'Majorities' and 'Minorities' in Modern South Asian Islam: A Historian's Perspective
Mushirul Hasan
Over the years Marxist and subaltern historians have introduced some major
methodological departures in their writings on the Muslim communities in India. Yet
their impact has not been profoundly felt in academic circles. The dominant trend,
illustrated in part by the curriculum followed in most colleges and universities, is to
dwell on the so-called Muslim mind, detail the 'Muslim outlook', and construe a unified
'Muslim identity' around the symbols of Islam. Many people still believe, despite
evidence to the contrary, that the ulama represent 'true' Islam, and that liberal and
modernist currents are either secondary or peripheral to the more dominant 'separatist',
'communal' and 'neo-fundamentalist' paradigms. Time and time again one is reminded
of the pervasive impact of Islam on its followers, their enduring pan-Islamic links, and
their unflinching devotion to the Quran and other religious texts. We are told that
Muslims attach greater value to their religio-cultural habits and institutions; hence they
are prone to being swayed by the Islamic rhetoric. In other words, 'Islam' is seen not just
as a religion but a total way of life, providing a complete identity, explanation and
moral code for Muslims' action. The mere fact of people being Islamic in some general
sense is conflated with that of their adherence to beliefs and policies that are strictly
described as 'Islamist' or 'fundamentalist'.
What these approaches share is the analytic primacy of culture and ideology and the
privileged place assigned to Islam. It is thus commonly assumed, both in India and
elsewhere, that Islam is not only distinctive but also inherently incompatible with
Western ideals of democracy and secularism. Islam as a religion is considered to be
essentially different from all the others in that the concepts of beliefs and political rule
are fused through the unity of din wa dawla, the Prophet having both revealed a religion
and founded a state. Predicated on this statement is an assumed resistance to secularism.
In reality, the commitment of some Muslim groups to specifically Islamic ideas
and Islamic symbols does not indicate a unified structure of consciousness or
community acting in unison. What should not be assumed is a monolithic conception of
Islamic ideology and practice or teleology dictating the actions of the Muslims or a
general acquiescence in the actions of few. We must bear in mind that the Muslim
communities, like their counterparts in any other religious community, have multiple
, identities, with many acts to perform and many diverse roles to play. This explains why
they, while remaining true to the faith, relate to the more immediate and pressing socio-
economic needs in broadly secular terms and have greater affinity with members of
their class or caste and not just with their co-religionists. The debate on the depth and
nature of this interaction would go on, but one should not at any rate be guided by the
contemporary experiences of Hindu-Muslim relations. Equally, one should guard
against a discussion centred around the notion of an absolute Muslim/Islamic
consciousness and steer clear of the reification of Islam in the realm of political ideas.
We should, instead, consider what political/social ideas particular group of Muslims
hold, and the relations between these and their social conditions and practice. The
scholar Aziz al-Azmeh has pointed out:
The very premises of Islamic studies are radically and thoroughly unsound; their
very foundation, the identification and the construal of relevant facts, is based upon a
political and cultural imagination.... Any proper writing of Islamic history has to rest on
the dissolution of Islam as an orientalist category...It has to liberate itself from Islam,
and scrutinize Islamic histories, societies, economies, temporalities, cultures and
sciences with the aid of history, of economics, of sociology, critical theory and
anthropology. Only then will Islam be disassociated, and reconstituted as historical
categories amenable to historical study.1
Who, then, are the Muslims? What, if any, specific identity is associated with
them? Is it divinely ordained or related to features that have always been characteristic
of Islamic governments and societies? How important is the community's own self-
image which is subtly moulded by a combination of 'internal' factors and external
interventions? Is it the outcome of colonial images, of treating Muslims as an
undifferentiated religious category? To what extent has the post-colonial state, too,
viewed Muslims as a religious collectivity, who are also presumed to represent a
separate political entity?
First of all, identities in South Asian history and politics have seldom been unified;
in colonial India they were increasingly fragmented and fractured. Indeed, they were not
singular but multiple, and thus difficult to capture on a single axis. Constructed across
different, intersecting and antagonistic sites, discourses, and practices, they are subject
to a radical historicization, and are constantly in the process of making and unmaking.2
Interestingly enough, when the first all-India census was tabulated and analysed in
1881, the enumerators found that Muslims numbered only 19.7 percent of the
Mushirul Hasan
Over the years Marxist and subaltern historians have introduced some major
methodological departures in their writings on the Muslim communities in India. Yet
their impact has not been profoundly felt in academic circles. The dominant trend,
illustrated in part by the curriculum followed in most colleges and universities, is to
dwell on the so-called Muslim mind, detail the 'Muslim outlook', and construe a unified
'Muslim identity' around the symbols of Islam. Many people still believe, despite
evidence to the contrary, that the ulama represent 'true' Islam, and that liberal and
modernist currents are either secondary or peripheral to the more dominant 'separatist',
'communal' and 'neo-fundamentalist' paradigms. Time and time again one is reminded
of the pervasive impact of Islam on its followers, their enduring pan-Islamic links, and
their unflinching devotion to the Quran and other religious texts. We are told that
Muslims attach greater value to their religio-cultural habits and institutions; hence they
are prone to being swayed by the Islamic rhetoric. In other words, 'Islam' is seen not just
as a religion but a total way of life, providing a complete identity, explanation and
moral code for Muslims' action. The mere fact of people being Islamic in some general
sense is conflated with that of their adherence to beliefs and policies that are strictly
described as 'Islamist' or 'fundamentalist'.
What these approaches share is the analytic primacy of culture and ideology and the
privileged place assigned to Islam. It is thus commonly assumed, both in India and
elsewhere, that Islam is not only distinctive but also inherently incompatible with
Western ideals of democracy and secularism. Islam as a religion is considered to be
essentially different from all the others in that the concepts of beliefs and political rule
are fused through the unity of din wa dawla, the Prophet having both revealed a religion
and founded a state. Predicated on this statement is an assumed resistance to secularism.
In reality, the commitment of some Muslim groups to specifically Islamic ideas
and Islamic symbols does not indicate a unified structure of consciousness or
community acting in unison. What should not be assumed is a monolithic conception of
Islamic ideology and practice or teleology dictating the actions of the Muslims or a
general acquiescence in the actions of few. We must bear in mind that the Muslim
communities, like their counterparts in any other religious community, have multiple
, identities, with many acts to perform and many diverse roles to play. This explains why
they, while remaining true to the faith, relate to the more immediate and pressing socio-
economic needs in broadly secular terms and have greater affinity with members of
their class or caste and not just with their co-religionists. The debate on the depth and
nature of this interaction would go on, but one should not at any rate be guided by the
contemporary experiences of Hindu-Muslim relations. Equally, one should guard
against a discussion centred around the notion of an absolute Muslim/Islamic
consciousness and steer clear of the reification of Islam in the realm of political ideas.
We should, instead, consider what political/social ideas particular group of Muslims
hold, and the relations between these and their social conditions and practice. The
scholar Aziz al-Azmeh has pointed out:
The very premises of Islamic studies are radically and thoroughly unsound; their
very foundation, the identification and the construal of relevant facts, is based upon a
political and cultural imagination.... Any proper writing of Islamic history has to rest on
the dissolution of Islam as an orientalist category...It has to liberate itself from Islam,
and scrutinize Islamic histories, societies, economies, temporalities, cultures and
sciences with the aid of history, of economics, of sociology, critical theory and
anthropology. Only then will Islam be disassociated, and reconstituted as historical
categories amenable to historical study.1
Who, then, are the Muslims? What, if any, specific identity is associated with
them? Is it divinely ordained or related to features that have always been characteristic
of Islamic governments and societies? How important is the community's own self-
image which is subtly moulded by a combination of 'internal' factors and external
interventions? Is it the outcome of colonial images, of treating Muslims as an
undifferentiated religious category? To what extent has the post-colonial state, too,
viewed Muslims as a religious collectivity, who are also presumed to represent a
separate political entity?
First of all, identities in South Asian history and politics have seldom been unified;
in colonial India they were increasingly fragmented and fractured. Indeed, they were not
singular but multiple, and thus difficult to capture on a single axis. Constructed across
different, intersecting and antagonistic sites, discourses, and practices, they are subject
to a radical historicization, and are constantly in the process of making and unmaking.2
Interestingly enough, when the first all-India census was tabulated and analysed in
1881, the enumerators found that Muslims numbered only 19.7 percent of the
