Another India: The Making of the World's Largest Muslim Minority, 1947–77

Challenging traditional histories of Nehru’s India, Pratinav Anil shows that minority rights were neglected right from independence. Despite its best intentions, the Congress regime that ruled for three decades was often illiberal, intolerant and undemocratic. Muslims had to contend with discrimination, disadvantage, deindustrialisation, dispossession and disenfranchisement, as well as an unresponsive leadership.

Anil demonstrates how the Muslim elite encouraged depoliticisation, taking up seemingly noble but largely inconsequential causes with little bearing on the lives of ordinary members of the community. There was no room for mass protests or collective solidarity in this version of Muslim politics. Another India explores this elite betrayal, whose consequences are still felt by India’s 200 million Muslims today.