The Partition of India in 1947, a result of political calculus, compromises and adjustments of elites but not of population at large, affected adversely the Muslims in India, particularly in the northern and eastern states of the Indian Union. They are not homogenous in racial or linguistic terms and bear the impact of local cultural surroundings, in manners and customs, in varying degrees. They have lived in India’s religiously plural society for over a thousand years, at times as rulers, at others as subjects and now as citizens. They are 13.4 percent of India’s population at the same time, they are the second or third largest Muslim community in our world of nation-states. Indian Muslims are, in more ways than one, sui generic. The debate has thus progressed from informed and less informed speculation to diligent collection and analysis of actual conditions based on ground data.
The subject of India’s Muslim minority, and its socio-economic condition, has been the subject of considerable study in recent years.
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