Pratinav Anil is a lecturer in history at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, whose writings have appeared in The Times, Guardian, Spectator and History Today. He is the co-author, with Christophe Jaffrelot, of India's First Dictatorship. | Another India tells the story of the world's biggest religious minority through vivid biographical portraits that weave together the stories of both elite and subaltern Muslims.By challenging traditional histories and highlighting the neglect of minority rights since Independence, Pratinav Anil argues that Muslims, since 1947, have had to contend with discrimination, disadvantage, deindustrialization, dispossession and disenfranchisement, as well as an unresponsive leadership. He explores the rise and fall of the Indian Muslim elite and the birth of the nationalist Muslim, and emphasizes the importance of class in understanding the dynamics of Indian politics. Anil also sheds light on the vested custodial interests and the depoliticization of the privileged classes, all of which resulted in the elite betrayal by the landed gentry of the ordinary members of the community, a betrayal whose consequences are still felt by India's 200 million Muslims today. Another India ultimately recovers Muslim agency from the back pages of history and offers a different picture of democratic India, challenging received accounts of the world's largest democracy. | [Another India] successfully punctures the myth that the secularism of Nehru's India was a golden age for Indian Muslims.' The SpectatorA devastating demolition of the myth created by dominant ... See more
Pratinav Anil is a lecturer in history at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, whose writings have appeared in The Times, Guardian, Spectator and History Today. He is the co-author, with Christophe Jaffrelot, of India's First Dictatorship. | Another India tells the story of the world's biggest religious minority through vivid biographical portraits that weave together the stories of both elite and subaltern Muslims.By challenging traditional histories and highlighting the neglect of minority rights since Independence, Pratinav Anil argues that Muslims, since 1947, have had to contend with discrimination, disadvantage, deindustrialization, dispossession and disenfranchisement, as well as an unresponsive leadership. He explores the rise and fall of the Indian Muslim elite and the birth of the nationalist Muslim, and emphasizes the importance of class in understanding the dynamics of Indian politics. Anil also sheds light on the vested custodial interests and the depoliticization of the privileged classes, all of which resulted in the elite betrayal by the landed gentry of the ordinary members of the community, a betrayal whose consequences are still felt by India's 200 million Muslims today. Another India ultimately recovers Muslim agency from the back pages of history and offers a different picture of democratic India, challenging received accounts of the world's largest democracy. | [Another India] successfully punctures the myth that the secularism of Nehru's India was a golden age for Indian Muslims.' The SpectatorA devastating demolition of the myth created by dominant historiography that Nehru was thegenerous and magnanimous torch-bearer of secularism.' FrontlineAn eye-opener.' The Indian ExpressMeticulously researched, engaging and fun to read, Another India revokes the myth that Muslims were merely objects of Indian history. It is rare to come across writing brimming with this level of analytical clarity, insight and humour.' Adeel Hussain, Assistant Professor of Legal and Political Theory, Leiden University, and author of Revenge, Politics and Blasphemy in PakistanAnil's powerful intervention demolishes the caricature of the Indian Muslim's voice as an essay on victimhood. This richly textured analysis restores authorship to Indian Muslims in the complex story of their engagement with what ought to constitute the priorities of the minority community.' Pallavi Raghavan, Assistant Professor of International Relations, Ashoka University, and author of Animosity at Bay: An Alternative History of the India Pakistan RelationshipAn important and ambitious study unpacking the idea of Muslim agency to make sense of the complex history of postcolonial Muslim politics.' Hilal Ahmed, Associate Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, and author of Muslim Political Discourse in Postcolonial IndiaAnil details convincingly the story of Indian Muslims before and after Partition, exploring their (unsuccessful) struggle to secure political and cultural rights as well as recovering Muslim agency in the story of postcolonial India. A must-read.' Katharine Adeney, Professor of Comparative Politics, University of Nottingham, and author of Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation in India and Pakistan | NA NA
