In the recent decades, State and Civil society in India has increasingly come under severe attack by the Hindutva forces signifying a vicious political turn. It also signifies that communalism as a socio-political project has come to stay in our society as an ideology and as a political practice explicitly challenging civilisational heritage, polity and India's composite culture. A serious consequence of the communalisation of society was the undermining of the democratic process and institution of the modern secular State by the communal forces leading to greater polarisation within civil society as well as social and community consolidation on communal lines.

A worrisome social trend, emerging from the various communal conflicts and riots, is the increasing use of violence as an instrument in the polarization of civil society and polity. Each time a ghastly violence occurs polarization is further deepened thus fracturing and fragmenting civil society along communal lines, through social and physical ghetoisation.

The essays in this book by Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer written from time to time probe some of the different facets of communal problems in the country.

The essays cover a wide range of issues from communalism to communal violence, abuse of history in the consolidation of communalism, the genesis and development of communal politics, the concept of secularism, communalism and fundamentalism, analysis of Muslim political thought and the status and problem of Muslim women.

Dr. Engineer has scholarly articulated the debate on these issues with rationality and logic. This work will prove immensely useful to secular activists and scholars as a source of theoretical and practical guide for secular praxis.

Contents

Foreword
Introduction

1. Secularism
   1. Secularism in Indian Context - An Introduction
   2. Supreme Court Judgments on Secularism in 1994
   3. New Secular Government and its Secular Tasks
   4. Religion, Law and Secular Governance
   5. Religion, Religious Institutions and the State
   6. Implications of a Universal Civil Code
2. Communalism and Secularism
   1. Freedom Struggle and Communalism
   2. Gandhi and Communalism: A Critical Assessment
   3. Religious Fanaticism and Communalism - A Socio- Economic Analysis
   4. Hindu-Muslim Hostile Images - A Socio-Historical View
   5. The Politics of Attack on Bhandarkar Institute
3. Muslim Social and Political Thought
   1. Muslim Intelligentsia and Liberalism
   2. Maulana Azad and Unity of Religion
   3. Sufism and Inter-Faith Harmony
   4. Indian Muslims and Loksabha Elections
   5. On Reservation for Muslims - Should or Should not be
   6. Muslims and Mainstream
   7. After Abolition of Triple Talaq - What Next?
   8. Triple Divorce - Need for Change
4. Struggle Against Fascism and Communalism
   1. Gujarat Carnage in the Light of History of Communal Violence in India
   2. Gujarat Carnage and Muslim Women
   3. India Shining, Communal Darkness
   4. BJP back on Aggressive Hindutva Track
   5. Census Figures and BJP's Anti-Minorityism
   6. The BJP and the Politics of Religious Extremism
   7. Drafting the Law to Prevent Communal Violence

Total Pages: 252/-

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