Hindu-Muslim relations in India have come under the international spotlight following last year's terrible genocide in Gujarat. This pogrom, with its documented acts of barbarism that included immolation, rape and torture, went on for days under the nose of the state administration with no effort to check the slaughter. Over a year later, the courts have found nobody responsible for these acts that shamed India before the world, and severely compromised its secular standing. Reading the chapter dealing with these atrocities in Zakaria's book is chilling work.

But what led up to this anti-Muslim frenzy beyond the immediate trigger of the burning of a railway carriage containing some 50 Hindutva activists? Zakaria, a well-known scholar, puts much of the blame at Pakistan's a

nd Jinnah's door. After Partition, much of the educated, professional middle class migrated to Pakistan, leaving poor, uneducated Muslims to the mercy of backward mullahs who have led their followers into the most wretched backwaters of India to become a despised underclass. And the presence of a hostile and bellicose Pakistan has made the loyalty of these unfortunate people questionable in Indian eyes. Our aggressive Kashmir policy adds to the anti- Muslim feelings so prevalent in India today.

But despite their drastically reduced demographic (and hence political) presence, Indian Muslims have continued to stress their separateness, thereby incurring the wrath of the majority. An obscurantist leadership has demanded (and received) all kinds of constitutional exceptions, depriving Muslims of many civil rights enjoyed by other Indian citizens. This adherence to archaic traditions has deepened the divide between Hindus and Muslims. The first two post-Partition generations of Muslims tended to cling to Urdu as a badge of identity, depriving their children of a modern, secular education. This has made the whole community more backward.

In a moving foreword, the Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, adds his voice to Zakaria's in a powerful plea for tolerance. The author has seen fit to publish a letter from Vajpayee on the back cover of his book. Although the Indian PM is eloquent on the subject of tolerance ("Claims of su

Some topics in this essay:
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