Messages from the margins

Making Place for Muslims in Contemporary India offers a critical understanding of the differential citizenship to which Indian Muslims have been subject, and suggests ways to combat it

Making Place for Muslims in Contemporary India

Author: Kalyani Devaki Menon

Publisher: HarperCollins

Pages: 220

Price: Rs 499
 

Kalyani Devaki Menon’s latest book Making Place for Muslims in Contemporary India is an uncomfortable read at a time when the ruling ideology of Hindutva seeks to marginalise Muslim society. Dr  Menon’s field-work in Purani Dilli (Old Delhi), the shrinking epicentre of Delhi Muslims, distilled into this book, offers startling insights into the systematic attempts by the state to configure upper-caste Hindus as the normative nationalist subject, and relegate Muslims to the margins.

Her carefully chosen interlocutors include men and women from different sectarian traditions (Shia and