Table of Contents

Notes on the Contributors Introduction; A.Sharma The Muslim Minority Before and After Ayodhya; T.P.Wright, Jr. In the Shadow of Ayodhya: Secularism in India; J.J.Carroll Reconstructing 'Ram Rajya:' Tradition, Politics and the Bharatiya Janata Party; M.A.Cook The Politics of Paradise: Islam, Identity and Politics in India; D.K.Vajpeyi The Case for a Divorce Between Religion and Politics; S.C.Kashyap Historical Narrative and Nation-State in India; S.A.Hoffmann Hindutva : The Indian Secularists' Metaphor for Illness and Perversion; S.Tilak India's Only Communalist: An Introduction to the Work of Sita Ram Goel; K.Elst The Strains of Hindu-Muslim Relations: Babri Masjid, Music and Other Areas Where the Traditions Cleave; V.Narayanan Index

Promotional Information

JOHN J.CARROLL Chancellor Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth MATTHEW A. COOK Ph.D. Student in Anthropology, Columbia University KOENRAAD ELST Author STEVEN A. HOFFMANN Professor of Political Science, Skidmore College SUBHASH C.KASHYAP Political Scientist and expert in constitutional law and parliamentary affairs VASUDHA NARAYANAN Professor of Comparative Religion, University of Florida ARVIND SHARMA Birks Professor of Comparative Religion, Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University, Montreal, Canada SHRINIVAS TILAK Lecturer DHIRNDRA K.VAJPEYI Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Fall, Iowa THEODORE P.WRIGHT JR. Professor Emeritus of Political Science, State University of New York, Albany

About the Author

ARVIND SHARMA was born in India where he served as a civil servant before embarking on an academic career in the West. He is the Birks Professor of Comparative Religion at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and currently engaged in promoting the adoption of a Universal Declaration of the Human Rights by the World's Religions.