Kaushik Roy, War and Society in Afghanistan: From the Mughals to the Americans, 1500–2013

The second interesting detail is that the Babri Masjid issue was not allowed to be treated as a local issue as the mosque was a Muslim Wakf property and symbolically linked to the entire Muslim community. Ahmed mentions that ‘... from 1949 to 1984, the local as well as national level Muslim politicians continued to ignore the Babri Masjid case and it was never highlighted as a Muslim issue.’ Even Abdullah Bukhari did not mention it in 1977 during the election campaign of Faizabad. It has been said that while dealing with the history of communal divide in postcolonial India, the academicians have tried to focus on the government and the Hindu communal forces as two factors. Ahmed has brought the third factor in this whole discussion. He is very honest and sincere in handling his evidence. His only problem is that he had to talk about ‘Muslim politics’, and when using Hindu or Muslim politics, one has to speak in a language which does not permit the writer to see the community in a plural sense, even if he wants. He has tried to use terms such as ‘the dominant Muslim narrative’, but, overall, he has not been able to underline the fact that the Muslim is not a political community. This book is a very important work not only for what it says but also because how it struggles to come out of the Muslim homogeneity perspective. One can read it not only to know how Muslim political elites have been quite significant in the story of communal contestations over Indo-Islamic sites but also to realise how little we know about the Muslim political elite politics. Also, one can realise how difficult it is to deal with this subject without being trapped into a closed debate of secular and communal. Hilal Ahmed has given us much to think about. His approach and findings are not likely to please either secular or communal camps. But this should be seen as the strength of the book. For all those who still have faith in sincere academic work, going through this important work should be a rewarding experience.