Of Saffron Flags and Skullcaps: Hindutva, Muslim Identity and the Idea of India

We live in an age when most Muslims take pride in singing Saare Jahan Se Achcha, penned by Muhammad Iqbal. Many though have forgotten that the same poet-philosopher called Ram as Imam-e-Hind. The Hindutva forces, meanwhile, have forgotten the unifying Saare Jahan Se Achcha in their pursuit of divisive nationalism. Their exclusionary politics stems from a mindset of self-limiting segregation: a world of ‘we’ and ‘they’, a world where a Muslim man is lynched for refusing to say ‘Vande Mataram’. Of Saffron Flags and Skullcaps attempts to trace the growth of the Hindutva ideology from the time of V.D. Savarkar and M.S. Golwalkar to the contemporary age, and how it precedes any talk of Muslim appeasement. Faced with these existential challenges, the Muslim community is involved in simultaneous churning within where the words of Islamic scholar and teacher Farhat Hashmi are bringing about a silent change at the grassroots level. Amidst all the challenges, the idea of India, often challenged, continues to show the way to a nation looking for direction.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Dr Nirmala Lakshman Preface Acknowledgements PART 1: HINDUTVA The Idea of a Hindu Nation Hindutva and Hindu Nationalism Hindutva Precedes Appeasement URA: Hindutva and Hind Swaraj Hindutva and Women Hindutva and Dalits Rediscovering National Icons Integrating Sardar Patel Appropriating Bhagat Singh Co-opting Dr Ambedkar Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay: Not Quite an Icon Madan Mohan Malaviya: Early Hindu Nationalist Understanding RSS and Fringe Elements RSS and Nationalism RSS and the Tricolour The Myth of the Holy Cow Cow Protection Movement Gaurakshini Samitis Turn Senas Raksha Dals, Then and Now Majoritarianism and Nationalism Nation from the Historical Lens M S Golwalkar and Irfan Habib Conflict and Conciliation: Bipan Chandra’s World Babur Nama Gopal Gandhi’s Dara Shukoh Akbar as the New Age Aurangzeb Revisiting Aurangzeb PART 2: MUSLIM IDENTITY Being Muslim I Am the ‘Other’ The Other as the New Normal The First Muslim Extraordinary Tales of Muslim Women Not Easy Being a Muslim Muslims in Indian Cities Muslims of Delhi and Jammu Jamaat and Religion Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind A Muslim Leader Against Partition Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Tablighi Jamaat Sufism: Is It Islam? Aslam Parvaiz: One-man Movement Jihad and Ijtihad Fatwa on Terrorism Islam and Practices Triple Talaq and Khula Women’s Right to Divorce A Woman Leads Friday Prayers Muslim Women and Masjid Night of the New Moon Madrasas and Farhat Hashmi Conversion and Reconversion Not Being the Other Noor Zaheer’s Heresy on Hearsay Of Peace and War A Mockery of Satire PART 3: THE IDEA OF INDIA Everybody an Immigrant Innocent Acquitted, but How? Once Framed for Terrorism, Now a Symbol of Nationalism A Humanist Despite Being Called a Terrorist Hashimpura: Chak De! India Sir Mohammed Iqbal Rearming Hinduism Reality of Conversions Uniform Civil Code Age-old Glue: Commonalities in Faith India for Indians References

About the Author :
Ziya Us Salam is a noted literary and social commentator. A student of history from the University of Delhi, he is engaged in building bridges of commonality between communities through recourse to the Quran and the Vedas. He has been associated with The Hindu for almost two decades and has been its Features Editor for North India editions for 16 years. At present, he is an Associate Editor, Frontline, and writes on sociocultural issues for the magazine besides doing book reviews. A prolific and an acclaimed author, in 2019, he published Lynch Files, a take on victims of hate violence, and 365 Tales from Islam, a book that aims to introduce Islam to children. In the previous year, he had released Of Saffron Flags and Skull Caps, a take on the challenges to the idea of India, and Till Talaq Do Us Part, a study of various divorce options available in Islam. His book Delhi 4 Shows, a study of cinemas since the talkie era began, was released in 2016. His book Women in Masjid: A Quest for Justice was released recently. Ziya was a jury member of the International Film Festival of India (non-feature film, 2011), Best Writing on Cinema (2008) and Vatavaran.

Review :
This book is a must-read for every Indian. It brings out the frightening growth of religious communalism in India, which threatens to tear apart the delicate fabric woven by the Indian people over the centuries. Yet the author is optimistic that what will endure is this very practice of the Indian people living together for centuries evolving a syncretic, plural, multi-cultural society which our nation builders tried to promote as the ‘idea of India’. This is a searing exposé of the violence, hatred and narrow communal prejudices that are integral to the Hindutva DNA. In tracing the trajectory from Savarkar to Modi, Ziya Us Salam shows that nothing has changed and how, therefore, our secular nationhood is currently threatened. He sums up by explaining how the Muslim community might best meet this challenge through internal social reforms. A balanced account with a wise ending, I would highly commend the book to general and specialist readers.  This book by Ziya Us Salam tells us about the twists and turns in the history of our country during the recent years, especially during the period of Modi regime. He has a lot to say about the Hindutva phenomenon, the issue of cow, mob lynching of Muslims, engineered communal riots, the Muslim identity, the politics of triple talaq and so on. The author has written about these and several other related issues with his characteristic elegance, felicity and persuasiveness.... The book is a must-read for understanding India’s current predicament. Ziya Us Salam’s Of Saffron Flags and Skullcaps: Hindutva, Muslim Identity and the Idea of India is a timely work which tries to grapple with a burning issue which is seminal to the survival of the concept of a secular nation as envisioned and guaranteed by the Constitution of India. Salam not only deals with the growth of Hindutva ‘Nationalism’ which in the present day is trying to appropriate some of the foundational philosophies of people like Sardar Patel, Bhagat Singh and Dr Ambedkar, but also exposes those who are trying to propagate a divisive agenda where the ‘other’ is tried to be demonized. Through this work Salam makes an attempt to put the ‘idea of India’ back on its secular rails and show how Muslims are an important component of this nation, historically and otherwise. A thorough, multi-faceted and clear-eyed historical account of relations between Hindus and Muslims of the Indian subcontinent: Ziya Us Salam has produced a much needed up-to-date analytical narrative which, rightly, warns against the rise of majoritarian Hindutva under the garb of nationalism. A timely book to inspire all those who uphold India’s traditional unity in diversity. This book is a bold and frank account of the transformation of the relationship between Muslims and the Indian nation. It questions the civilized denial about the antagonistic othering of Muslims and their marginalization. It tells us that the disenfranchisement of Muslims and destruction of the secular project of the Indian freedom struggle did not happen overnight. Set in a period when the RSS started capturing all institutional, cultural and political spaces, the book observes and registers different episodes of the gradual decline and fall of the idea of India shaped by Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar. This is a searing exposé of the violence, hatred and narrow communal prejudices that are integral to the Hindutva DNA…. A balanced account with a wise ending, I would highly commend the book to general and specialist readers.