Arising out of a seminar at Jamia Millia Islamia in October 2003, this volume addresses an aspect of Indian society which has been a matter of widespread concern: the working, that is, of major institutions — some Hindu, some Muslim — whose ideologies and positions have been socially separative: These institutions— Arya Samaj, the seminary at Deoband, RSS, Tablighi Jamaat — have been active for several generations now. While their ostensible functions are ‘religious’ or ‘cultural’, which seem innocent enough, for their (implicitly or explicitly separative) agendas, these have worked: out low cost forms of organization and activity which have given them a rather formidable expansive dynamic, which has significant transnational dimensions in each case. Their activities and campaigns have often been aggressive, sometimes prone to violence; and these have served, may be unintentionally, to provoke each other, thereby giving the other side justification for its own contentious activities, as if in collective self-defence. The mutual provocations have, over the decades, confirmed for both sides a sense of their own victimhood.

These social mechanisms have had significant social and political consequences — yet have remained largely off the radars of public attention. It is a complex theme; and this volume presents many facets from different angles. Several contributors employ a long term historical perspective; and also a comparative one, reaching out to Europe, another major region where the mutual relations between major religious traditions have also been problematical for a very long time.