Muslim Politics In India

Hamid Dalwai has been called a Muslim modernizer who relentlessly
worked towards promoting reason and justice among Muslims.
Historian Ram Guha writes, ‘[He] worked tirelessly to get Muslims to shed
their social and religious prejudices. The pursuit of gender equality was of
pre-eminent importance to him; and he waged a long battle against triple
talaq.’
Born in a lower-middle-class family in rural Maharashtra in 1932, Dalwai was
a gifted writer who broke on to the Marathi literary scene as a highly
promising writer. His novel Indhan is now recognized as a significant
contribution to Marathi literature. Dalwai was attracted by the ideas of Ram
Manohar Lohia and became an active member of the Socialist Party.
Dalwai’s writing displayed the same passion and forthrightness, eloquence
and commitment, which informed all his actions as a social worker. Above
all was his courage of conviction, which made him brave the various threats
to his life and family. More than once was he physically assaulted.
Dalwai’s Muslim Politics in India is arguably the most perceptive analysis of
Muslim politics to appear in post-Independence India. It retains the same
freshness-and relevance-which it had when it was first published some three
decades back. First published in 1968, an enlarged edition was later
published under the title Muslim Politics in Secular India by Hind Pocket
Books, Delhi, in 1972. This translation, the first of its kind, is a product of
numerous meetings which Hamid Dalwai had with noted poet Dilip Chitre,
during which the latter made extensive notes and rendered them into
articles in English. It combines his most evocative and fiery essays, and
emerges as a fine voice of reason relevant to our contemporary times.