A provocative and groundbreaking history of the genesis of India's Hindu-Muslim divide from the eighteenth century to the present day. The Shade of Swords unwraps two hundred years of India's history, focussing on the inter-communal, sectarian strife that has so blighted the country and the lives of its peoples. The Hindu-Muslim divide, like sectarianism in Northern Ireland, is seen by many both inside and outside India as an interminable and accepted fact of life. It has led to massacres, political assassinations (of most of its twentieth-century leaders), to the destruction of mosques (most provocatively the Barbi mosque in 1992) and more recently to alarming nuclear stand-offs between India and Pakistan. But as this gulf seems to be getting ever wider, few seem to challenge its progress. M. J Akbar, (a high-profile political commentator, the editor of Asian Age and a former Congress Party MP), offers a dramatic re-interpretation of India's history. He argues that the Hindu-Muslim divide is more the fruit of imagination than reality.
Through tragic and colourful episodes in India's history he shows that the dividing line between Hindu and Muslim has always been fine, and that differences have been exaggerated and exploited in the political interests of certain groups (e.g: in the post-colonial scramble for power); it has distorted India's history and created false and mythologised traditions among both Hindus and Muslims.
- ISBN10 0203504844
- ISBN13 9780203504840
- Publish Date 23 May 2002 (first published 1 January 1989)
- Publish Status Unknown
- Out of Print 11 April 2013
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Imprint Routledge
- Format eBook
- Language English