Review of Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot, eds., Muslims in Indian Cities: Trajectories of Marginalisation

Excerpt

In Muslims in Indian Cities, Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot challenge simplistic representations of South Asian Muslims. This challenge is empirical and focuses on urban contexts. Gayer and Jaffrelot maintain that cities are key to understanding the Muslim experience in India; they are the historical locations from which the community’s influence emerged. To better understand these locations, Gayer and Jaffrelot adopt a comparative approach: each chapter in this edited book addresses a different Indian city. The authors of these chapters focus ethnographically on specific neighborhoods. In addition to ethnography, the authors provide detailed urban profiles (that are both quantitative and qualitative) to contextualize neighborhoods. Gayer and Jaffrelot conclude from these multi-dimensional analyses that the political, economic and social condition of Muslims in India is on the decline. …