Globalisation and the Predicaments of Shared Cultural Spaces: Neoliberal Reforms and the Status of Indian Muslims

Abstract

This article attempts at situating the contemporary cultural politics in India, which symbolises a fractured social space, engineered by political maneuverings based on issues relating to the sharing of socio-cultural spaces and the management of cultural differences. Home to the largest Muslim population in South Asia, with Hindus having the demographic edge, the question of the status and identity of Muslims in India has been a particularly contested one. The problemetique of specifying the cultural space of Indian Muslims got complicated with the issue of profiling a terrorist, which assumed significance in the wake of growing regional and internal security challenges posed by Islamic terror outfits operating in the realm of the subcontinent and further exasperated by the global upsurge of Islamic extremism in recent times. All this not only imparted broader connotations for the Indian Muslims but has also aptly fitted into the political agenda of a section of the majority Hindu community, who have sought to radicalise the idea of a 'Hindu Nation' and associated its achievement by engaging in fierce cultural propaganda of the Islamic evil demonology. This has matured together simultaneously in a temporary parallel development of the twin phenomena of a rapidly globalising economy and an increasing liberalisation of the cultural sphere. So, the precariousness of Indian Muslims has considerably deepened as they are demonised by a hegemonic majoritarian order and with this, the very idea of India as a homeland for them produces horrific geo-cultural images. In light of this, the paper discusses the place of Indian Muslims in an overtly expanding Hinduised public domain which has dehumanised Muslims to such an extent that a large populous has been reified into accepting that a Musalman is a distinct other.