The Politics of Muslim Rage: Secular Law and Religious Sentiment in Late Colonial India

Abstract

This article explores debates in India after the trial and murder of the publisher of Rangila Rasul, a satire of the Prophet Muhammad’s marital life. The Lahore High Court acquitted the publisher of criminal charges in 1927, leading to an outcry by Indian Muslims. The mainstream Indian press and Hindu leaders proclaimed that Indian Muslims had ‘gone mad’ and accused them of endangering the freedom struggle. Historians have also emphasized the role of emotional devotion to the Prophet in shaping Muslims’ protests. The article argues instead that appeals to religious sentiments were inextricably linked to arguments about legal protection and political rights. In response to the crisis, the Legislative Assembly amended the Indian Penal Code to criminalize religious insults. Criticizing the new law, Indian newspapers published some of the first explicit calls to separate religion from secular politics. These self-styled secularists, however, portrayed Muslim fanaticism, rather than Hindu faith, as the principal threat. The controversy suggests that the demand to separate religion from law and politics often proved delusory. The article underlines the need to historicize binary divisions, including that between reasoned politics and religious sentiments, which continue to animate understandings of the relationship between secular liberalism and Islam today.