“There are many things we can say about Indian democracy,” Mr. [Imtiaz] Ahmad [a retired professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University] said. “But it has given assurances, to minorities included, that things are negotiable.”
New York Times, November 29, 2006.
The same article also points out "a peculiar dimension of Muslim identity" in India: Muslims in India are riven by caste, having inherited their caste before conversion from Hinduism. But then this is true of Christians as well. The irony is that caste inequity is often used as the reason for conversion in the first place!
Posted by aswath at November 29, 2006 03:50 AM