Beyond Separatism

In Muslim Politics in Bihar, Mohammad Sajjad, an assistant professor of history at Aligarh Muslim University, breaks new ground in a number of ways. First, addressing Bihar Muslim politics during the colonial period leading up to Partition, he shows that unlike U.P. and Bengal, its two neighbours (which, together with Punjab, have received most of the attention by historians of Partition), Bihar Muslims did not embrace the separatist message of the Muslim League until 1946, when in the wake of massive riots in Bihar the Muslim League made major electoral gains on the strength of the slogan ‘Islam in danger’.