The very first sentence of the ‘Preface’ in the book under review is crafted to grab readers by the scruff of their necks—‘To be a Muslim is to be an orphan’—and then keep them glued to each page. It gives a quick sense of the author’s perspective across the thirty articles in this book,these polemical writings are furiously peppered with contentions, declamations and arguments, backed up by data that is hard to ignore.
For instance, the piece entitled ‘Reconstituting Constituencies’ in the opening segment of ‘Political Marginalization’ refers to the Sachar Committee’s observation that Muslims lag behind all communities including schedule caste communities on parameters of political representation, education, employment, health, etc. The glaring contradiction therefore of reserving seats for candidates from schedule caste communities in areas with a high percentage of Muslim population is curious,