Description
There are nearly 200 million Muslims in India. While only 15 percent of the population, they constitute the second or third largest national community of Muslims in the world, after Indonesia and, possibly, Pakistan. Since the rise to power of a Hindu nationalist government in 2014, Muslims have been increasingly marginalized, and recent laws adopted by the Indian parliament are likely to turn them into second–class citizens.
This project will be led by The Paris Institute of Political Studies, commonly known as Sciences Po, a university with seven campuses in France. Sciences Po will collaborate with Princeton and Columbia universities to analyze the processes of marginalization, discrimination and repression of Muslims in India, as well as responses to those processes. Nine research clusters will focus on: socio–economic and educational decline, institutional exclusion, violence (riots and lynchings), the police and the judiciary, Muslim women, Jammu and Kashmir, ghettoization, the quest for political spokespersons, and risks of radicalization.
Each cluster will be led by a researcher who oversees the work of the team, including data gathering, interviews, surveys and a group report. Each cluster will also gather audio– visual data to be used to create data visualization for the project’s website. Reports from the clusters will form the basis of a final report, with recommendations, to be disseminated to policymakers, think tanks and research centers in the U.S., Europe and South Asia. Other publications will include a book, articles, op–eds and a dedicated website featuring research results, interactive maps and graphs, video interviews and podcasts with community members, academics, and other experts.
To facilitate collaboration across the clusters, the project will organize an initial workshop at Sciences Po, a mid–project workshop at Columbia’s Global Center in Mumbai, and a final two–day workshop in New York and Washington, DC, which will focus on dissemination of the findings.
Research on Muslims in India is limited, unreliable, and fragmentary. There has been no systematic data–based study since the Sachar Committee Report, released 15 years ago, and many of the topics to be addressed here have barely been studied, either quantitatively or ethnographically. The project aims to address these gaps by generating accurate data and through field research on communal dynamics, government policies and marginalization. More broadly, the project will examine the complex intertwining of authoritarianism, religious exclusiveness and identity politics.
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The project builds on recent collaborations among Sciences Po, Princeton, Columbia, and Ashoka University in India, and will establish an international, multidisciplinary network of researchers and institutions. The lead researcher, Christophe Jaffrelot, is widely regarded as an authority on Muslims in India and Pakistan and is based at Sciences Po. Other team members are Bernard Haykel, professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton and Manan Ahmed, a professor of history at Columbia University.
Luce Foundation funds would cover most of the cost of staffing, fieldwork and research, workshops, and the website. Princeton and Columbia will provide salary support; Princeton will also fund one of the clusters and one workshop; Columbia will contribute to the creation of the digital platform.
Recommendation: That the Directors of the Henry Luce Foundation approve a three–year grant of $385,000 to US Sciences Po Foundation for the project, Muslims in a Time of Hindu Majoritarianism.
