• Indian Muslims are a heterogenous community, although the conventional binary between liberal Muslims and the religious/ traditionalist Muslims has become increasingly insignificant.
  • Liberal Muslims in India do not have any direct political patronage. Neither do they fit in the Hindutva-driven electoral schema of the BJP nor has any other political party shown any interest in their version of secularism. This has forced them to rethink their own privileged position.
  • Any debate on Muslim identity today therefore has to include the Pasmanda critique of caste-based Ashraf hegemony, the emergence of Muslim women as independent political stakeholders, besides the role of liberal Muslims in liberalising the Islamic intellectual debates in a Hindutva-dominated environment.