L'Inde de 1919 à 1941 : nationalismes, « communalisme », prosélytisme et fondamentalisme

• Main Author: Marc Gaborieau
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université de Provence 2002-04-01
• Series: Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/remmm/229

The définitive rupture between Hindus and Muslims occurred, on the political level, during the interwar period in 1930, after the philosophical poet, Iqbâl (1876-1938), called for a separate state for Muslims whose name (Pakistan) was invented as early as 1935. An ideological break had preceded the political rupture. The Hindu right had already forged the notion of « Hinduism » (hindutva) as early as 1923, a claim founded on the rejection of medieval Muslim India, i.e. Mughal India. The Muslims fought back, in particular, through the person of Mawdûdî (1903-1979) who, in his first book in 1927, eulogised the war jihâd and tried to rehabilita-te medieval Islam in its pureness and aggressiveness. These writings carried the seed for the Jamâ'at-i Islâmî, a militant organisation which was formally organised in 1941. Deterioration in the relations between the two religious communities went hand in hand with this double rupture : this confrontation was known as « commu-nalism » in Anglo-Indian parlance. Proselyte missionary organisations were created in the two communities, including the Tablîghî Jamâ'at for Muslims in 1927.