Number of words: 146

Communal politics in sind, as elsewhere in the subcontinent, came into play only after the collapse of the non-cooperation movement in 1921-22 Mahatma Gandhi had launched the movement in 1919, with the restoration of the Islamic Khilafat of the major objective to bring Muslim on to the bandwagon of the all-India independence movement. Muhhamd ali Jinnah resigned frommthe congress, protesting against this injection of religion into politic. When the movement failed to usher in freedom from colonial rule within six months as widly promised the restoration of the Khilafat in its own traditional seat of Instabul nationalist politics in India started its historical split into competing religious nationalism – the Hindu Mahasabha on the one hand, and the Muslim League on the other, with the Congress and Gandhi left Holding the banner of a secular India.

Excerpted from “Confessions of a secular fundamentalist” by Mani Shankar Aiyar