ABSTRACT
A disquieting feature of the Hindutva wave was the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya; equally, the way Hindu propagandists conjured up the image of a community outside the 'national mainstream'. Some enlightened Muslims in the last quarter of the nineteenth century longed for an 'objective' assessment of their history and sociology and a rigorously argued repudiation of certain popular notions about themselves. There are numerous tracts and treatises on Hindu-Muslim intermingling, on social and cultural fusion and on the commonality of inter-community interests. They reveal an enlightened conception of state and society grounded in traditions of religious tolerance, syncretism and fraternal living. Jawaharlal Nehru's perspective was influenced by his cosmopolitan family background, his education in England, his social and cultural ambience in Allahabad, and his long-standing friendship and political camaraderie with influential Congress Muslims, including Ansari, Azad, Syed Mahmud, Khaliquzzaman, Tassaduq Ahmad Khan Sherwani and Abdul Majid Khwaja.
