This paper examines the changing nature of Muslim political mobilization in contemporary India in the context of Hindu nationalism’s ascendancy into power and the consequent crisis of traditional Muslim politics. Through an ethnographic case study of the Popular Front of India, we argue that a qualitatively new form of political mobilization is taking place among Indian Muslims centered on an articulation of “self-defense” against a “Hindu nationalist threat.” This politics of self-defense is constructed on the reconciliation of two contradictory processes: use of extensive legal pragmatism, and defensive ethnicization based on Islamic identity. The paper also examines the consequences of the emerging politics of competing ethnicization for even a normative and minimal idea of secularism and how it contributes to the process of decoupling of secularism and democracy in contemporary India.

中文翻译：

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世俗主义危机和印度少数族裔政治格局的变化

本文考察了在印度教民族主义上台以及随之而来的传统穆斯林政治危机的背景下，当代印度穆斯林政治动员的变化性质。通过对印度人民阵线的民族志案例研究，我们认为印度穆斯林中正在发生一种全新的政治动员形式，其核心是针对“印度教民族主义威胁”进行“自卫”。这种自卫政治是建立在两个相互矛盾的过程的调和之上的：使用广泛的法律实用主义，以及基于伊斯兰身份的防御性种族化。