Parallel Pathways: Essays on Hindu-Muslim Relations, 1707-1857

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Parallel Pathways: Essays on Hindu-Muslim Relations, 1707-1857 is a book by Meenakshi Jain.

Chander Pal Singh finds Jain's Parallel Pathways to be "path-breaking work" that questions the standard narrative of "amicable relations" between Hindus and Muslims during the medieval times broken only by the divide-and-rule policies of the British colonial government. Jain argues that there were fundamental differences between the two communities and that such differences were aggravated during the period of Mughal decline which saw the resurgence of Hindu and Sikh powers and the rise of Muslim orthodoxy. Jain notes that a great majority of the nobility in the Mughal court consisted of immigrants, and that such an elite would consciously transform Hindavi into Urdu by substituting a large number of Sanskrit-origin words with Persian and Arabic words in order to maintain a separate identity. Jain holds Muslim orthodoxy responsible for inviting the invasions of Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Abdali for explicit purpose of preserving Islam. She also questions the thesis that the India's First War of Independence was a joint Hindu-Muslim project and notes that Islamic institutions issued over 200,000 fatwas in the post-Revolt period to "outlaw" customary practices shared between both Hindus and Muslims.[1]

  1. Singh, Chander Pal (2013). "Book Review - Parallel Pathways: Essays on Hindu Muslim Relations (1707-1857)" [archive] (PDF). Journal of Indian Research. 1 (4): 149–151.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>