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The book unravels the process which the elite leadership of the largest religious minority in India adopted to build its identity. This process had been changing: when the elite was in power, the focus was on discouraging liberal religious trends; when out of power, the duty of regaining lost power was emphasized. When the elite proved incompetent to do so, the leaders called upon the ulama to preserve the integrity of the community. After the foreign imperial rule was securely established, the elite took over the role of a loyalist elite, snatched the leadership of the community from the ulama, and became an ultra loyalist group even making the loyalist nationalists appear as hostile critics. Partly as an additional proof of its loyalty to the imperial rulers, and partly as an assertion of its individuality, it advocated the view that there could not be peace even for a day if either the Hindus or the Muslims were to acquire control in India. When the nationalists began to wrest con
