Islam and the Army in Colonial India

After what seems like a strange absence of academic interest, the study ofMuslims in South Asia is catching up – and not all of that interest is motivatedby the contemporary concerns of counter-terrorism and Af-Pak strategy.Part of this intellectual revival has been focused on the Deccan, andone of the best and brightest young historians working in the area is NileGreen, who now teaches at UCLA.The author posits three primary contributions to wider historiographicaldebates. First, it engages the social history of how empire impingedupon communities and practices and often co-opted and promoted them,thereby allowing us greater insight into its workings to suggest that partnershipswere essential to perpetuating power, especially in India, wherethe number of actual British soldiers and administrators on the ground wasnever sufficient for an absolutist colonial empire. As such, it allows us topeek into an alternative form of subaltern interaction and agency. This issignificant, given the neglect to a large extent of the study of religion onthe part of subalternists. Second, the book demonstrates how cultural practicesand the invention of norms were central to fostering military cultureand performance of the British Indian Army, which involves the selectivepromotion of certain forms of religiosity. It provides further evidence for ...