A Secular Need: Islamic Law and State Governance in Contemporary India

ABSTRACT The book under review argues that Indian secularism does not and cannot work without the assistance of non-state Islamic legal actors. It contends that this dependence engenders an ambivalent politics of need and antipathy on the part of Indian secularism vis-à-vis Muslims. This review article summarises the book’s key claims. It then explores what it means for gender to be a central terrain on which the authority of non-state Islamic legal institutions is asserted and contested. The article takes issue with the book’s suggestion that the Supreme Court has distanced itself from the non-state Islamic arena in some ways, finding more illuminating its demonstration of the many ways in which the secular state remains dependent on and entangled with the Islamic non-state. In conclusion, it speculates on the differences and overlaps between secular judicial antipathy towards Muslims and the more overt expressions of such hatred emanating from the Hindu Right.