By Moin Qazi* Muslim Indians are the second-largest demographic of India. They constitute over 14% of the country’s population or roughly 172 million people. India is the world‘s biggest democracy, and Indian Muslims are the world’s biggest religious minority. Muslims have considered India as their home for more than a millennium and they have become so seamlessly integrated into its social mainstream that several strands of their culture and tradition have got subsumed into the national fabric. But the tragedy is that Muslims are so marginalised that their presence in important public spheres is almost invisible. Most of them are poor, semiliterate and driven into ghettos. The Hindutva movement has in the last few years orchestrated terrifying campaigns to alienate, disenfranchise and disintegrate Muslims. In an effort to create an exclusivist Hindu state out of a multifaith populace, the government is moving from episodic communalism to state-sponsored Islamophobia. Muslims continue