Muslims in India

[Mimi Klaiman]

Status: RO

Recently a submission to INDOLOGY complained that courses in India studies
don't include enough material on non-Hindus, particularly  Muslims.  This fall,
I am teaching a course on folkore and religion in India and would love to be
apprised about materials on Indian Muslims suitable for assigning to students.
So far the one item that comes to mind is a documentary on Indian Muslims
produced some years ago by South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin.
As yet I don't know of any reading I can assign.
 
I don't think the problem is simply a lack of materials but goes deeper.  Three
years ago while teaching north of Detroit, I visited a mosque mostly serving
the Indian and Pakistani Muslim community. I visited in response to an ad for a
'Meena Bazaar'; it stated that women would be required to wear head covering,
which I did, figuring the chance to taste some was curry worth it.  But on
arrival, I discovered that I was the only lady with her head covered.  This led
me to suspect that the admonition about head covering was a code expression
meaning 'Hindus not welcome'.  Moreover, I was questioned by several mosque
members as to who my friends were.  When I responded with several Hindu names,
I found that absolutely nobody would speak to me.  The exceptions were some
ladies who were displaying some imported salwaar-kamiiz for sale  (oh, well--I
did get to eat some tasty food and buy a nice new salwaar-kamiiz outfit).
Comments?
M.H. Klaiman