It is 1948. A newly-independent India is trying to persuade Hyderabad to join the Indian Union. Negotiations are difficult for both sides. The State Congress, now operating from Indian territory, has launched a campaign of violent raids, designed to cripple civil administration in the border areas, and provoke an annexation. The leading Islamic party inside Hyderabad, in an equally rash move, has created a paramilitary body, the Razakars, to counter the threat to Hyderabad’s borders. For Mohammed Hyder of the Hyderabad Civil Service, the newly-appointed Collector of Osmanabad District (situated on the Hyderabad-Bombay border), both, the wayward State Congress and the ramshackle Razakar outfit are a threat to law and order. This first-person account conveys a vivid picture of Hyderabad under pressure, through the eyes of a senior district administrator.

This book spans 70 years of the dark history of Anti-Muslim violence in India that have caused over tens of thousands of deaths and refugees. Violence against Muslims in India is frequently in the form of violent attacks on Muslims by Hindus. These attacks are referred to as communal riots in India between the majority Hindus and minority Muslims, and have been connected to a rise in Islamophobia.

Nile Green reveals the politics and poetry of Indian Sufism through the study of Islamic sainthood in the midst of a cosmopolitan Indian society comprising migrants, soldiers, litterateurs and princes.

A study of political possibilities in the era of modern imperialism, from the perspective of the sovereign state of Hyderabad.