Articles by Irfan Ahmad

The burgeoning scholarship on Islamist radicalisation or terrorism - both popular as well as academic - is mostly alarmist. Too often Islamist radicalisation is understood as an offshoot of some deeply entrenched values or that the culture of Islam is incompatible with modernity. This article argues that Islamist radicalisation should be seen as a political phenomenon and that it cannot be divorced from the practices and the role of the State. It focuses on the Students Islamic Movement of India and argues that its radicalisation, manifest in its call for jihad, is largely a consequence of the failure of the Indian secular State to stop the recurring violence against Muslim minority. This article also examines the premises that underpin the media's portrayal of Islam and Muslims and concludes by raising the issue of vulnerability in writing about Islam and radicalisation.

While one can barely deny the importance of the episode of Noor Fatima from Pakistan receiving medical treatment in Bangalore, an excavation into our mass psyche would perhaps reveal something extremely disturbing. Treating Fatima was not a usual apolitical medical practice. It is rather an unusual political gesture of benevolence arising out of a profound sense of otherness based on a clash of national identities, Indian versus Pakistani. In the otherwise spontaneous gesture to negate the otherness of her there is simultaneously an unconscious affirmation of her otherness premised on national identity.