Discursive tradition(s) as iconoclasm; the falsification of history and the emergence of oppositional Muslims in India

This thesis is based on how the (re)construction of history plays a significant role in the formation of the national 'spirit'. The (re)creation of history plays an essential role in the conceptualisation of a common primordial variable, which further helps in justifying or making up for the loss of spiritual authority in the modern nation-state. This (re)creation is an alarmingly common phenomenon in almost every modern nation-state, wherein certain instances of indigenous conflicts are taken up as proof to define a nation's historical continuity. This process ignores the epistemology of such historical events. Then, it frames them into the longue durée of a nation's history, which helps justify the primordial existence of the same. History's homogeneous (re)construction serves as the foundation of the modern nation-state building process, as the nation-state finds it incumbent to identify the 'them' to crystalise the 'us'. This thesis discusses this issue about the Indian Muslims, who, due to the British colonial histography, have been placed into the 'them' category. Presently, Indian Indian-Muslims are divided into various Islamic traditions that have come into existence due to diverse historical hermeneutical engagements with Islamic texts. In addition, this leads to a hermeneutical heterogeneity among them, and as a result, the Islamic traditions remain largely stratified. This thesis focuses on two such Islamic traditions: Ahl-e Sunnat and the Deobandi movement. The rising Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) among the Indian Hindus greatly consolidates and justifies itself through British colonial historiography, which has always presented Muslims as being inherently iconoclastic. Employing the empirical data obtained from an ethnographic study involving 21 participants, I argue that several new phenomena have emerged among young Indian-Muslims, including what we call the Pajāma -wearing Protestants and "oppositional Muslims." Keywords: Indian-Muslims, Indian-Hindus, Nation-State, Oppositional Muslims, Pajāma-wearing Protestants, (Re)creation of History, Spiritual Authority.