Muslim Zion

A controversial analysis of Pakistan as the 'Muslim Zion' to argue that it has never been a nation state in the conventional sense but one manufactured from a religious basis.

'True to form, Faisal Devji has developed a novel interpretation of a well-studied historical issue, in this case M. K. Gandhi's commitment to non-violence. Here Gandhi emerges neither as a neo-Christian figure 'turning the other cheek', nor as a liberal concerned with human rights, but rather as a thinker who sees self-sacrifice and death as the embodiment of human duty.' - Sir Christopher Bayly, Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, University of Cambridge 'This subtle yet polemical study presents M.K. Gandhi as the genius behind an anti-majoritarian type of mass politics which emerged in the twentieth-century but still awaits proper elaboration. Devji's highly original portrait is not always salubrious but it makes Gandhi look all the more radical, and sometimes almost like a postcolonial heir to Friedrich Nietzsche.' - Leela Gandhi, University of Chicago 'Devji is a creative and distinctive thinker who has now developed a style of exposition that is all his own. He manages to tease gently out of Gandhi's writings intellectual-political positions that both surprise and enlighten the reader.' - Professor Dipesh Chakrabarty, Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor, Department of History, University of Chicago 'A fresh and insightful view of the Mahatma and his ideas. Devji effectively situates Gandhi, not as an outmoded, sentimental idealist, adrift in an anachronistic rural utopia, but as a remarkably original thinker who speaks to many of the most pressing issues of modernity and present-day politics - not least the abiding problem of violence and the place of minorities within contemporary societies. ... This book does not claim to be a complete history of Gandhi. What it offers instead is a remarkably fresh and original look at the meaning and significance of Gandhi's thought and practice, bringing together a well-nuanced sense of Gandhi's historical and cultural context with a sharp present-day concern for his abiding relevance and profound challenge to the world today. It is an important book; some will find it provocative. Either way, it will stimulate fresh debate among scholars, students and a wider public readership.' - David Arnold, Professor of Asian and Global History, Warwick University 'Refreshingly, Faisal Devji, an expert on South Asian history at Oxford, is not interested in bashing Gandhi's burnished halo: his highly original new work on Gandhi's thought is a powerful defence of the Mahatma and his relevance to us today. But he does ask whether we have beatified him for the wrong reasons. His Gandhi is far from the uncomplicated advocate of non-violence we think we know. ... Devji's analysis provides not only an original interpretation of Indian nationalist history, but raises a range of important questions about globalisation that are rarely addressed by our thinkers today.' - History Today

'True to form, Faisal Devji has developed a novel interpretation of a well-studied historical issue, in this case M. K. Gandhi's commitment to non-violence. Here Gandhi emerges neither as a neo-Christian figure 'turning the other cheek', nor as a liberal concerned with human rights, but rather as a thinker who sees self-sacrifice and death as the embodiment of human duty.' - Sir Christopher Bayly, Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, University of Cambridge 'This subtle yet polemical study presents M.K. Gandhi as the genius behind an anti-majoritarian type of mass politics which emerged in the twentieth-century but still awaits proper elaboration. Devji's highly original portrait is not always salubrious but it makes Gandhi look all the more radical, and sometimes almost like a postcolonial heir to Friedrich Nietzsche.' - Leela Gandhi, University of Chicago 'Devji is a creative and distinctive thinker who has now developed a style of exposition that is all his own. He manages to tease gently out of Gandhi's writings intellectual-political positions that both surprise and enlighten the reader.' - Professor Dipesh Chakrabarty, Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor, Department of History, University of Chicago 'A fresh and insightful view of the Mahatma and his ideas. Devji effectively situates Gandhi, not as an outmoded, sentimental idealist, adrift in an anachronistic rural utopia, but as a remarkably original thinker who speaks to many of the most pressing issues of modernity and present-day politics - not least the abiding problem of violence and the place of minorities within contemporary societies. ... This book does not claim to be a complete history of Gandhi. What it offers instead is a remarkably fresh and original look at the meaning and significance of Gandhi's thought and practice, bringing together a well-nuanced sense of Gandhi's historical and cultural context with a sharp present-day concern for his abiding relevance and profound challenge to the world today. It is an important book; some will find it provocative. Either way, it will stimulate fresh debate among scholars, students and a wider public readership.' - David Arnold, Professor of Asian and Global History, Warwick University