#4 He continues... unintentionally showing the roots of modern islamism...
With the coming of the British, however, another transformation was also underway. Muslims lost their pre-eminent status, a process beginning with the disintegration of the Mughal Empire but carried much further as the British consolidated their hold on India. Knocked off their pedestal, Muslims were now amongst the subjugated. But another discovery awaited them too. Outnumbered by the Hindu population, even amongst the subjugated they were not of the first rank. Their overall position in India was thus relegated to number three, after the British and the Hindus, this being a measure of the shift in the historical calculus.
From mid-19th Century onwards, beginning with the first stirrings of a modern Muslim consciousness as expressed by the Aligarh school, Muslims may have agitated for jobs and special safeguards, such as separate electorates, but informing and indeed fuelling their quest was a vision of the past when they were great and the whole of India, not just a part, was their happy hunting ground.
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