The relevance of Imtiaz Ahmad’s writings to contemporary debates on Indian Muslim identity

In 1972, Imtiaz Ahmad penned a column titled ‘For a Sociology of India’ in Contributions to Indian Sociology 6(1). He wrote here: ‘We may have Hindu, Muslim, or Christian sociology, but hardly “a sociology of India”’ (177). This piece revisits his discussion, more than 50 years later, with a view to recapitulating and highlighting the contemporary relevance of his position on Indian Muslim identity. It engages with three thematic concerns: the possibilities of locating Muslim studies in the realm of ‘A sociology of India’, the changing nature of social stratification among Muslims and the forms and trajectories of lived Islam(s) in the present.