Synopsis This volume, result of a seminar at Jamia Millia Islamia in October 2003, addresses an aspect of Indian society which has been a matter of widespread concern: the working that is, of major institutions-some Hindu, some Muslim-whose ideologies and positions have been socially separative. Their activities and campaigns have often been aggressive, sometimes, prone to violence; and these have served, may be unintentionally, to provoke each other thereby giving the other side justification for its own contentious activities. Several contributors employ a long term historical perspective; and also a comparative one, reaching out to Europe, another major region where the mutual relations between major religious traditions have been problematical for a very long time.