In Good Faith A Journey in Search of an Unknown India

ABOUT THIS BOOK

In an age when the idea of the religious community is determined by stereotypes and
old fault lines, Saba Naqvi takes a journey across the country in search of her own
identity among people, communities and shrines that challenge our predetermined
notions of what makes a Muslim or a Hindu. Along the way, she finds places and people
on the periphery of absolute identities, culling out a unique space for themselves in an
orthodox, exclusivist society. In Good Faith is a journalistic account of the discovery of
an India that at times defies belief—the India of faraway shrines in quaint little places,
and of communities and individuals who reach out to a common God.
From the Muslim forest goddess of Bengal to an unknown facet of the Shivaji legend
in Maharashtra; from the disputed origins of the Shirdi Sai Baba to shrines across the
land that are both temple and dargah—this book shows how, in these little pockets,
the idea of a tolerant India still survives. These neglected ground realities, argues
the author, these little islands of pluralism, music, art and culture, may yet provide a
counter to fundamentalism.