Legacy of a Divided Nation - pg. 31

Colonial knowledge created and perpetuated myths and conjured up stereotypical images of peoples and countries as part of an imperial design of fortifying the ideological edifice of the Empire. Therefore, much of the knowledge and understanding derived from experience in the field was not reflected in concrete political decisions or translated into constitutional decrees. In the constitutional plans, which broadly reflected the colonial assumptions about Indian society, the Mapilla Muslim appeared indistinguishable from Kipling's sturdy Pathan; the Urdu-speaking landed elite of Awadh were no different from the Tamil-speaking merchant brethren; E. M. Forster's Cambridge friend Syed Ross Masood was cast in the same mould as a karkhandar (artisan) in Delhi's old city; Shias and Sunnis, Bohras and Khojas, the Barelwis, the Deobandis and the Ahl-i Hadith were all considered part of pan-Indian Islam.