Harsh Mander: Gurugram’s surrender to majoritarian politics

Gurgaon over many centuries was little more than a small rural hamlet in the periphery of the towering city of power Delhi. Across the ages possibly its best known resident was Hemu Vikramaditya, a general in the army of Sher Shah Suri who defeated the forces of Humayun and later Akbar. Gurgaon gained some modest standing only as the customary resting place for Akbar’s entourage when they marched to Amber.

Its fortunes altered after Independence. Badly singed by the fires of the Partition riots in 1947-’48, Gurgaon was substantially emptied of its Muslim population. But in the city of wealth and opportunities that Gurgaon metamorphosed into in recent decades, Muslims converged in droves. Yet they still struggle for dignity and rights in a habitat that they still find riven – under its skin-deep glitter – with prejudice and indifference.

Gurgaon began to transform when in the 1970s Maruti Suzuki opened a car manufacturing unit here. General Electrics was the first American company to establish its office here in 1997. Other companies, both Indian and international, followed in throngs.

Today it houses, in glittering glass and steel highrise towers, Indian offices of 250 Fortune 500 companies. Its smoggy skyline flaunts myriad skyscrapers containing offices, malls, condominiums and...

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