I'm objecting to these two labels: "good Muslim" and "bad Muslim". They're not about Islam, but adjectives defining an attitude to the US.

New York-based political scientist and anthropologist, Mahmood Mamdani, launched his new book, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: Islam, the USA and the Global War against Terror, in Mumbai recently. Meher Marfatia records impressions of a stimulating encounter.

Outside India he's known for an outstanding scholarship, beyond being tagged filmmaker, Mira Nair's husband. African uber-intellectual, Mahmood Mamdani, the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University's Department of Anthropology, recently launched his new book, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: Islam, the USA and the Global War against Terror, in Mumbai. The evening saw the New York-based political scientist and anthropologist interestingly deliberate on how America brought 9/11 upon itself.

A disconcerting theory forms the controversial crux of his work. Conventional opinions trace international terrorism in terms of early antagonism between Christianity and Islam. Mamdani argues against such simplistic ideological debate, holding that it is more modern history, from the Cold War years onwards, which has widely affected the world through US-planted 'proxy wars'. His insight debunks public debate fuelled by Harvard University's Samuel Huntington who considers Islam an aggressor civilisation and Princeton Orientalist, Bernard Lewis, quarantining its followers into a 'good Muslim-bad Muslim' divide.

Running a high fever, the academic patiently faced audience questions and photographer crowds, brightening each time a proud wife leaned (gently nudging their jet-lagged 13-year-old son, Zohran's head off-shoulder) from a front seat to click pictures herself.

Highlights from a stimulating encounter.

I'm objecting to these two labels: "good Muslim" and "bad Muslim". They're not about Islam, but adjectives defining an attitude to the US. The "good" Muslim is pro-US, an anti-America stand makes you "bad". The notion of branding Islam was complete in the 1980s. I've taken terminology George Bush likes using to justify the "war on terror", turning his language upside down. My book attempts to understand how yesterday's mujahideen become today's terrorists.

After 9/11, the Koran turned into one of the most hotly sold books. Americans actually began looking to discern religious fanaticism, find answers to explain militant terrorism there. I wondered why Iraqis didn't rush to buy Bibles when the US declared war on them!

The "Culture Talk" point of view is questionable. Absurdly, Muslims are assumed to be born in a culture and act it out as a destiny. It's convenient to relate a people's politics to their culture. Civilisations are not separate containers. How is terrorism culturally specific to Islam? Reading critical Islamist thinkers, I'm struck by the contemporariness of language and content in their arguments.

For proxy wars, America chose embracing Islamist movements wedded only to violence, taking on board the most extremist groups. Post-Vietnam, powerful anti-war sentiment swept the US, so Reagan and Kissinger searched for proxies to fight the Cold War. Islam became a political asset. Uncompromisingly radical Islamist allies created madrasas as not simply homegrown but joint US-sponsored efforts, integrating guerrilla training within their curriculum.

There's an emptying out of democratic content from various institutions in the US. The establishment suppresses discussion, purges any dissent. Academic freedoms are under attack too, with a battle in universities targeting a range of critics, of which I am one. The paradigm is getting inverted, the threat to human rights coming not from developing countries as expected, but Western superpowers. Developments now show their wings clipped - the idea of remaking the world hasn't worked quite as they thought.