Download Program and Abstracts - Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian

COMMEMORATING THE HUNDRED YEARS OF AL-HILAL, 1912-2012
International Seminar
For Nation and Islam: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in Retrospect
On August 28-29, 2012
&
International Colloquium
Ethical Imperatives?: Muslim Identities and Political Islam in colonial and postcolonial South
Asia
On August 30, 2012
[LOGO]
MAULANA ABUL KALAM AZAD INSTITUTE OF ASIAN STUDIES
(An Autonomous Body under the Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India)
AZAD BHAVAN IB 166 SALT LAKE, KOLKATA 700 106
AZAD MUSEUM, 5, ASHRAF MISTRI LANE, (LOVELOCK STREET – OPP. BALLYGUNGE MILITARY CAMP)
KOLKATA - 700 019
For Nation and Islam: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in Retrospect
Commemorated as a leader of the Indian National Congress and as the first Minister of
Education in postcolonial India, Mawlana Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958) spent most of his
childhood in Mecca and Calcutta. Being the son of an Indian Sufi shaikh and his Arab wife,
Azad‟s mixed racial heritage and stay-at-home education inculcated in him moral and cultural
values of Islamic cosmopolitanism. Growing up in fin de siècle Calcutta, the second capital of
Britain‟s global empire and the cradle of the Bengal Renaissance, Azad was passionately
patriotic and had strong empathies for anti-colonial politics since his teenage. In fact, for Abul
Kalam the anti-colonial movement became a part of his Islamic vocation and an ethical
imperative. A precocious stylist of Urdu prose, his literary and journalistic activities secured him
an audience across and beyond South Asia. After his brief stint in the militant revolutionary
groups of Calcutta, he founded the fervently anti-colonial Urdu journals, al-Hilal and al-Balagh,
and spent his years of confinement in Ranchi jail preparing his commentary on the Quran, the
Tarjuman al-Quran. In the wake of the Khilafat-Non-cooperation Movement, he joined the
Indian National Congress and presided over its special session of 1923. He remained with
Gandhi and Nehru even as their constituency of support amongst the Indian Muslims dwindled
over the years. As the Second World War drew close, Azad ceased to have much political weight
within the Congress and his efforts in the Shimla Conference were backstabbed from within the
organization. After Independence, he committed himself to the Nehruvian project of building a
secular, pluralist and progressive nation-state and was instrumental in founding academic and
cultural institutions such as the Indian Institute of Technology, Sahitya Akademi, Sangeet Natak
Akademi, University Grants Commission, Indian Council for Cultural Relations, etc.
Going beyond the nation-statist framework of understanding, recent scholarship on Abul Kalam
Azad has explored the dialectic of the secular nationalist and the political Islamic trends of his
thought. Committed to this historiographical paradigm, this conference aims to explore further
the ethical and cultural template that underpinned Azad‟s literary and journalistic activities. It
aims to examine the religious ethos that informed Azad‟s alternative to the separatist vision of
the Muslim League, and to deepen our perception of how his Islamic heritage shaped Azad‟s
vision of Indian nationalism. Focusing on the dynamic relationship between Azad‟s political and
religious vocations, this conference aims to broaden our perception of how cultural and religious
values inflected the articulation of notions of patriotism and citizenship in colonial and postcolonial South Asia.
Ethical Imperatives?: Muslim Identities and Political Islam in colonial and postcolonial South
Asia
In an attempt to circumvent the binary model of „folk Islam‟ versus „scriptural Islam‟ that
dominated anthropological scholarship on Muslim societies in 1980s, Talal Asad suggested that
Islam was best understood as discursive tradition that was „a mode of discursive engagement
with sacred texts, one effect of which (was) the creation of sensibilities and embodied capacities
(of reason, affect, and volition) that in turn (were) conditions of the tradition‟s reproduction‟.
Through this conceptual maneuver, Asad brought to fore the central question: „how is the present
made intelligible through a set of historically sedimented practices and forms of reasoning that
are learned and communicated through process of pedagogy, training, and argumentation?‟
(Talal Asad 1986; Saba Mahmood 2005) In its attempt to explore the question of Islamic subject
formation in colonial and postcolonial South Asia and to understand how South Asian Muslims
made sense of their fragmentary and disjunctured existence, this colloquium too is committed to
address the question so memorably articulated by Asad.
Revisiting the history of 19th century Islamization movements and their longer term impact on
the political predicament of the Bengali Muslims, exploring how „Ismaili‟ identity was
rearticulated in 19th century western India and whether „invention of tradition‟ is an analytically
sustainable description of that historical phenomenon, explicating how Muslim multivocality
render the category of a „monolithic Islamic community‟ untenable in the context of postcolonial
northern India, and arguing how aesthetic practices in contemporary northern Kerala led to
contestations about the mediations of the community within a globalised and technologized
sphere of cultural interventions, this colloquium seeks to understand „how a particular discourse
establishes its authority and truth within a historical moment‟.
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
1) Arshad Alam, Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi
2) M Mansoor Alam, Iran Society, Kolkata
3) Muzaffar Alam, George V. Bobrinskoy Professor in South Asian Languages and Civilizations,
University of Chicago
4) Sk Aktar Ali, MAKAIAS, Kolkata
5) Anisuzzaman, Professor Emeritus, University of Dhaka
6) Ashoke Bhattacharya, former Director of Adult, Continuing Education and Extension Centre
at Jadavpur University, Kolkata and Honorary Fellow, MAKAIAS, Kolkata
7) Farooq Ahmad Dar, Assistant Professor, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad
8) Venkat Dhulipala, Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina, Wilmington
9) Muhammad Firoze, former Professor, University of Calcutta
10) Rajarshi Ghose, Fellow, MAKAIAS, Kolkata
11) S Irfan Habib, Maulana Azad Chair, National University of Educational Planning and
Administration, New Delhi
12) Mushirul Hasan, Director General, National Archives of India, New Delhi
13) Syed Akhtar Husain, Department of Persian, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
14) Mesbah Kamal, Professor of History, University of Dhaka
15) Muhammad Sajid Khan, Lecturer in History, Government Postgraduate College Asghar Mall
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
16) Jamal Malik, Chair for Muslim Cultural & Religious History, Universitat Erfurt
17) Bindu Menon Mannil, Lady Shri Ram College for Women, New Delhi
18) Wafi A Momin, Institute of Ismaili Studies, London and University of Chicago
19) Rab Nawaz, Editor, Laaltain, Lahore
20) Rizwan Qaiser, Associate Professor, Department of History, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi
21) Safoora Razeq, Aliyah University, Kolkata
22) Abu Salman Shahjahanpuri, Director, Abul Kalam Azad Research Institute, Karachi
23) Syed Hanif Rasool, Edwardes College, Peshawar and Secretary, Abul Kalam Azad Research
Institute, Karachi
24) Ishtiyaq Ahmad Zilli, Director, Shibli Academy, Azamgarh and former Professor, Aligarh
Muslim University
PROGRAM
For Nation and Islam: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in Retrospect
August 28-29, 2012
VENUE: AZAD BHAVAN IB 166 SALT LAKE, KOLKATA 700 106
August 28, 2012
9:00 AM-9:30 AM
REGISTRATION
9:30 AM
Welcome Address by Director, MAKAIAS
Inaugural Remarks by Ahmad Saeed Malihabadi, Hon‟ble Member of Parliament (RajyaSabha)
Inaugural Lecture by Abu Salman Shahjahanpuri: Azad Hind Ki Manzil-i Maqsud Aur Maulana
Azad Ki Rahnumai
10:45-11:00 AM
TEA
First Panel
11:00 AM –1:00 PM
The Making of Azad: The Early Years
Chair: Gautam Bhadra, Tagore National Fellow, National Library, Kolkata
Safoora Razeq: Revisiting Maulana Azad in Calcutta
Ishtiyaq Ahmad Zilli: Abul Kalam Azad and Shibli Nomani
Rizwan Qaiser: Trajectories of the intellectual and political life of Maulana Azad in Ranchi,
1916-1919
1:00 PM- 2:30 PM Lunch
Second Panel
2:30 PM-4:30PM
Beyond Nationalist Frames: Political Engagements
Chair: Hari S Vasudevan, Professor, University of Calcutta and Former Director, MAKAIAS
Syed Hanif Rasool: Al-Hilal as the Spirit of Azad
Muhammad Sajid Khan: Azad as an Ideologue of the Khilafat Movement
Rab Nawaz: Azad and Contemporary Pakistan
4:30-5:00 PM TEA
5:00-5:45PM
Jamal Malik: The dialectic of political Islam and secular nationalism in Azad's thought: From
Salafism to Secularism: The Case of Azad
Sarod Recital by Pratik Shrivastav
7:00-8:00 PM
29 August, 2012
9:30-10:15 AM
Mushirul Hasan: Gandhi and Azad
Third Panel
10:15-12:15 PM
Sallies of the Mind: Political and Literary Engagements
Chair: Abdus Subhan, former Professor, Maulana Azad College, Kolkata
Muhammad Firoze: Qaul-e faisal: Maulana Azad’s stand against British rule
M Mansoor Alam: Maulana Azad: A Harbinger of Hindu-Muslim Fraternity and Communal
Harmony
Syed Akhtar Husain: Persian Poetry in Azad’s Ghubar-i Khatir
12:15-1:00 PM Lunch
Fourth Panel
1:00-3:40 PM
India Wins Freedom: Partition and Decolonization Years
Chair: Rajat Kanta Ray, Professor Emeritus, Presidency University and former Vice-Chancellor,
Visva Bharati
Farooq Ahmad Dar: Azad and Jinnah: Parallel Lives
Venkat Dhulipala: Maulana Azad and the Aftermath of the Partition in Uttar Pradesh
Rajarshi Ghose: Two Mosques and the Imam al-Hind: Azad, the practice of Islamic Law, and
politics of decolonization
Mesbah Kamal: Maulana Azad and Maulana Bhasani: Quest for Compatibility with Religiously
Composite and Politically Secular South Asia
Fifth Panel
3:40-5:40PM
The Pedagogical Imperative: Azad and Philosophies of Education
Chair: Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, former Chairman, Indian Council of Historical Research
S. Irfan Habib: Maulana Azad: Institutionalizing science and culture in Independent India
Ashoke Bhattacharya: Philosophies of Education: Tagore and Azad
Sk. Aktar Ali: Re-thinking conceptual understanding of learning society with special reference
to Maulana Azad’s values education
5:40-6:30PM
Muzaffar Alam: Maulana Azad and the Memory of India’s Islamic Past
Ethical Imperatives?: Muslim Identities and Political Islam in colonial and postcolonial South
Asia
On August 30, 2012
VENUE: 5, ASHRAF MISTRI LANE, (LOVELOCK STREET – OPP. BALLYGUNGE MILITARY CAMP)
KOLKATA - 700 019
10:30-11:10 AM
Anisuzzaman: Some Aspects of Muslim Politics in Colonial Bengal
11:20-1:20 PM
Chair: Sudipta Sen, Professor of History, University of California Davis
Wafi A Momin: Satpanthi, Khoja and Ismaili: Negotiating Religious Identity in Colonial India
Arshad Alam: At the Intersection of Caste and Religion: Muslim Identities in Contemporary
India
Bindu Menon Mannil: The Blind Qaum and the Visual: The Islamic Home film movement in
North Kerala
1:30 PM-2:00 PM
Address by Dr. Najma A. Heptulla, Hon‟ble Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha)
ABSTRACTS
Arshad Alam
Arshad Alam is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies,
JamiaMilliaIslamia University, New Delhi. His area of research includes Muslim identity,
education and politics. Alam‟s works has been published in both scholarly and popular journals.
His PhD ethnography has recently (2011) been published as Inside a Madrasa: Knowledge,
Power and Islamic Identity in India (Routledge: New Delhi and London).
At the Intersection of Caste and Religion: Muslim Identities in Contemporary India
This paper argues that Muslim identity in India is not monolithic and seeks to understand its
multivocality through the lens of caste and religion. It argues that while caste identities remain
important to the self imaginations of Muslims, Islam itself is subject to multiple interpretations, a
fact that leads to schisms amongst the Muslims. Far from the oft repeated wisdom that Islam
creates a standard code of living together for all its adherents, this paper argues that at times
Islam itself becomes the source of schism, which ruptures the Muslim monolith. Of late, Indian
Muslim politics has seen the emergence of newer articulations of solidarities of which the
movement of low caste Muslims is an example. The paper will grapple with issues that have
been thrown up by this movement of low caste Muslims, particularly in North India and would
try to understand how this impinges upon the question of Indian Muslim identity. It will show
how this new identity of the pasmanda (low caste) Muslims critiques and challenges the
representation of Indian Muslims in the popular imagery. The paper is based on research
conducted in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, but will also draw upon the larger socio-political context
in North India to understand how the landscape of Muslim identity is being constituted and reconstituted in contemporary India.
Md. Mansoor Alam
Dr. Md. Mansoor Alam has taught in the University of Gauhati, the University of Calcutta,
Maulana Azad College, and various other institutions in his long academic career spanning over
three decades. He was a member of West Bengal Public Service Commission. As a member of
Iran Society, Kolkata and All India Persian Teachers Association, New Delhi Prof Alam has
relentlessly worked towards the promotion of Persian studies in India. Presently he is a Board
Member of Asiatic Society of Bengal, a member of the West Bengal Urdu Academy and the
General Secretary, Iran Society, Kolkata. He has written several books including Ahd-eMughalyake Hindu Muarrekhin. In 2012 he was conferred the Certificate of Honour by the
President of India for his outstanding contribution to Persian studies.
Maulana Azad: A Harbinger of Hindu-Muslim Fraternity and Communal Harmony
Maulana Azad was a profound scholar, a great orator, statesman, a consistent nationalist, a great
freedom fighter and a great leader with indomitable courage. Above all, Azad was a great
harbinger of Hindu-Muslim unity and advocate of national integrity and universal brotherhood,
someone who stood for united India and was one of the most prominent Muslim leaders to
oppose partition of India. He was the living example of secularism and played significant role in
construction of secular, political social and educational structure of modern India. Azad stuck to
his philosophies and never compromised on his ideas that championed communal harmony,
brotherhood as he believed those were essential for India‟s prosperity, solidarity and progress.
This paper attempts to explore this particular facet of Azad‟s life.
Muzaffar Alam
Muzaffar Alam is George V. Bobrinskoy Professor in South Asian Languages and Civilizations
at the University of Chicago. Before joining the University of Chicago, he taught medieval
Indian history at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His
field specialties are medieval and early modern South Asian Muslim religious and literary
cultures, Mughal political and institutional history, and Indo-Persian historiography and travel
accounts. His research interests also include comparative history of the Islamic world (as seen
from an Indian perspective). His publications include The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North
India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986),The Languages of Political Islam in India: c. 12001800 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004),Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of
Discovery: 1400-1800 (With Sanjay Subrahmanyam) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007), and Writing the Mughal World (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).
Maulana Azad and the Memory of India’s Islamic Past
In early 20th century, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad articulated a powerful critique of British rule,
which resonated not just with the broader Indian public but was of particular import amongst the
Indian Muslims given his status as an outstanding scholar of religion. His preoccupation with
colonialism, however, should not elide the fact that he was equally concerned with the precolonial past. Thus, we find him engaged, while in the thick of the anti-colonial movement, in an
attempt to evolve an understanding of the longer tradition of Islamic and Indo-Muslim pasts.
In this paper, my entry point into Azad‟s historical writings is his representation of Shaikh
Ahmad Sirhindi, the eponymous founder of the Naqshabandi-Mujaddidi Sufi order. In the
historiography of Mughal India, Sirhindi has occupied a significant, though not uniform, place in
scholarship. If on the one hand he is projected as the turning point in the religious politics of
Mughal India, several historians, on the other, have dismissed him as a rank reactionary and
orthodox Sunni theologian, with little impact on the actual politics of the 16th and 17th centuries.
In this historiographical stream, Maulana Azad‟s portrayal of Sirhindi has been particularly
impactful. So much so, Azad is often considered to be the first person to represent Sirhindi as an
exemplary Islamic political figure of the Mughal age. For instance, Yohanan Friedmann, a major
historian of South Asian Islam, argued it was Azad‟s reading of Sirhindi in his Tazkira that
inspired modern scholars to extol the Shaikh‟s theological position and his critique of Akbar‟s
politics. This also buttressed, Friedmann contended, the popular image of Sirhindi as a
„renovator‟ and „revitalizer‟ of religion in the popular memory of Islam in South Asia.
This historiography presents certain intriguing problems both for the historian of Mughal India
and those interested in Maulana Azad‟s theology and politics. In the first place, we need to
consider whether or not Azad was truly the first person to view Sirhindi as a political figure. Or,
is it so that the political aspect of Sirhindi‟s persona was evident even in his Mughal-era
hagiographies? Secondly, given Azad‟s own theological positions, as evident both in his early
and later writings, one wonders why Azad chose to represent this sectarian and nonaccommodationist Shaikh from Mughal India as an exemplar of ideal Islamic politics. Or is it
that there were radical transformations in Azad‟s theological positions from the time of his
evaluation of Sirhindi in Tazkira to the publication of his commentary on Qur‟an. How do we
reconcile Azad‟s account of Sarmad(1910) with his position in Tazkira? These are some of the
questions that I will (re)consider in this paper.
Sk Aktar Ali
SkAktar Ali is Senior Research Assistant at the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian
Studies, Kolkata. He is currently working on Maulana Azad‟s vision of education in India.
Re-thinking conceptual understanding of learning society with special reference to Maulana
Azad’s values education
The point of departure is that while there are arguments for industrialism thesis as a global
infrastructure, information technology empowered by those who control capital, there are also
arguments that the true progress of humankind is in crisis amidst our materialistic and
mechanistic endeavour that seems to have forgotten the human soul. In fact, it appears
reasonable to state that educational system would have to expand to meet the needs of
industrialization and this process would create an increasing level of education (with outcomes
as core) for all citizens, albeit there would be greater emphasis on those subjects (with
specialized as core) relevant to the infrastructural demands; while learning how to value, how to
appreciate and to love, to choose what is right and just, what is true and good, is gradually
becoming insignificant in today‟s education and infact eroding our moral and spiritual values. As
a result values education is no longer a necessity – it is an option (with curricula as core). The
general thesis is to comprehend the concept of learning society and its dimension with the
orientation of Azad‟s values education.
Anisuzzaman
Anisuzzaman is Professor Emeritus, University of Dhaka. After his PhD at the University of
Dhaka, Anisuzzaman was awarded post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Chicago and at
the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Thereafter, he taught at the
University of Dhaka and the University of Chittagong for almost three decades. His publications
include Muslim-manas o Bamlasahitya, Muslim Bamlar samayikpatra 1831-1930 (1969),
Swaruper sandhane (1976), Atharo shataker Bangla chithi (1982), Purano Bangla Gadya
(1984), Bangla sahityar itihas(eds. with ors) volume I (1987), Factory Correspondence and
other Bengali Documents in the India Office Library and Records(1981), and Creativity, Reality
And Identity (1993).Muslim-manas o Bamla sahitya is widely recognized as a classic work of
literary history. Anisuzzaman‟s accomplishments are many. But probably his most stellar
achievement is his „discovery‟ of the earliest specimen of Bengali prose, the Svarodaya of 1528.
Some Aspects of Muslim Politics in Colonial Bengal
The religious reform movement led by Saiyid Ahmad of Rai Bareli drew large support from
Bengal. Bengal also produced its own religious reform movements – one led by Titumeer in west
Bengal and the other by Shariatullah and his son, Dudu Miyan, in the east. Both these
movements gained large followings from the peasantry and both came into conflict with a
combination of orthodox Muslims, local landlords, indigo planters and the administration.
Titumeer eventually was killed during his fight with British troops and many of his associates
were taken prisoners. Dudu Miyan had incorporated in his movement an economic issue by
declaring that the land belonged to the tiller. He was imprisoned and released only shortly before
his death. There were also secular peasant uprisings like the one in Sherpur and the other in
Pabna, which the Muslims either led or joined in.
In the aftermath of 1857, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan in north India and Abdul Luteef and Syed
Ameer Ali in Bengal appeared as the leaders of Muslim community. All of them underscored the
need to come to terms with the British rulers. Abdul Luteef brought into fore Karamat Ali
Jaunpuri who ruled that it was unlawful for a Muslim to fight the British in India. These leaders
made every effort to spread English education in the community and to have a share of
government jobs for the Muslims. They chose to stay away from the Indian National Congress
lest the participation of the Muslims therein should affect their position vis-à-vis the government.
A sense of Muslim interest, separate from that of the rest of their countrymen, led to the
founding of the All India Muslim League. It was concerned only with the temporal interests of
the Muslims and not any of the religious aspects. The introduction of separate electorate was
seen as a success of the policy pursued by them. The establishment of the short-lived Krishak
Praja Party brought to the fore some economic issues for the first time. The Bengal Provincial
Muslim League manifesto in 1945 demanded the abolition of zamindari and introduction of
Bengali at all levels of education. The Pakistan issue received the biggest support from Bengal,
but when the question of partition of Bengal was raised, some of the leaders of the Muslim
League and Congress joined hands in demanding a United Bengal, separate from India and
Pakistan, on the plea that Bengali language and culture was one and the same. The move failed.
The demand for making Bengali a state language of Pakistan, however, was made in June and
July 1947 with consequences for the state that was yet to be created.
Asoke Bhattacharya
Prof. Asoke Bhattacharya is an Honorary Fellow of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian
Studies and formally Head, Department of Adult Continuing Education and Extension at
Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Under his guidance the Department received the prestigious
UNESCO-NLM award (1999) for outstanding contribution in the field of literacy. He was the
Director and Chief Executive Officer of Roopkala Kendro, Film and Social Communication
Institute, Government of West Bengal. He is a member of the board of Grundtvig Society,
Denmark and Visiting Fellow of the University of Aarhus, Denmark. He has delivered lectures in
various countries i.e. Denmark, Sweden, UK, Germany, USA, Canada, Italy, France, Portugal,
Malta, New Zealand, Bangladesh etc. He has written numerous books and articles on education,
culture, philosophy, politics etc. The following are the most important: Existentialism:
Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Sartre El Dorado (1991); Education for the people: Grundtvig,
Tagore, Gandhi and Freire (2010) [Italian translation by Giuseppe Carrieri as “Educare e Vivere”
has been published by Liguori Editore in 2012]; Paulo Freire: Rousseau of the Twentieth
Century (2011); Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution (Bengali) (2012). He has translated
Guerrilla Warfare by Ernesto Che Guevara (from original Spanish to Bengali); Banalata Sen by
Jibanananda Das (from original Bengali to English); Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz & Federico
Garcia Lorca (from Spanish to Bengali) and Walt Whitman (from English to Bengali).
Philosophies of Education: Tagore and Azad
Maulana Azad was appointed the Minister of Education of the Government of India in January
1947. As a minister, he was instrumental in initiating numerous programmes in the field of
education including adult education. Like Tagore he believed that education for children could be
conducted in an open atmosphere in close proximity with nature. He felt that extension education
especially in agriculture should be introduced in colleges. This was a normal practice at Tagore‟s
Shantiniketan. Tagore and Azad shared the belief that education was the most important task for
a nation immersed in ignorance and illiteracy and an essential ingredient for nation building. This
paper intends to reflect on the ideas and philosophy of Maulana Azad and Rabindranath Tagore
on education.
Farooq Ahmad Dar
Farooq Ahmad Dar is Assistant Professor, Department of History, Quaid-i-Azam University,
Islamabad and an awardee of the Charles Wallace Pakistan Trust Fellowship at School of
Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. His publications include Jinnah’s Pakistan:
Formation of a State (forthcoming)and Communal Riots in the Punjab, 1947(2003).Areas of his
academic interest include Indian Nationalism, Pakistan Movement, Regional History of Pakistan,
Political History of Pakistan, and Foreign Policy of Pakistan.
Azad and Jinnah: Parallel Lives
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah emerged as the two most
prominent political leaders amongst the Indian Muslims during the final stage of the
independence movement against the British Raj. If Jinnah emerged as the most popular amongst
the leaders of the All India Muslim League, Azad remained the President of the Indian National
Congress from 1940 to 1946. Two of them were poles apart – trained in different environments
and presented completely opposite solutions to the question of the future of Indian Muslims.
Azad believed in the concept of composite nationalism and tried to convince the Muslim
community to merge them in to the main stream Indian nation. Jinnah, on the other hand, was
convinced that Muslims of India should retain their separate identity and eventually presented
the idea of an independent state for them. This difference of opinion never allowed the two giants
to even establish working relationship. Jinnah considered Azad as the “Muslim show-boy of
Congress” and by no means acknowledged him as the true representative of the party. Azad,
though, never responded publically to his criticism by Jinnah but a good look at his
autobiography, India Wins Freedom, shows that he was also a big critic of Jinnah‟s policies. The
main objective of the paper is to find out that if both Azad and Jinnah had the same objective, i.e.
to look after the interests of the Indian Muslims, why they adopted such opposite tactics to
achieve their goal? The paper also is an effort to critically understand the strategies adopted by
both Azad and Jinnah separately and makes a comparison between the two. The impact of Azad
and Jinnah‟s thought and practices on the future of the Muslim population in India and Pakistan
is also an integral part of the article.
The sources consulted during the research made it clear that though both Azad and Jinnah
presented different solutions for the same problem, yet their commitment and integrity cannot be
challenged. Jinnah captured a bigger audience amongst the Muslims in the support of his cause
but those who believed in the concept of territorial nationalism, followed Azad during the
freedom movement. However, after the creation of Pakistan, Jinnah not only became the
Governor-General of the new state but is also considered by an overwhelming majority as the
father of the nation. On the contrary Azad is not given due importance in India. Jinnah‟s solution
of the problem has at least partially succeeded but there are certain reservations regarding the
solution presented by Azad.
Venkat Dhulipala
Venkat Dhulipala is Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina,
Wilmington. He has an M.A in Political Science from the University of Hyderabad, an M.A in
South Asian Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Ph. D in History from the
University of Minnesota. He was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Historical Studies at the
University of Texas, Austin during the year 2010-2011. His book manuscript „Creating a New
Medina: State Power, Islam and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India‟, is currently
under review with a press. His essay „Rallying the Qaum: The Muslim League in the United
Provinces 1937-1939‟ was published in Modern Asian Studies (May 2010), while another essay
„A Nation-State Insufficiently Imagined? Debating Pakistan in Late Colonial North India‟ was
published in the Indian Economic and Social History Review (July/Sept 2011).
Maulana Azad and the Aftermath of the Partition in Uttar Pradesh
Writing in the Dawn a few days after the acceptance of the 3 June Plan, Qamaruddin Khan, a
lecturer from the Muslim University in Aligarh outlined a „constructive program‟ for Muslims in
Hindustan. It involved their withdrawal from politics, a renewed focus on „nation-building‟ in
the economic and social spheres and a return back to their original mission of spreading Islam
once abnormal times had given way to normalcy. Soon after, as Hindu and Sikh refugees
streamed into the UP in the aftermath of the horrific killings in the Punjab, provincial Congress
politicians demanded proofs of Muslim loyalty to the Indian Union, called for their repatriation
to Pakistan, and their disenfranchisement in the provincial legislative assembly. In this context,
this paper underlines Maulana Azad‟s heroic attempts at preventing Muslim withdrawal from
politics and encouraging their participation in India‟s new democratic experiment. It especially
focuses on the conference convened by Azad and the „Nationalist Muslims‟ in Lucknow in
December 1947 that sought to provide a new lead to the minority provinces Muslims in the
aftermath of the Partition and the flight of the old ML leadership to Pakistan. Azad‟s new course
of action for the Indian Muslims emphasized three elements- the elimination of the Muslim
League, the end of all communal organizations, and large scale Indian Muslim participation in
non-communal political parties. Azad‟s uncompromising call for the separation of religion from
politics was most strikingly evident from his advice to the Jamiat ul Ulama-i-Hind to withdraw
from politics and confine itself to activities in the religious and cultural spheres in spite of the
organization‟s close alliance with the Congress and its strident opposition to Pakistan. While this
marked a long journey from the days of Azad‟s Pan-Islamism, the paper concludes that Azad‟s
new leadership provided critical support and a new benchmark for the fledgling Nehruvian
vision of a secular India.
Mohammad Firoze
Mohammad Firoze taught at the Department of Arabic and Persian, University of Calcutta, from
1976 to 1999. He was then appointed a member of the Public Service Commission, West Bengal.
Currently he is the Joint Philological Secretary of the Asiatic Society, Kolkata, and the Joint
Managing Editor of Indo-Iranica, the journal of the Iran Society, Kolkata. He has extensively
researched on Persian literature, especially the corpus produced inBengal. His publications
include Obaidi: A Persian poet of nineteenth-century Bengal (2005) and Wahid: A Persian poet
of Calcutta in the nineteenth century (forthcoming).
Qaul-e faisal: Maulana Azad’s stand against British rule
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was arrested for taking part in the Non-Cooperation Movement. He
summed up the reasons for his anti-colonial politics in a statement and submitted it to the
Magistrate in the Presidency Jail, at Alipur in Calcutta on January 11, 1922. Later that statement
became a part of the tract entitled the Qaul-e faisal. This paper analyzes Maulana Abul Kalam
Azad‟s statement in the Qaul-e faisal.
Rajarshi Ghose
Rajarshi Ghose is Fellow, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata. He
recently completed his doctoral dissertation, Politics for Faith: Karamat Ali Jaunpuri and
Islamic Revivalist Movements in British India circa 1800-73 at the University of Chicago and
was awarded a PhD with Distinction. He is currently engaged in research on the trajectories of
Islamic legal thought in colonial and post-colonial Bengal. He is also working on an intellectual
biography of Abd al-Majid Daryabadi (1892–1977) and on a monograph on Dobhashi or
Musalmani Bangla poetry produced in 18th, 19th, and early 20th century Bengal.
Two Mosques and the Imam al-Hind: Azad, the practice of Islamic Law, and politics of
decolonization
Early 20th century British India witnessed a surge of interest in Islamic theological and legal
disciplines in the Urdu print-media. Even though Maulana Azad and his Al-Hilal made
significant contribution in bringing about this shift, Abul Kalam had mixed feelings about this
popular phenomenon. Thus, in his Khutbat-i siyasiyah aur masajid-i Islamiyah (1913, 1922),
Azad expressed concern over how in early decades of 20th century every newspaper-editor dared
to dabble into Quranic exegesis, how commonplace it had became to claim the rank of a shaikh
al-islam, and how it had virtually become the right (haqq) of just about anybody to interpret
matters and arbitrate questions related to Islamic law. In other words, the Maulana was troubled
how the colonial newspaper-public vulgarized Islamic religious and legal knowledge. There is no
doubt that the Maulana‟s concern for the sanctity of religious knowledge was authentic.
However, it must also be remembered that this anxiety was also colored by the prejudices of a
precocious young man who had come to have proprietorial feelings for the role of the Islamic
jurisconsult (mufti) and who had since his teenage aspired to be an authoritative interpreter of the
Islamic scripture. In a sense, this outburst could only come from a person who was trained in the
religious dars-i nizami curriculum but chose to become a journalist, who was in the thick of
politics but aspired for the religious rank of Imam al-Hind, and who while active in anti-colonial
movements would emerge as colonial South Asia‟s most original commentator of the Quran. In
this paper, I explore some aspects of Azad‟s career as an Islamic jurisconsult and attempt to map
how political change, especially the politics of decolonization, impacted the Maulana‟s
disciplinary practice of Islamic law.
This paper focuses on two juristic rulings, one from 27 April 1921 and the other from 1954,
which Azad had issued to arbitrate in intra-communal disputes arising over the management of
two mosques, the Nakhuda Masjid of Calcutta and the Ahl-i hadis Masjid of Malerkotla in the
Sangrur district of Indian Panjab respectively. In his Nakhuda Mosque ruling, Azad had echoed
the position that he already voiced in his Khutbat-i siyasiyah aur masajid-i Islamiyah and had
ruled that all mosques were by definition political spaces, that it was religiously valid to arrange
„political‟ and „non-political‟ assemblies in them, and that since the lifetime of Prophet
Muhammad mosques had functioned as the „parliament of Muslims‟ (Faisla-i muqaddama-i
Jami‘a Masjid Kalkatta, 27 April 1921). However, in his short ruling in 1954 he opined in
unequivocal terms it was imperative that the imam or the prayer-leader of a mosque remained
unaffiliated to and stayed clear of „all political and religious movements of the times‟ (Imam alHind Mawlana Abul Kalam Azad ka faisla aur Malerkotla ka niza’, 1954). I argue that this
disjuncture between the Maulana‟s position in 1921 and that of 1954 was a function of the
politics of decolonization, and was brought about by his fundamental understanding that British
India was a „domain of war‟ while the Republic was not. In so doing, I hope to contribute to a
general understanding of how political changes impact the disciplinary practice of Islamic law.
S Irfan Habib
S Irfan Habib is a historian of science and of political history. He has been at the National
Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies, New Delhi. Besides a large number
of papers, he has also edited and authored several books on history of science and political
history. His latest book is To Make the Deaf Hear: Ideology and Programme of Bhagat Singh
and his Comrades, which has been translated into several Indian languages like Hindi, Tamil and
Malayalam. His forthcoming book is called Jihad or Ijtihad: Religious Orthodoxy and Modern
Science in Contemporary Islam. At present he holds Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Chair at the
National University of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: Institutionalizing science and culture in Independent India
Maulana Azad was not just a freedom fighter and Islamic scholar, he was also the man who was
deeply involved in the arduous task of nation building. Soon after independence, Indian
education, science and culture needed to be taken out of the colonial paradigm, which was
exclusive and discriminatory. The Maulana's own intellectual forays into all three, since the early
20th century, helped him to engage with the difficulties of institutionalizing both science and
culture. Besides touching upon his pioneering role here, I will also refer to the current trends
within Islam where both modern science and several aspects of culture like music are an
anathema for the believer. As an Islamic scholar and political leader of independent India, who
categorically proved, by his own involvement with both, that Islam is neither in conflict with
modern science nor with music. In this context this paper will refer to the institutions of science
and technology and also of music and literature, which came up between 1947 and 1958 and the
seminal role of Maulana Azad behind those.
Mushirul Hasan
Mushirul Hasan is Director General, National Archives of India and former Vice-Chancellor,
Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Mushirul Hasan did his M. A. from Aligarh Muslim University
in 1969. He later earned a Doctorate (Ph.D.) from the University of Cambridge in 1977. He was
the elected President of the Indian History Congress in 2002. In 2007, he was awarded the
Padma Shri by the Government of India and the Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French
Government in 2010. He has written extensively on the Partition of India, on communalism, the
Indian Freedom Struggle, and the history of Islam in South Asia. His very recent publications
include From pluralism to separatism : qasbas in colonial Awadh (2004), A moral reckoning :
Muslim intellectuals in nineteenth-century Delhi (2005), Moderate or militant : images of India's
Muslims (2008), and Between modernity and nationalism : Halide Edip's encounter with
Gandhi's India (2010).
Gandhi and Azad
My paper deals with Gandhi‟s relationship with Maulana Azad. How did this relationship evolve
and under what circumstances? What was in common between the Maulana and the Mahatma?
How did the commonality of approaches and interpretations manifest themselves? What sort of
strains appeared and when? In other words, mine is an essay on Indian nationalism and the two
major actors engaged in their respective pursuits.
Syed Akhtar Husain
Dr. Syed Akhtar Husain is Associate Professor in the Centre of Persian & Central Asian Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He obtained his PhD in Persian language and literature
from the Centre of Afro-Asian Languages, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was a
visiting research scholar at Tehran University in 1991 and a Lecturer in the Department of Arabic
& Persian, Calcutta University. Dr. Husain has published Tales From Iran (a translation of
Persian short stories into English) and has published several research articles in reputed journals
of Persian Studies. His specializations are Persian & Indo Persian Literature; Indo-Iran
Relations; Area Studies of Afghanistan, Iran & Tajikistan; Translation & Interpretation. His area
of interest is Travelogues of the Qajar period.
Persian Poetry in Azad’s Ghubar-i Khatir
From 10th August 1942 to 16th August 1943, Maulana Azad wrote twenty letters in Urdu to his
friend Habibur Rahman Khan Sherwani while he was imprisoned at the Ahmad Nagar Fort. The
letters were not posted to his friend due to restrictions imposed on the inmates of the prison.
However, Muhammad Ajmal Khan, the secretary of Maulana Azad, collected these letters and
along with four more letters of the correspondent, published them in 1946.The collection of
letters was named Ghubar-i Khatir by Azad, the title of which he borrowed from the work of an
eighteenth century Indo-Persian poet, Mir Azmatullah Bekhabar Bilgerami (d.1729).Azad has
used quite a number of Persian verses in his letters. The Persian verses in the letters of Ghubar-i
Khatir belong to several eminent poets of Persian and Indo Persian literature namely Hafiz,
Khosro, Faizi and a host of others. They are usually understood in the literary context of poetry.
But Azad has brought them out of their literary corpus and used them in his Urdu
correspondence in various contexts and thus they assume an importance of applied poetry. The
present paper will focus on Azad‟s efforts to apply Persian poetry to his life and society.
Mesbah Kamal
Mesbah Kamal is Professor of History, University of Dhaka and Chairperson, Research and
Development Collective, Bangladesh. His publications include Asada o unasattarera
ganabhyutthana (1986), Bipanna bhumija: astitvera samkate adibasi samaja: Bamladesa o
Purba-Bharatera pratichitra (2009), Bamladesera adibasi: ethanographiya gabeshana (2010).
Muhammad Sajid Khan
Muhammad Sajid Khan holds MPhil and MSc in History from Quaid-i-Azam University,
Islamabad. Currently he is enrolled as a PhD student at the same University. He is working as a
lecturer in History at Government Postgraduate College Asghar Mall, Rawalpindi. He is also a
Visiting Faculty at FAST National University, CASE and COMSATS Institute of Information
Technology, Islamabad. His area of research is Indian Nationalism with main emphasis on
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
Azad as an Ideologue of the Khilafat Movement
Abul Kalam Azad was an important literary and political figure; he was also a prominent
journalist and an eloquent speaker. Anti-Imperialism, Pan-Islamism and anti-communalism
embodied in composite nationalism co-existed and complemented each other for development of
his thought. During Khilafat Movement the Pan-Islamist, Azad was inspired by Gandhian
Humanism and developed his strong political philosophy of composite nationalism on the basis
of anti-communalism to foster his struggle against British colonialism under the leadership of
Gandhi. Gradually due to intellectual growth and certain political developments the anticommunal components of Azad‟s composite nationalism acquire consolidation under the
ideological influence of Gandhi. He played a very influential role in Muslim‟s political
mobilization during Khilafat Movement. His writings and speeches inspired many Muslims.
The Khilafat Movement for Azad was a religious duty for the protection of Shariah, and
collective Muslim identity and collective interest of the community. Khilafat Movement was an
institutional manifestation of his individual thought. Azad had been deeply concerned for Turkey
for long and even he was put in internment in 1916 due to his pro-Turkish views and was dubbed
as a Turkish agent.
The release of Azad and Ali brothers in January 1920 had inaugurated the second phase of
Khilafat Movement and the leadership was slipped from a pre-dominantly moderate merchant
group into the hand of radical journalist and preachers. The movement made more headway in
small towns and villages with the stream of fiery speeches delivered by these radical leaders.
Azad extensively toured the country and delivered speeches for the propagation of Khilafat and
Indian Nationalist cause. He had turned the Bengal Presidency into the storm center of the
Khilafat agitation. Azad delivered a famous speech on the issue of Khilafat and its religious
importance in the light of Quran and Hadith, while presiding over the Bengal Khilafat
Conference in 28-29 February, 1920 at Calcutta. In his impressive presidential address, Azad
traced the historical genesis and the vitality of Khilafat institution for the Muslim community.
Later this document was frequently referred by the leaders of Khilafat Movement and it emerged
as a major doctrinal source for the movement. He also supported ill-conceived Hijrat Movement
and aspired for the prestigious position of the Imam-ul-hind. Both ventures met with failure. He
extended unconditional support to Gandhi‟s program of non-violent non-cooperation movement.
Khilafat question had created an unprecedented awakening among the Muslims, an awakening
which Azad was prepared to pour into nationalism and into a struggle which would eventually
develop into a freedom movement but through Hindu-Muslim unity. Azad and other Muslim
leaders had joined hands with Indian National Congress under the leadership of Gandhi. To
understand Azad‟s politics and the emergence and development of his leadership; it is necessary
to understand his role in Khilafat Movement.
This paper will be an analytical interpretation and narrative description of pattern of relationship
between Azad and Khilafat Movement. There will be a strong quantitative portion to substantiate
the qualitative portion and analytical assumptions. The employment of quantitative and
qualitative methods will help at great length in interpretation of this relationship and its impacts
on Indian politics. Both primary and secondary accessible sources have been thoroughly
examined for this paper.
Jamal Malik
Since February 1999 Dr. Jamal Malik has been the Chair of Religious Studies - Islamic Studies,
University of Erfurt, Germany, prior to which he was appointed Head and Chair of Religious
Studies at the University of Derby. His areas of interest are Social and Cultural History of
Muslim South Asia, and Muslims in the West. Malik has regularly contributed in international
journals and books and has been sole author of several books including, Religious Pluralism in
South Asia and Europe (New Delhi: OUP 2004), Sufism in the West (London: Routledge 2006),
Madrasas in South Asia: Teaching Terror? (London: Routledge 2008),Religionsproduktivität in
Europa. Markierungenimreligiösen Feld (Münster: Aschendorff 2009), Mobilisierung von
Religion in Europa (Berlin: Peter Lang 2010). He has been Member of European Academy of
Sciences and Arts, and Fellow Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, U.K.
The dialectic of political Islam and secular nationalism in Azad's thought: From Salafism to
Secularism: The Case of Azad
Usually Azad‟s mixed racial heritage and stay-at-home education are being made responsible for
his moral and cultural values in the making of Islamic cosmopolitanism. Son of an Indian Sufi
shaikh and an Arab mother, having been brought up in Mecca, followed by a turbulent youth in
Calcutta, he is considered to have had inculcated in him a lasting sense of patriotism and anticolonialism. The agitated political life in pre-partition India followed by a more settled but
disillusioned political career after 1947, all these phases of creative endeavor were interrupted by
jail detentions. His powerful literary and journalistic contributions display what has been called
the “dialectic of the secular nationalist and the political Islamic trends of his thought” –
suggesting biographical breaches and ideological contradictions. The paper wants to take
seriously this dialectic “historiographical paradigm”, by expanding its understanding to the
correlation between different constructive phases of Azad‟s life and their reciprocity. A
perspective from between or from the edge can be interpreted as bridge to creative continuity,
with all its semantic pitfalls, especially when looking critically at Azad‟s hidden and latent
contributions to religious historiography.
It is argued that history, as it is constructed in historiographical writings within a spatio-temporal
setting, never merely represents facts of the past, but it is always also a reflection of the context
of its creation. Since it is attached to contemporary societal discourses, such a history is never
entirely neutral. Social change is always associated with negotiations of collective and individual
memories and a new way of dealing with history. This is banal, but the colonial and post-colonial
period of South Asian history and historiography illustrate the cognizant and strategic
detachment from the entanglement of those negotiations in current discourses of power, and
increasing violence, as can be traced in nationalist historiography and as has been elaborated in
post-colonial discourses. Therefore, the role of memory, as well as, of the narration of the history
as a conscious and non-innocent process has to be re-valued. Hence, “From Salafism to
Secularism” does not denote mere dialectic, or contradiction but consistency in a particular
historical colonial and post-colonial setting, in which the voice of Sarmad, the azad renouncer,
eventually was silenced.
Bindu Menon Mannil
Bindu Menon Mannil is currently Assistant Professor, Department of Journalism, LSR College
for Women, Delhi University, New Delhi, India. Her research focuses on the history of regional
cinema in India with particular reference to Malayalam cinema during 1930-1960. Her recent
works include „Sketches for a film which never got made: Appan Thampuran‟s
Bhootharayar‟, (Bioscope: South Asian Screen Studies Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2, July 2011) , Many
Faces of Eve: Malayalam Middle cinema and the category of woman ,(In „The Missing Look:
Gender and Malayalam Cinema‟, edited by Meena Pillai, Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2010),
and „Romancing History, Historicising Romance‟ (Seminar, No. 598, June 2009).She has been
the recipient of several scholarships and awards including the Fulbright visiting scholarship. She
also served as the Member of the selection committee for World Cinema and Competition
Section, 42nd International Film Festival of India, 2011.
The Blind Qaum and the Visual: The Islamic Home film movement in North Kerala
Relationship between religious reform and socio-economic practices among Muslims in the
Northern districts of Kerala (also referred as the Malabar region) has attracted scholarly attention
in recent literature on culture, globalization and religion (Osella and Osella, 2007 and 2009;
Lindberg, 2009). The example of the home film movement among Islamic households in
Kozhikode city and neighbouring districts provides an interesting case for further reflections and
research on the multiple and ambivalent negotiations of tradition and alternative modernities by
marginalized religious communities in the South Asian contexts. This highly popular genre
enjoys a circulation of 25,000 copies in the home market and 20,000 in the Middle Eastern
Countries underscoring the relationship between globalization, cultural production and religious
practices, tensions and anxieties. The movement began with the entry of VHS technology when
many famous plays were shot on stage and circulated as VHS cassettes. The popularity of the
Video film in Kozhikode city and the pretty good sales in the Middle East nourished the industry
further. The video films were called Home cinema because of the way they transformed Malabar
homes into leisure spaces. The video film market got revolutionized by new media technologies
by 2000, making it a cheaper and more effective medium. The Home film genre has the Muslim
households of northern districts and the middle eastern countries as its chief audience and mainly
portrays themes relevant to the Muslim society including the sociological pressures due to the
migration to the Persian Gulf, Women‟s role in family and society, negotiating the social issues
engendered by new media technologies like Television, Mobile phone and the Internet. Though
characterised by an extra ordinary diversity in themes, the telefilms have maintained a consistent
focus on the relationship between Islam and modernity. Nevertheless, the form, content and
aesthetic practices of the home films have been deeply challenged by different strands of Islamic
ideologists. It has led to contestations about the mediations of the Qaum (an Arabic term locally
understood as community) within a globalised and technologized sphere of cultural
interventions. We argue that the home films and the debate around them spill over into the
spheres of politics, new media technology, and mass consumption. This paper focuses on the
multiple responses to a new regime of techno-mediated cultural production and the mapping of
alternative moral geographies of the counter public and private spaces. By analyzing a set of
films and through ethnographic fieldwork it explores a range of themes like space, gender,
migration, language, myth and technology. The data for the study is gathered from ethnographic
interviews of a wide set of actors involved in the production, distribution and consumption of the
„home films‟ besides conversations with religious and social leaders.
Wafi A. Momin
Wafi A. Momin is currently an advanced doctoral candidate in the Department of South Asian
Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. He is also engaged in a research
project on the collection of Khojki and Gujarati manuscripts at the Institute of Ismaili Studies,
London.
Satpanthi, Khoja and Ismaili: Negotiating Religious Identity in Colonial India
This paper questions and critically engages with a prevalent discourse in recent studies on Ismaili
history in colonial India that views the formation of 'Ismaili' identity among the Khojas – now
widely known as the Nizari Ismaili Muslims – a product of a series of court cases, culminating in
the most famous of them, the Aga Khan Case of 1866. The dominant narrative emerging out of
these studies privileges the colonial court and the judgment delivered in the Aga Khan Case as
being decisive in this identity formation process, and contends that this redefinition of the Khojas
as Ismaili Muslims compromised not only the complex character of their religious identity, but
closed off from this point onwards the diverse expressions of religiosity that were characteristic
of their faith in pre-colonial India. Questioning this dominant narrative, the paper revisits the
dynamics of identity formation among the Khojas by critically examining the category „Ismaili‟
in its historical context and how it came to be applied on the Khojas, thus providing an
alternative view to how this process has been seen in previous scholarship. It argues that far from
being a one-way juridical imposition and a one-off affair, this identity formation process was a
much complex phenomenon, and identifies an alternative space, one that was fostered and
sustained by the vibrant print culture of colonial India, in addition to that of the much privileged
colonial court, where the character of this identity, framed more often in terms of „Satpanth‟ (lit.,
religion of the „True Path‟), was debated and negotiated.
Rab Nawaz
Rab Nawaz completed his Bachelors in Law and Masters in Philosophy from the University of
the Punjab. He has been working with Democratic Commission for Human Development and
Khudi Pakistan in training youth on issues of extremism, peace, secularism and human rights. He
is also the editor of a magazine called „Laaltain‟, which promotes inclusive dialogue on key
socio-political issues. He has been writing on modern Muslim political thought and Pakistani
politics.
Maulana Azad and the Idea of Pakistan
The idea of Pakistan denotes the notion of Muslim nationalism in the sub-continent according to
which Indian Muslims constitute a nation in political sense. The intension was to safeguard
Muslim interests from the Hindu majority India by formation of a separate Muslim majority
state. Maulana Azad opposed this conception of a distinctive Muslim nationality and hence the
idea of Pakistan. Azad saw united India as the linchpin for securing the interests and future of
Indian Muslims. The idea of Pakistan undermined this promise of a bright future by promoting
communalism, and by dividing and weakening the Indian Muslims. Azad had various bases for
his rejection of the idea of Pakistan. The historical and cultural diffusion between two
communities, mutual interests, pragmatic demands of the time, and arguments from religious
teachings guided his stance. In his early political career, while running Al-Hilal, Al-Balagh and
Khilafat Movement, his focus was on Hindu-Muslim cooperation against the common enemy of
British imperialism. Gradually as the struggle for independence and the Muslim question gained
pace, Azad‟s disapproval of Muslim separatism was guided by a more fervent Indian
nationalism. This Indian nationalism, according to him, was all inclusive irrespective of religion,
caste and creed. Hence the Muslims were integral part of a united India. Azad‟s bearing against
the idea of Pakistan won him huge following as well as opposition from the Muslims. All India
Muslim League, the chief architect and proponent of the idea of Pakistan led in criticizing and
rebuking Azad. Azad had to wage a multifaceted struggle for preventing the partition. This
included facing League‟s propaganda, bringing around Congress‟ leadership and negotiating
with the British on complex questions of Muslims representation and structural safeguards. The
aim was to formulate a constitutional framework for addressing Muslims‟ concerns. He himself
proposed alternatives to League‟s partition plan which could have satisfied League and also kept
India united. But despite all his efforts, though which could have been better, Azad could not
stop the idea of Pakistan becoming a reality. Looking retrospectively what matters is not Azad‟s
apparent failure at stopping the partition but the strength of his views that have stood the test of
time. His prophetic warnings about the future of Pakistan and Indian Muslims prove his
farsightedness on the issues and interests of Indian Muslims. This paper intends to review Azad‟s
views on the idea of Pakistan and depicts how they remain source of guidance both for today‟s
Pakistan and India.
Rizwan Qaiser
Dr. Rizwan Qaiser is Associate Professor at the department of History and Culture at the Jamia
Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. His area of research includes politics and culture in
modern Indian history and has had several publications on the same and related subjects. He has
authored a book titled Resisting colonialism and Communal Politics: Maulana Azad and the
Making of the Indian Nation and co-authored Congress and the Making of the Indian Nation. He
is also a regular commentator at All India Radio on issues of contemporary relevance.
The Trajectories of intellectual and political life of Maulana Azad in Ranchi, 1916-1919
Maulana Azad had lived a life of intense intellectual, journalistic and political life in Calcutta,
before he was externed from the city of his residence to Ranchi in March 1916, for the crime of
articulating his thoughts against the British government in the pages of Al-Hilal and Al-Balagh.
Under the Defence of India Regulation, Azad had to leave Calcutta and settle at Moorabadi, in
Ranchi, a desolate place and mostly inhabited by the tribal communities those days.
The externment of Azad from Calcutta brought his political as well as journalistic and literary
activities to a sudden halt. In Ranchi, he was compelled to live a life of confinement, where any
contact with the outside world was difficult. Any yet, it did not dishearten him. In the
confinement, he felt free but only in the realm of thoughts.
He put up a brave face against all odds during of the days of confinement there. The intellectual
energies kept prodding Azad to do something for the people of Ranchi, especially Muslims, who
were considerably backward. In order to generate Islamic consciousness among them, he
founded Anjuman-i-Islamia and in due course of time decided to establish a madrasa known as
Madrasah-i-Islamia in 1917, though formally it was inaugurated only in 1918. In his efforts, he
was considerably supported by the locals in every possible way, particularly financially. The
most important donor to this project was one Rai Saheb Thakur Das, identified as Rais-i Ranchi,
apart from so many others. His involvement with this project was so intense that he prepared the
curriculum and the syllabus for the Madrasah, which included not the traditional subjects
generally, prescribed for madrasas but modern subjects too, such as science, mathematics etc.
The confinement at Ranchi also spared Azad, plenty of time to reflect on his family background
with a view to trace his scholarly antecedents; he highlighted the achievements of his ancestors
and presented them for the public view in the form of Tazkirah, which is considered an
autobiography in symbols. At this stage Azad was increasingly becoming conscious of the task
he had undertaken to awaken the nation, Muslims in particular to confront the British. Certain
curiosity had arisen in the minds of readers of the Al-Hilal about the personal family background
of Azad, which he wanted to satisfy with the help of Tazkirah. Moreover, Azad was keen to
project a certain image that he be recognised by the larger public as a scholar of Islam,
committed to the cause of truth and justice for which he was willing to suffer privation of all
kinds. The experiences in Ranchi had given Azad foretaste of things that he would face in days
to come. He earned the recognition of an intellectual willing to suffer for the cause of India‟s
independence from the British rule. It is hardly surprising that soon after he was released from
the confinement in the beginning of 1920, Azad took deeper plunge in the nationalist politics
with the élan and aura of an intellectual. This identity and image of Azad proved lasting, the die
of which was cast in the Ranchi days
Safoora Razeq
Safoora Razeq is Assistant professor at the Department of History at Aliah University. She was
formerly a Research Fellow at MAKAIAS, Kolkata. Her area of interest includes Reform
Movement in North India during the 19th Century, Gender Studies- special reference to women,
society and Shariat. At present she is working on Maulana Azad: His religion and politics.
Revisiting Maulana Azad in Calcutta
Maulana Azad was one of the great scholars and humanists of India. His religion and his
perception of politics were enigma to his contemporaries. His outstanding personal training made
him unique even before shooting to eminence in national politics. He was brought up in the
colonial capital of British India – Calcutta. In the first quarter of the 20th century Calcutta was
largely of migrant origin, nearly 50% of the total population coming from areas beyond Bengal.
A metropolis as it was in real sense. Men moved in from not only the Indian sub-continent but
greater part of Asia. The Afghan, the Iranians, the Baghdadis, the Egyptian, and the other
nationalities like the Armenians, the Chinese, the Scots and the French besides the overlords the
English. The focus of this paper will be on how Calcutta in the early 20th century as the melting–
pot of all sorts of revolutionaries and modern ideas helped Maulana Azad. When Maulana Azad
moved into Calcutta in 1898, Jamaluddin Afghani had just left and one of the greatest Imperialist
Lord Curzon was on his way. It was the time when the Bengali nationalism was emerging as the
biggest threat to the colonial existence. But the Muslim and the Hindu politicians had their
specific agenda to fallow nevertheless each wanted the end of the British rule? In their
desperation they confronted each other in the public space in the character of minor riots because
they were not yet trained with the passion of antagonism towards the colonial government. Azad
moved away from the elitist‟s politics of the Muslim leadership into the arena mass politics
fuelling the passion of the masses against the oppressive colonial regime. How did Azad the
philosopher worked out real politics in the city of Calcutta moving with the revolutionaries to
Swarajists to promote the idea of independence and democracy.
Syed Hanif Rasool
Syed Hanif Rasool is a lecturer in English in the Department of English, Edwardes College
Peshawar. He has submitted his thesis titled “An Analysis of Social Realism in Ahmad Ali‟s
Twilight in Delhi” to Qurtuba University Peshawar. He is particularly interested in anti-colonial
trends in the South Asian English novel. He is the secretary of Abul Kalam Azad Research
Institute, Pakistan and a devout Abulkalami.
Al-Hilal as the Spirit of Azad
Revolutionary and progressive in its contents, the journal Al-Hilal epitomizes the very spirit of
its founder, Maulana Azad. Like its founder who was radically different from the mainstream
Indian Muslim intelligentsia that either supported or showed indifference towards the British
Raj, Al-Hilal stood out as a bold Urdu magazine that, unlike other mainstream Muslim journals
of its times, not only exhorted the Muslims to participate in the freedom movement but also to
shun away their conservative modes of thinking and adopt a new progressive world outlook.
Again like Maulana Azad, Al-Hilal touched, in a very short period of time, heights of glory and
fame other magazines could only dream of. Al-Hilal blew the bugle of freedom and justice in
1913, well before those who did so years later following the October Revolution in Russia in
1917. Since the Holy Quran was the only source that could lift Muslims above sectarian interests
and make them part of a progressive and nationalist political struggle, Al-Hilal relied heavily on
Quranic teachings and reminded the Muslims that working for freedom from the British Raj was
not only their national but also religious and moral duty.
The message that Maulana Azad gave to the Muslims of India through Al-Hilal remained his
political manifesto till his death. There might have been changes in the external forms of
Maulana's struggle for the freedom of India and for promotion of a progressive world outlook
among the Muslims, the spirit behind his entire struggle remained unflinchingly consistent. Both
Maulana Azad and Al-Hilal stood for freedom, anti-colonialism, political activism, nationalism,
moderation, religious openness, and democracy – ideals that led to the end of the British
imperialist exploitation and the birth of the largest democracy in the world. For Maulana the real
sources of all these inspiring ideals were the teachings of not only Islam but of his deep study of
and open-mindedness towards the other religions as well. All in all, Al-Hilal worked towards a
moral, intellectual, political, and religious regeneration of the sub-continent‟s Muslims and
prepared them for the next phase of their combined political endeavors with the other
communities of India. The Maulana was a staunch believer in the promotion of sciences and the
arts, a fact reflected in every issue of the magazine. This paper tries to capture the spirit of Azad
through his Al-Hilal.
Abu Salman Shahjahanpuri
Abu Salman Shahjahanpuri is the President of Abul Kalam Azad Research Institute, Karachi and
taught at the Government National College, Karachi from 1972 to 2000.Born in Shahjahanpur
(Uttar Pradesh) on 30 January 1940, he is widely considered to be a doyen of Abul Kalam Azad
studies in the sub-continent. He has also made significant contributions on orthographical, lexical
and linguistic issues of Urdu, the history of Urdu journalism, the history of the political and
intellectual movements of the „nationalist‟ ‘ulama of Deoband, etc. His publications include
Imam al-Hind ta’mir-i afkar (1962), Armaghan-i Azad: Maulana Abul kalam Azad ka kalam aur
un ke ibtida’I mazamin (1978), Maulana Muhammad Ali: sawanih wa khidmat (1980), Maulana
Abul kalam Azad aur un ke mu’asirin (1989), Maulana Abul kalam Azad aur unke chand buzurg,
dost aur aqidatmand (1997), Diwan-i Ah (2001), Hazrat Shaikhulislam Maulana Sayyid Husain
Ahmad Madni ki siyasi dairi akhbar wa ifkar ki roshni men (2002-11), Ifadat-i Azad: mazhabi
aur adabi istifsarat ke jawabat (2007), and Maulana Abul kalam Azad : ek siyasi mutala’ah
(2012).
Azad Hind Ki Manzil-i Maqsud Aur Maulana Azad Ki Rahnumai
One of the most difficult questions that the Indian National Congress had to grapple with post1947 was in making a choice for the politico-social system that Independent India was to follow.
This was a crucial decision because the world was divided in two Isms; capitalism and socialism.
Both the systems demanded complete conformity to the path that their respective philosophers
had set for them. This compulsion was not suitable for the needs of the Indian society and its
particular environment.
Maulana Azad considered it to be dogmatic to follow either of the systems. He had broader
intellectual frame of mind and he did not want to leave his nation in the confinement of either of
them. Maulana Azad clearly rejected any implementation of capitalism. However, he approved
of a system that could be closer to socialism, though not absolutely similar to it. In1955 at the
60th annual meeting of Congress in Madras Maulana Azad presented a resolution for the change
of the social system in independent India. In his address Maulana Azad made it clear that the
demand of a „Socialist society‟ in India was not a new slogan of Congress. He considered it to be
in consonance with the manifesto of Congress. The speech that Maulana Azad delivered to
support his resolution was remarkable because in it he laid bare the principle on which the
foundation of the Indian economic system was to be laid. Maulana repeatedly used the term
„socialist society‟ and then referred to secularism and „democratic socialism‟. Dr. Riazur
Rehman Sherwani has rightly said that the secular character of the Indian state and Congress‟s
belief on democratic socialism were a result of the close association of Azad and Nehru.
The essence of Maulana Azad‟s speech is his clear perception of the difference between the
objectives and the means. According to Maulana Azad the preachers of both capitalism and
socialism worshipped the means but had forgotten the objectives. The real objective, according
to Azad, was the equal distribution of wealth. He added that India‟s real test was in its ability to
increase production and capital.
Ishtiyaq Ahmad Zilli
Ishtiyaq Ahmad Zilli is the Director, Darul Musannefin Shibli Academy, Azamgarh and former
Professor, Centre of Advanced Study in History, Aligarh Muslim University. A historian of
medieval India, his recent publications include The Mughal State and Culture 1556-1598:
Selected Letters and Documents from Munshaat-i Namakin (2007).He is the editor of the
monthly Urdu journal, Ma’arif.
Abul Kalam Azad and Shibli Nomani
In spite of the fact that enormous corpus of literature has emerged on almost all aspects of life
and thought of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, some areas still remain neglected and less probed.
One such area is his association with Allama Shibli Nomani, his stay at Nadwat al-ulama
seminary (Lucknow) and his editorship of al Nadwah and the extent of its influence on the
formation of his political ideas and shaping of his scholarly tastes. Most of those who have
written on him have failed to shed much light on this crucial phase of his life. The role of Shibli
in the evolution of his political outlook is little known and far less acknowledged. In fact Shibli‟s
influence on the evolution of Azad‟s intellectual and political ideas is so profound and the
evidence on the subject is so substantial that it cannot be ignored. Under Shibli‟s guidance Azad
seems to have stabilized and evolved into a mature scholar and writer. Shibli guided him to reach
the intellectual and political height that he had longed for. His devotion to pan-Islamism and his
stance against imperialism was an echo of Shibli‟s ideals. His attitude towards Islamic history
was tinged with the same kind of romanticism that was hall mark of Shibli‟s writings on Islamic
history. His disagreement with Sir Syed reflected Shibli‟s ideas. His opposition to Muslim
League mirrored Shibli‟s thinking. His nationalistic policies reflected Shibli‟s ideals and
thinking. His emphasis on Hindu-Muslim unity echoed Shibli‟s thoughts on the subject. Among
the three men, Azad, Hamiduddin Farahi and Saiyid Sulaiman Nadvi, whom Shibli seems to
have chosen to carry his legacy, Azad seems to have been more close to him and he shared with
him the most intimate details of his life. Al Hilal had his full moral support. Some of his best
Urdu poems were published in it and two of his most eminent disciples, Saiyid Sulaiman Nadvi
and Abdus Salam Nadvi, joined its staff. Azad cherished the memory of Shibli as long as he
lived. This found expression in his solicitude for those who carried the mission of Shibli after
him and his concern for the well being of his most precious legacy, Darul Musannefin Shibli
Academy. He reached out to it when it was in dire need of help. This paper intends to further
probe into the relationship that Azad shared with Shibli in order to understand Azad and his
thoughts.