Rhetoric and Ritual in Colonial India: The Shaping of a Public Culture in Surat City, 1852-1928 (original) (raw)

COMMUNALISM AND THE RISE AND EVOLUTION OF MUSLIM INTELLIGENTSIA IN BENGAL: 1870s-1930s

2022

The origin of communal politics and violence in both pre and post independence India played a very significant role in the shaping of Indian history. Communalism has been viewed from various angles—as a false consciousness, an inescapable primordial reality or the outcome of politics based in vested interest. The rise of communalism in Bengal was somehow an inevitable fact because Bengal was home to two major communities – Hindus and Muslims. Although in theory, they were living in harmony since the ages, but in reality, the feeling of animosity and hostility was always there in their hearts as these two communities had contrasting development in the field of education, society and economy. The intellectual class also played a very significant role in this regard. The present article will discuss the discourse of the intellectual class and the gradual popularity of communalism in Bengal.

Review of Mohammad Rashiduzzaman's book, titled "Identity of a Muslim Family in Colonial Bengal: Between Memories and History" by Anindita Ghoshal

Journal of Migration Affairs, Vol. VI (1-2): 16-20 , 2024

“You are the son of a Muslim; why do you need so much education?” This one-liner in the book Identity of a Muslim Family in Colonial Bengal: Between Memories and History (New York: Peter Lang, 2021) by Mohammad Rashiduzzaman is enough to make one understand the enormity of the rift between Hindus and Muslims in colonial Bengal. As researchers of the Partition and refugee studies of South Asia, we often wonder how the masses began to accept the idea of making separate homelands for the two leading communities of Bengal. Indeed, they participated actively in communal politics at the grassroots level, initiated chiefly by the three major political parties of united Indian territory: the Congress, the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha, the latter two being actively against the centuries-long tradition of communal harmony in the pre-Partition East Bengal society. Interestingly, a study of the trends of Partition historiography reveals a shift, from the late 1970s onwards, in the focus of the research done by historians and social scientists: from the high politics of Partition to the more human side of it. However, the Partition narratives kept revolving only around the Hindu side of the stories. Hindu refugee narratives, therefore, became more prominent in Partition literature and films. The Muslim accounts of experiencing the division remained marginal for many reasons. The key reason was that the creation of Pakistan, a brand new nation-state on the map of South Asia, has always been seen in official accounts as an absolute achievement of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The Muslim League played a prominent role in the division of the country as Jinnah demanded Pakistan, a swapna-bhumi, or ‘promised land, for the Muslims in the Lahore Resolution of 1940. The demand for a separate homeland for Muslims created a grand narrative for Partition that ignored the social history of Muslim Bengalis, especially the mobility, tension and vibration between the communities in the countryside of Bengal. In this sociocultural and political context of colonial Bengal, Rashiduzzaman’s book provides an eye-opening account of both the processes and reasons behind the transformation of East Bengali society from a centre of composite culture to a land of identity politics.

"How oppressed are Muslims in India", Nida Kirmani's Review essay

http://herald.dawn.com/news/1153473/how-oppressed-are-muslims-in-india One of the most notable recent contributions to the understanding of Muslim histories in India is Mohammad Sajjad’s Muslim Politics in Bihar: Changing Contours. It moves away from the former centres of Mughal power which have generally been the focus of studies on Indian Muslims. Sajjad’s carefully researched work outlines the rich history of political mobilisation among Muslims in Bihar, the third-most populous state in India and one with a significant Muslim population, from the colonial period to the present. The author highlights the resistance amongst Bihari Muslims to the two-nation theory. This has largely been overlooked in studies of the pre-independence period which generally focus on Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Bengal. Sajjad, however, points out that Muslim political groups in Bihar were both anti-colonial and anti-separatist in orientation and regularly allied with Hindu groups in their political struggles. In the postcolonial period, he describes the movement for the promotion of Urdu – which began in the 1950s and continued through the 1980s – as a mass-based campaign, not carried out in religious and communal terms, but instead, on the basis of the rights guaranteed to linguistic minorities in the Indian constitution. Sajjad points to another subject hitherto untouched by other scholars: the question of caste among Muslims. Though Muslim elites in India would have us believe that there is no caste system among Indian Muslims, the 1990s witnessed the emergence of two significant movements: the All-India Backward Muslim Morcha and the All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz. These two movements campaigned for the rights of lower-caste Muslims in Bihar. Sajjad’s contribution is important in two ways. First, it focusses on a part of India that is under-researched when it comes to the study of Indian Muslims. Second, it not only highlights the issue of caste amongst Muslims but also focusses on mobilisation among – and also led by – non-elite groups. For this reason, his is a welcome addition to the existing literature on Indian Muslims.

Muslims Venture into Politics in India: A British Ploy or an Instinctive Reaction

Asian and African Studies, 2021

The formation of the All-India Muslim League, the first ever Muslim political party in British India to see the light of the day, represents a watershed in the political history of the Indian subcontinent. It was, in fact, the outcome of a long historical process during which the Muslims of India faced challenges at different levels, political, economic and socio-cultural. Yet, the origin of this political organisation has been a moot point among scholars. Did the British have a hand in its creation or was it a genuinely Muslim initiative? The aim of this article, therefore, is to investigate this issue as well as shed light on the circumstances that led to the birth of this party.