Introduction 1. Muslim political discourse c.1857-1940 2. 'Mera Payam Aur Hai': Iqbal's roles as an intellectual and poet 3. Reconstruction of Islam 4. Rejecting nationalism, relocating the nation 5. Development of the nation Conclusion.

The Political Philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal: Islam and Nationalism in Late Colonial India

One of the most intriguing questions in the modern history of North India is why the Muslims of the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh, and referred to hereafter as U.P.; see Map 1) supported the demand for Pakistan when it was obvious that if they were successful they would have either to remain in a Hindu dominated India, or suffer the upheaval of migration. In recent years Paul Brass and Francis Robinson have debated the general question of Muslim separatism in U.P., taking positions which Brass has described, respectively, as ‘instrumentalist’ and ‘primordialist’. Brass argues that the Muslims were modernizing at a faster rate than Hindus, that they had a larger share of government jobs than their fourteen percent of the population would warrant, that Muslim politicians erected a myth of ‘the backward Muslim’ to protect this privilege, and then selected communally divisive symbols to mobilize support for their own drive to power. In short, the ‘instrumentalist’ position argues the autonomy of the ‘game of symbol selection’ on the part of the politicians, and therefore of the significance of symbol response on the part of those who supported the Muslim League and its demand for Pakistan. Robinson, on the other hand, first disagrees that the backwardness of the Muslims was a myth, especially relative to the role they perceived they had played in U.P. society for many centuries, and secondly, he seeks to demonstrate that the religious and cultural assumptions of the Muslim political leaders shaped and directed their actions.

The Illusion of Security: The Background to Muslim Separatism in the United Provinces

1. Introduction: community and conflict in South Asia 2. Building spheres of community: 1860s-1910s 3. Transforming spheres of community: the post First World War world 4. Nationalising spheres of community: anti-colonialism and religious politics 5. The 1940s, state transformation, community and conflict 6. National integrity and pluralism, 1947-1967 7. The decades of transformation: 1970s and 1980s 8. The resurgence of religious nationalism: 1990 to the present.

Religion and Conflict in Modern South Asia

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A Doctor in the House: Balancing Work and Care in the Life of Women Doctors in Pakistan

In 1840, the General Committee for Public Instruction in Bengal, presiding over the ‘Anglicist’ educational policy enunciated five years earlier, declared, “the ultimate object which we have in view is to infuse into the student, possessed of talents and leisure, a taste for literature and science,” all of which would “hasten the regeneration of the country.” The Committee observed with satisfaction that English education was proving very popular with the middle classes, but also noted, “At present, education is for the most part appreciated only for the direct returns it yields.” The Committee clearly hoped that over time education would come to be appreciated for other reasons. In the meantime, its instrumental value constituted a useful and even necessary inducement. A few years later, this same body reported many more students were entering and completing school, thus achieving their goal of attaining “the qualifications requisite to perform the mechanical duties of a writer [a clerk].” But, they continued, “our object to raise the character of the people by education and not by their purses is still far distant.”

Changing the Subject: Western Knowledge and the Question of Difference

The campaign to establish a Muslim University at Aligarh is a good example of the confluence of education and politics in modern India. The political motives involved were similar to those that lay behind the founding of the Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875: a sense that English education was a prerequisite to enfranchisement. By the turn of the century, the stakes were higher and the interests involved had expanded in number and complexity. The Muslim University movement represented nothing less than an effort to create an all-India Muslim constituency and to carve out for it a decisive piece of political power. It was political both in its attempt to consolidate support to influence specific government policies, and also as a direct challange to British control of the educational access too power.

Gail Minault

Papers

The Campaign for a Muslim University, 1898–1920