Category Archives: Books (incl.Biographies – w.e.f.01 jan 2018 )

‘Born a Muslim: Some Truths about Islam in India’ review: A sense of disillusionment

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Agra, UTTAR PRADESH :

Ghazala Wahab explains what it is to be a Muslim, a member of the largest religious minority in India today, and why the community lives in fear as prejudices persist.

Soma Basu reviews Born a Muslim: Some Truths about Islam in India, by Ghazala Wahab - The Hindu

The book opens with an unputdownable 42-page introduction that delves into the root of fear and despair among Muslims who have embraced the country as theirs but are polarised because of the identity they bear.

The shock and shame of communal riots, orchestrated mass violence and lynchings that served political agendas and led to societal divisions during the past decades hits you, as journalist Ghazala Wahab lays bare instances from her life.

Balanced narrative

She meticulously balances her narrative because she wishes to build a bridge of conversation. While she addresses fellow Muslims asking them to embrace modernity and be an integral part of positive change, she also alerts non-Muslim Indians about their perception of Muslims based on prejudice and hearsay, not facts.

Self-examining her own community members, she admits it never struck her how an average Muslim struggles to stay alive because she looked at things from her position of privilege. As she researched, she found equal opportunity and justice are only concepts and that law- making and law-enforcing agencies act in contradiction to vilify and stigmatise Muslims.

It is a vicious cycle, writes Ghazala, because the post-partition Muslims have remained an irrelevant votebank and sought security in their ghettos perpetuated by illiteracy, poverty and unemployment. The mullahs and clergy have easily taken them under their religious fold to exploit them. The general backwardness of the community has fed into a sense of loss of identity and unmet aspirations for Muslim youth, men and women.

Personal experience

In the mid-80s, Ghazala’s father shifted from their ancestral home in a middle class mohalla to an upscale Hindu-majority neighbourhood in Agra. His successful business and hobnobbing with the powerful, gave him the comfort of keeping his family under a security net. But that was till Agra was engulfed in violence post-kar seva after BJP leader L.K. Advani rolled out his rath yatra from Somnath to Ayodha in October, 1990, and was subsequently arrested. As sporadic violence spread across north India, Ghazala’s family wondered where they would be more secure — in their new neighbourhood or in a Muslim majority insulated mohalla.

Ghazala’s father called his brothers to safety and her mohalla uncles requested them to move back to the old Muslim locality. Ultimately everybody stayed where they were as fury was unleashed on their community everywhere. A young collegian then, Ghazala, her parents and three siblings were at home when an angry mob led by a neighbour shouted slogans, smashed windows, pelted stones and damaged their car. Desperate phone calls for help went unanswered.

When Ghazala’s father went to the police station to enquire about the adult males who were forcibly picked up from the mohalla during search operations, senior officials known to him avoided him. Those he thought had accepted him treated him as nothing more than a Muslim when it came to communal division. For Ghazala’s father it was not about being a victim but it was more about the humiliation, a betrayal of belief.

Turning point

Her family survived the riots but it left a scar. Her parents chose to go silent and it irked Ghazala that a victim should feel ashamed. She saw the same resignation and defeatist attitude when the Babri Masjid was razed. It unnerved her because she sensed it was a turning point not just for her family but for most Indian Muslims.

“Civility was the first casualty, replaced by communal prejudice and demonstrative religion,” she writes.

Many members in her extended family began to draw comfort from religious conservatism. She talks about a cousin who started wearing a headscarf and told her she was more comfortable with her Muslim friends as they didn’t have to pretend with one another, whereas to her Hindu friends she was a validation of their liberal outlook.

The conversation disturbed Ghazala as she never perceived two distinct identities in herself — a Muslim and an Indian. The issue was complex and so were several disparate questions.

Ghazala leans on poignant narration about the average Muslim being confused and scared through examples of those who have hidden their identity and reverted to Hinduism under perceived coercion. “They could never participate as equal partners in the country’s development. Only 2.6 per cent of Muslims are in senior-level jobs and a small number have achieved a reasonable upward mobility,” she writes.

On a positive note, Ghazala says Muslim society is changing. The protests against CAA/NRC in December 2019, she feels, has given rise to an assertive community even though her 1990 experience returned to haunt her in February 2020 when her paternal aunt’s family panicked as a mob reached their northeast Delhi colony. Anger and helplessness resurfaced when her aunt called her for help and her uncle refused to escape or abandon his life’s savings. The sense of fear doesn’t leave, she says.

Born a Muslim: Some Truths about Islam in India ; Ghazala Wahab, Aleph Book Company, ₹999.

soma.basu@thehindu.co.in

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books. Reviews / by Soma Basu / May 15th, 2021

Intriguing Tale of Muslim women Trailblazers

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Women/Girls(since May26-2021), World Opinion

INDIA:

Since time immemorial, people across cultures have been looking down upon women for their assumed enfeebled existence, but curiously the invincible might of the nation-state is primarily imagined in terms of feminine sensibilities. Nation and women share several traits, such as purity, chastity, and piety that must be protected.

This flimsy admiration aside, women continue to be the object of the stifling affliction of subjugation, marginalization and gender equality. The pitiable condition of Muslim women in India, their boundless deprivation and their servitude to patriarchal misrepresentation of religion look self-evident. Not many know that through determination and self-belief, daughters of destitution knocked over many unsurpassable hurdles and attained unprecedented success.

Undeterred by searing double jeopardy,   some determined Muslim women weaved a   gripping and admirable narrative of self-discovery and phenomenal individual growth that strengthened collective consciousness, empowerment and national aspirations in the six decades. They have had many firsts to their credit. The fairly long list includes the names of  Fathima Bibi ( the first female supreme court judge who took over in 1989); Suraya Tyabji; (the incredible artist who designed our national flag in 1947); Begum Akhtar (the first female singer who judiciously wrapped up Vivadi Sur in Ghazal singing and earned the title of Ghazal Queen), Sania Mirza (the first Indian woman to win the ATS tennis title)  Rokeya Sakhwat Hussain, ( jotted down the first female utopian novel, Sultana’s Dream”, 1905 in which gender roles were reversed.) Ismat Chughtai (the first fiction writer who explored various dimensions of the forbidden female sexuality in her short story Lihaf), Rasheed Jahan (edited an anthology of short stories, Angare that presented a poignant and heart wrenching account of exasperating struggles that women have to confront in the patriarchal society) and  Qurratul Ain Haider (who judiciously used stream of consciousness to explore and reflect upon the gender injustices). Some Muslim women such as Razia Sultana, Chand Bibi and Begums of Bhopal, especially Sultan Jahan, committed themselves to the male-driven and exhausting path of leading the country, and they mapped new terrains of courage, bravery and governance. However, their contribution to collective life is not adequately documented.

These vital pieces of information largely lay in oblivion and have been aptly articulated and cogently documented in an astutely edited anthology of Muslim women trailblazers, Apostle of Transformation, published recently (Peter Lang, 2022). The anthology, edited by a well-known Islamic scholar Akhtarul Wasey and a promising academician Juhi Gupta, carries an assortment of 23 articles that engages the constitutive acts of turning mundane life into moments of epiphany by Muslim women. Their pulsating and coming-of-age experiences need to be told candidly.

Akhtarul Wasey and Juhi Gupta took pains to upend the widespread but erroneous perception that hardly considers Muslim women beyond being silent and passive onlookers. The book produces a gripping and layered narrative of those women who are to be reckoned as role models, but why their awe-inspiring efforts have not fetched the requisite response? As a central premise of the study, this question hardly took off, and the editors dish out a laudatory and partially plausible answer instead. For Wasey and Juhi, Muslim women, by and large, sump up a story of hope and resilience, and they assert, “In reality, Indian Muslim women, in the past and the present, have exerted their freedom, identity and agency. One way or the other, they have found ways to create, contribute, act and participate in various fields and ascended to prominence. Be it art, science, nation-building or politics, there have been hordes and hordes of Indian Muslim women pioneering, participating and contributing to development in the specific field.”

The creative dexterity, sweep of learning and speculative intelligence of Muslim women resonate with almost every genre of literature and non-fiction, and Urdu is not the only beneficiary. Azarmi Dukht Safavi, Rakshanda Jaleel, Rana Safavi, Annie Zaidi, Sami Rafeeq,  Nazia Erum, Rana Ayub, Ghazala Wahab, Huma Khalil,   Zehra Naqvi, Reema Ahmad, Nasra Sharma,  Sadiqa Nawab Saher and the like make it for Persian English and Hindi with remarkable success. Their stories bear witness to what the editors asserted in the preface.

Several prominent authors and academicians, including Syeda Hameed, Rasheed Kidwai, Madhu Rajput,  Bharthi Harishankar, Shahida Murtaza, Sabiha Hussain Ayesha Muneera, Azra Musavi, Shiangini Tandon, excavate details and they set forth a discourse whose emotional arc looks irresistible.

The book zeroes in on many prominent women by employing the case study method. Syeda Hameed, in her ear-to-ground and empathetic story of an accomplished author Saliha Abid Hussain whose fifty books, including her profoundly consequential autobiography, Silsila-e- Roz-o- Shabh (sequence of Days and nights), hardly got the recognition she deserved. It rightfully peeved Syeda Hameed, who candidly enumerated her oeuvre by observing that she was a  chronicler of her times with natural talent for storytelling and, above all, a woman who believed, practised, and propagated her religion in its most liberal and humanitarian spirit.

Not many knew that Qudsiya Sikandar, Shah Jhan and Sultan Jahan were more than fortuitous rulers of Bhopal. Rasheed Kidwai employed laudatory idiom for adeptly documenting how their rule saw justice, gender sensitivity, peace and reforms even as faith and traditions remained intact. Surayya Tayyabji’s incredible artistic dexterity and pivotal role in designing our tricolour continue to elude public attention, and Shahida Murtaza’s academic rigour-filled succinct article, Surayya Tayyabji, the Resolute woman, supplements it.

The dreadful and calamitous partition is dotted with poignant tales of sufferance, and heart wrenching stories of the abducted women remained inarticulated.   It was the turn of a celebrated author and activist, Begum Anees, who put together permeating and nuanced memories of the event and its earth-shattering aftermaths from the standpoint of women subjected to unprecedented affliction. Azra Musavi made her autobiography, Azadi Ki Chaon Mein (In Freedom’s Shade), the object of a single pristine look. Azra’s lucid close reading of the text draws forth an informed debate on how the two states faltered in fulfilling the aspiration of people.

Ayesha Muneera astutely spells out the contours of  Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain’s creative world, and she argues that Sultana’s Dream is a feminist, political,  and ecological utopia. She sides with Nilanjana Bhattacharya by terming it an anti-colonial text. For her, the novel works against India’s colonialization and internal colonization of women within Indian society. Rokeya’s trail-blazing text subtly conjures a dystopian world where gender roles are reversed, but the environs remain dreadful.

Naima Khatoon produced an evocative piece on Begum Akhtar, one of the most accomplished singers of Ghazal, Dadra and Thumri that India ever produced. She blended music and poetry with remarkable ease.

In her article, Sabiha Hussain ropes in feminist and cultural studies tools to map the creative terrains of Ismat Chughtai and Qurratul ain Haider.

Juhi Gupta turns her attention to the family of  Sheikh Abdullah, the pioneer of Muslim women’s education, and she perceptively analyses the contribution of Begum Abdullah, well-known educationist  Mumtaz Jahan, famous author Rasheed Jahan and prominent actor  Begum Khurshid Mirza (Renuka Devi).

Shah Alam insightfully unravels the vanguards of change, and his laconic account, Vignettes of Muslim women Politicians in India reads well.

Faiza Abbasi,  Mayuri Chaturvedi, Chand Bi, Tauseef Fatima, Bharti Hari Shankar, Rekha Pandey, Abida Quansar, Madhu Rajput, Bilal Wani, Naseem Shah, Shirin Sherwani, Shivandgini Tandon, Ruchika Verma,  Anam Wasey and  Huma Yaqub are the other contributors who made the anthology an intriguing read.

source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> Featured News / by Shafey Kidwai / November 12th, 2022

Mechanical Engineering Alumni of Iowa State University, Najeeb Kuzhiyil publishes novel: ‘Spirit of Engineering’

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Kochi, KERALA / Texas, USA :

Spirit of Engineering, published by ME alum Najeeb Kuzhiyil in December 2017, tells the story of two freshman college students and their journey to discover what engineering is. Image courtesy of Najeeb Kuzhiyil

A novel penned by a mechanical engineering alum tells the story of two freshmen college students and their journey to discover what engineering is.

Najeeb Kuzhiyil, who graduated with a PhD in ME in 2013, recently published his first novel: Spirit of Engineering: The Journey of Two College Freshmen and the Soul of Engineering. The idea to write the book, which was published in December 2017, first came to Kuzhiyil while he was a student at Iowa State.

“So I thought before you begin your undergrad studies, you should understand what engineering is in simple terms,” said Kuzhiyil. “I really wanted to write a book that was simple enough for high school students.”

The book took about a year and a half to write and started out as separate essays covering four pillars of engineering: methodical approach, practical skills, abstraction, and creativity.

“One morning I was lying in my bed and I thought why don’t I tell this as a story. I can include all of these concepts and wind them into a nice plot,” Kuzhiyil said.

The target audience for the book is high school students or perhaps even freshmen in college. The plot is set in modern times and follows around two main characters who are both first year engineering students at an unnamed Midwestern college: Matt from northern Iowa and Maya from India.

Matt and Maya come across a presentation about the Wright Brothers which piques their interest to the point that they decide to travel to the Wright Brothers museum in Dayton, Ohio in an attempt to better understand what engineering really is. During their travels they meet an experienced, middle-aged engineer who helps them understand how math, physics, and other natural phenomena apply to engineering.

Kuzhiyil said that his PhD advisor Robert C Brown, Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering, was a major influence on him personally and with his writing style specifically.

“He’s a wonderful engineer and he’s a great writer because we as engineers aren’t always great writers,” said Kuzhiyil. “Before coming to Iowa State I never paid attention to my English but Dr. Brown told us ‘You might be great engineers but you also have to learn how to write well. It’s very important to be able to express your ideas.’”

Brown, who also serves as director of the Bioeconomy Institute at Iowa State, wrote the foreword of the book. He said he thinks the book can be helpful for the next generation of engineers.

“I would have benefited from this book when I was in high school, at the time having no clear idea of the engineering profession. Even today despite the emphasis on STEM education, engineers are rarely portrayed in popular culture except for the occasional less than flattering role of bumbling technocrat. Najeeb’s book helps to overcome this stereotype,” Brown said.

Kuzhiyil cited Brown, whose research focuses on biorenewable resources, as a major reason why he chose Iowa State to pursue his PhD. Kuzhiyil is originally from the state of Kerala in southern India. He attended school in the city of Kochi and began developing an interest in chemical engineering in high school. He attributed his interest in engineering to his older brother, Dr. Abdul Kader, who studied chemistry and worked at a fertilizer manufacturing company.

“I didn’t know anything about chemical engineering, but as a kid I thought it would be cool to learn about it,” he said, adding there was a large petroleum refinery close to home that always fascinated him.

Kuzhiyil graduated with a bachelor of technology in chemical engineering from the University of Calicut and went on to work as a tech service engineer for Indian Oil Corporation.

After a decade in industry, Kuzhiyil decided to pursue an advanced degree. In graduate school his interest shifted from chemical engineering to renewable energy. He graduated with a MS in Combustion and Energy from the University of Leeds in England in 2005.

Kuzhiyil came to Iowa State in 2008 and was involved in various groups outside of his engineering studies, including serving as president of the Indian Students Association from 2009 to 2010. Despite spending just three years in Ames, Kuzhiyil said he made friends and memories that will last a lifetime.

“There were so many moments I really enjoyed at Iowa State,” said Kuzhiyil. “Our research group was so big we had people from all over the world. We had people from India, China, Europe, Africa, from all over and we had discussions on science, on politics, on life, on love, on everything. They were all great for me because different viewpoints and perspectives on different things were really insightful. I really had a blast and enjoyed every moment of my PhD.”

Kuzhiyil added that he loved the beauty of Iowa State’s campus, especially during the spring bloom, and that he enjoyed participating in the International Food Festival during the annual VEISHEA celebration.

After completing his PhD, he worked as a fuels and lubricants technologist at General Electric for six years. In November 2017, he was hired as a staff engineer in synthetic lubricants at ExxonMobil Corporation. His current work focuses on engine oils and gear oils and how it relates to fuel economy.

“By using synthetic lubricants we can improve fuel and the energy efficiency. Synthetics are more of a move toward a sustainable future,” Kuzhiyil said, adding that the job has been a nice marriage between his interests in chemical engineering and renewable energy.

During his career, Kuzhiyil has studied or worked on three different continents. He said that these diverse experiences have contributed to his professional development and have been helpful when approaching challenges.

“In engineering most of the problems we deal with are open-ended. There’s no single answer to many of the problems. You can design things in different ways so the engineer’s job is to design a product or a process or whatever, within the constraints of resources, environment, culture and weather. All of those factors play into the engineering,” said Kuzhiyil.

“Because I come from India, and I lived in Europe and the U.S., all of these places are different if you look at the available resources, the weather, the philosophy, etcetera. I really got a lot of examples of how the same product can be different on these three different continents and I think that’s been helpful in getting me to where I am today.”

source: http://www.news.engineering.iastate.edu / Iowa State University, College of Engineering / by Nick Fetty (headline edited) / April 02nd, 2018

Armistice Day: Remembering Forgotten Indian Heroes of WW1 Through Urdu Poetry

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BRITISH INDIA :

The four years of the World War 1 saw the service of 1.3 million Indians, of whom 74,000 never made it back home.

Armistice Day: Remembering Forgotten Indian Heroes of WW1 Through Urdu Poetry

The First World War , or the Great War as it is also called, raged across Europe and several war arenas scattered across the world from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. These four years saw the service of 1.3 million Indians, of whom 74,000 never made it back home. For their families, the war was something they couldn’t quite understand.

Given the large-scale Indian involvement in a war that the majority of Indians could not fully comprehend, we shall once again look into the mirror of Urud to see how the poet viewed the momentous years of the Jang-e Azeem as the Great War came to be called in Urdu.

Several poets, lost in the veils of time and virtually unknown today, made interventions as did the more famous ones who continue to be well known though possibly not in the context of what they had to say about World War I.

Urdu’s Rendition of the Greatest Human Tragedy

Presented below is a sampling of the socially-conscious, politically-aware message of the poets of the times. Not all of these poets are well-known today nor is their poetry of a high caliber yet fragments of their work have been included here simply to illustrate how the poet had his finger to the pulse of his age and circumstance.

Let us begin with Sibli Nomani and his wryly mocking Jang-e Europe aur Hindustani that deserves to be quoted in full:

Ek German ne mujh se kaha az rah-e ghuroor

‘Asaan nahi hai fatah to dushwar bhi nahin

Bartania ki fauj hai dus lakh se bhi kum

Aur iss pe lutf yeh hai ke tayyar bhi nahin

Baquii raha France to woh rind-e lam yazal

Aain shanaas-e shewa-e paikaar bhi nahin’

Maine kaha ghalat hai tera dawa-e ghuroor

Diwana to nahi hai tu hoshiyar bhi nahin

Hum log ahl-e Hind hain German se dus guneh

Tujhko tameez-e andak-o bisiar bhi nahin

Sunta raha woh ghaur se mera kalaam aur

Phir woh kaha jo laiq-e izhaar bhi nahin

‘Iss saadgi pe kaun na mar jaaye ai Khuda

Larhte hain aur haath mein talwar bhi nahin!’

(Consumed with pride, a German said to me:

‘Victory is not easy but it isn’t impossible either

The army of Britannia is less than ten lakh

And not even prepared on top of that

As for France, they are a bunch of drunks

And not even familiar with the art of warfare’

I said your arrogant claim is all wrong

If not mad you are certainly not wise

We the people of Hind are ten times the Germans

Cleary you cannot tell big from small

He listened carefully to what I had to say

Then he said something that can’t can’t be described

‘By God, anyone will lay down their life for such simplicity

You are willing to fight but without even a sword in your hand!’)

That the Urdu poet was not content with mere high-flying rhetoric and was rooted in and aware of immediate contemporary realities, becomes evident when Brij Narain Chakbast declares in his Watan ka Raag (‘The Song of the Homeland’):

Zamin Hind ki rutba mein arsh-e-aala hai

Yeh Home Rule ki ummid ka ujala hai

Mrs Besant ne is aarzu ko paala hai

Faqir qaum ke hain aur ye raag maala hai

Talab fuzool hai kante ki phool ke badle

Na lein bahisht bhi hum Home Rule ke badle

(The land of Hind is higher in rank than the highest skies

All because of the light of hope brought forth by Home Rule

This hope has been nurtured by Mrs Besant

I am a mendicant of this land and this is my song

It’s futile to wish for the thorn instead of the flower

We shall not accept even paradise instead of Home Rule)

Poems Charged With the Spirit of Revolution

Similarly, Hasrat Mohani, in a poem called Montagu Reforms, is scathing about the so-called reforms that were given as SOPs to gullible Indians during the war years, which were mere kaagaz ke phool (paper flowers) with no khushboo (fragrance) even for namesake. The poem ends with a fervent plea that the people of Hind should not be taken in by the sorcery of the reforms.

Ai Hindi saada dil khabardar

Hargiz na chale tujh pe jadu

ya paayega khaak phir jab inse

Iss waqt bhi kuchh na le saka tu

(O simple people of Hind beware

Don’t let this spell work on you

If you couldn’t couldn’t take anything from them now

You’re not likely to get anything at all)

Josh Malihabadi who acquired his moniker of the shair-e- inquilab or the ‘revolutionary poet’ during the war period, talks with vim and vigour of the revolution that is nigh, a revolution that will shake the foundations of the British empire in his Shikast-e Zindaan ka Khwaab (‘The Dream of a Defeated Prison’:

Kya Hind ka zindaan kaanp raha hai guunj rahi hain takbiren

Uktae hain shayad kuchh qaidi aur torh rahe hain zanjiren

Divaron ke niche aa aa kar yuun jama hue hain zindani

(How the prison of Hind is trembling and the cries of God’s greatness are echoing

Perhaps some prisoners have got fed up and are breaking their chains

The prisoners have gathered beneath the walls of the prisons)

Satire, Pain and Passion Punctuate These Poems

The ever-doubting, satirical voice of Akbar Allahabadi— a long- time critic of colonial rule and a newfound admirer of Gandhi, shows us the great inescapable link between commerce and empire that Tagore too had alluded to:

Cheezein woh hain jo banein Europe mein

Baat woh hai jo Pioneer mein chhapey…

Europe mein hai jo jung ki quwwat barhi huwi

Lekin fuzoon hai uss se tijarat barhi huwi

Mumkin nahin laga sakein woh tope har jagah

Dekho magar Pears ka hai soap har jagah

(Real goods are those that are made in Europe

Real matter is that which is printed in the Pioneer…

Though Europe has great capability to do war

Greater still is her power to do business

They cannot install a canon everywhere

But the soap made by Pears is everywhere)

The great visionary poet Iqbal, who is at his most active, most powerful during these years, does not make direct references to actual events in the war arena;

nevertheless, he is asking Indians to be careful, to heed the signs in Tasveer-e Dard (‘A Picture of Pain’):

Watan ki fikr kar nadan musibat aane waali hai

Tiri barbadiyon ke mashvare hain asmanon mein

(Worry for your homeland, O innocents, trouble is brewing

The portents of disaster awaiting you are written in the skies.)

Adopting a fake admiring tone, Ahmaq Phaphoondvi seems to be praising the sharpness of the British brain in Angrezi Zehn ki ki Tezi (‘The Cleverness of the English Mind’) when he’s actually warning his readers of the perils of being divided while the British lord over them.

Kis tarah bapa hoon hangama aapas mein ho kyun kar khunaraizi

Hai khatam unhein schemon main angrezi zehn ki sab tezi

Ye qatl-o khoon ye jung-o jadal, ye zor-o sitam ye bajuz-o hasad

Baquii hii raheinge mulk mein sab, baqui hai agar raj angrezi

(Look at the turmoil and the bloodshed among our people

The cleverness of the English mind is used up in all such schemes

This murder ’n mayhem, wars ’n battles, cruelties ’n malice

The country’s garden is barren, with nothing but dust and desolation)

Towards Freedom and Fervour..

Zafar Ali Khan sounds an early, and as it turns out in the face of the British going back on their promise of self-governance, entirely premature bugle of freedom. While warning his fellow Indians to change with the changing winds that are blowing across the country as the war drags to an end, he’s also pointing our attention to the ‘Toadies’, a dreaded word for the subservient Indians who will gladly accept any crumbs by way of reforms in his poem Azaadi ka Bigul (‘The Bugle of Freedom’):

Bartania ki meiz se kuchh reze gire hain

Ai toadiyon chunne tum innhe peet ke bal jao

(Some crumbs have fallen from the table of Britannia

O Toadies, go crawling on your bellies to pick them)

In the end, there’s Agha Hashar Kashmiri who, in a sarcastic ode to Europe called Shukriya Europe, thanks it for turning the world into a matamkhana (mourning chamber), and for having successfully transformed the east into an example of hell.

Utth raha hai shor gham khakistar paamaal se

Keh raha hai Asia ro kar zaban-e haal se

Bar mazar-e ma ghariban ne chiraghe ne gule

Ne pare parwane sozo ne sada-e bulbule

(A shout is rising from the dust of the downtrodden

Asia is crying out and telling the world at large

On my poor grave there are neither lamps nor flowers

And not the wing of the moth or the sad song of the nightingale.)

(Rakhshanda Jalil is a writer, translator and literary historian. She writes on literature, culture and society. She runs Hindustani Awaaz, an organisation devoted to the popularisation of Urdu literature. She tweets at  @RakshandaJalil

This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

source: http://www.thequint.com / The Quint / Home> Voices> Opinion / by Rakshanda Jalil / November 11th, 2022

Khalid Jawed’s ‘The Paradise of Food’ wins the JCB Prize for Literature 2022

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NEW DELHI :

The literary work is the fourth translation and the first Urdu work to win the JCB Prize

(Left to right) Mita Kapur, literary director, The JCB Prize for Literature; Sunil Khurana, chief operating officer, JCB India; winning author Khalid Jawed; translator of ‘The Paradise of Food’ Baran Farooqi and jury member AS Panneerselvan
JCB Prize

Khalid Jawed’s The Paradise of Food has been awarded the JCB Prize for Literature 2022. The book was chosen by a panel of five judges. 

The Paradise of Food has been translated into English from Urdu by Baran Farooqi and published by Juggernaut. The Rs 25 lakh prize was awarded to the author virtually by Sunil Khurana, chief operating officer, JCB India, and A.S. Panneerselvan, chair of the jury for 2022, at a hybrid event organised at The Oberoi, New Delhi. Khalid Jawed also received the trophy — a sculpture titled ‘Mirror Melting’ by Delhi artist duo Thukral and Tagra.

The Paradise of Food, which is the fourth translation to win the JCB Prize and the first in Urdu, is a bildungsroman that traces the narrator’s journey through life anchored in a middle-class Muslim joint family. 

The jury comprised Panneerselvan, journalist, editor and columnist; author Amitabha Bagchi; J Devika, historian, feminist, social critic and academician; author Janice Pariat and Rakhee Balaram, assistant professor, Global Art and Art History at the University of  Albany, State University of New York. The award ceremony began with a welcome note from Mita Kapur, literary director of the JCB Prize, and an address by Deepak Shetty, CEO & managing director, JCB India. Classical dance performances by Shriram Bhartiya Kala Kendra led up to the grand announcement.

Speaking about the merit of The Paradise of Food as a piece of literature, Bagchi commented, “This singular and moving book shines a scintillating light on the violence at the heart of human civilisation. The language contains several beautiful and unusual formulations that are a literary achievement by both the author and the extremely skilled translator. A literary landmark in a less-celebrated genre of Urdu’s grand literary tradition, this work deserves to be widely read in India and beyond.” 

Other members of the jury, too, unanimously appreciated Jawed’s book. Rakhee Balaram described the work as a “book of indescribable brilliance” and to J. Devika, it was a “powerful ice-pick in the winter of civilisational crisis that has engulfed the countries of South Asia”.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / Telegraph India / Home> My Kolkata> Events> Literary Event / by My Kolkata Web Desk / November 20th, 2022

Jamaat-e-Islami Hind President mourns demise of renowned economist Dr Nejatullah Siddiqui

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Gorakhpur / Aligarh /UTTAR PRADESH / U.S.A. :

New Delhi : 

Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) President Syed Sadatullah Husaini has mourned the passing away of renowned economist Dr. Nejatullah Siddiqui

In a media statement, the JIH President said that Dr. Nejatullah Siddiqui’s contribution to the field of Islamic economics was unparalleled and he pioneered the concept of Islamic banking and laid the foundations of what is currently a thriving multi-billion-dollar industry.

Mr.Husaini held that Dr. Nejatullah was a very versatile personality dedicated to learning and development and, despite living abroad, he contributed intellectually to many forums and institutions in India. Calling his demise, a great loss to the Muslim world and the Islamic Movement, Mr.Husaini said, “his passing away leaves a great vacuum in the field of Islamic economics and finance.”

Offering his heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family members, the JIH leader said, “May Allah forgive him, grant him the highest position in Paradise and bestow patience upon his family members.”

Dr. Mohammad Nejatullah Siddiqui, an Indian economist, was awarded the King Faisal International Prize (Saudi Arabia) for Islamic Studies in 1982. Born in India in 1931, he was educated at Aligarh Muslim University as well as Rampur and Azamgarh.

He served as Associate Professor of economics and Professor of Islamic studies at the Aligarh Muslim University and as Professor of economics at the King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in its Center for Research in Islamic Economics.

He later became a Fellow at the Center for Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (USA), and after that a visiting scholar at the Islamic Research and Training Institute, Islamic Development Bank, Jeddah.

He was a prolific writer in Urdu and English with 63 works in 177 publications and 1301 library holdings to his credit. Several of his works have been translated into Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Indonesian, Malaysian, and Thai languages. He was also the recipient of the Shah Waliullah Award in New Delhi for contributions to Islamic Economics.

Some of his notable books are Recent Theories of Profit: A Critical Examination, Economic Enterprise in Islam, Muslim Economic Thinking, Banking Without Interest, Partnership and profit-sharing in Islamic law, Insurance in an Islamic Economy, Teaching Economics from in Islamic Perspective, Role of the State in Islamic Economy, Dialogue in Islamic Economics, and Islam’s View on Property.

source: http://www.indiatomorrow.net / India Tomorrow / Home> National Interest / November 12th, 2022

Ex-VP Hamid Ansari’s ‘Challenges to a liberal polity’ book review: The politics of being Indian

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Kolkata, WEST BENGAL / NEW DELHI :

A collection of speeches and articles by former vice-president Hamid Ansari, offering engaging insights into our democracy.

Challenges to A Liberal Polity: Buy Challenges to A Liberal Polity by Ansari M. Hamid at Low Price in India | Flipkart.com
Challenges to a Liberal Polity: Human Rights, Citizenship & Identity / by M Hamid Ansari / Publisher Penguin / Pages 277 /Price 799 INR

For the past decade, public discourse in India has remained sharply focused on challenges to the liberal polity and the threats that have grown to human rights. Issues of citizenship and identity are entwined inextricably in this. It is in this context that Challenges to a Liberal Polity: Human Rights, Citizenship & Identity assumes not only topicality but also a significance that can be overlooked only at the readers’ own peril.

Hamid Ansari is a distinguished diplomat, academic, statesman and also, the often misused word, a public intellectual. He has, in his long career, worn many hats. He has served as the Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Chairman of the Minorities Commission and the Vice President of India. Throughout his life, Ansari has never shied away from speaking his mind—bluntly if need be.

The author has, at times, been exposed to unfair criticism and deliberately humiliated by persons in high office who should have known better. When bidding him farewell, PM Narendra Modi was unnecessarily sarcastic—some thought gracelessly—by mentioning that Ansari had spent most of his diplomatic career in Islamic countries and perhaps he would be more comfortable now that he was relieved of the burden of the constitutional position to freely voice criticism of whatever he didn’t agree with. The PM conveniently forgot that the former vice-president served with distinction as India’s permanent representative in the United Nations and as Chief of Protocol when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister in an era of dynamic Indian diplomacy. But, let us not digress.

This volume is a collection of speeches, forewords and articles contributed by the author on subjects that overlap and cover a vast time span from the turn of the century to the present day. The introduction is stimulating and thought-provoking. It presents a distilled essence of state-of-the-art research in political science and Indian society. This prepares the readers for what is to follow.

The book is divided into three sections. The first section deals with human rights and group rights. The subsections or mini-chapters can be read profitably as independent essays. Of particular interest are the ones titled––‘India and the Contemporary International Norms on Group Rights’, ‘Minorities and the Modern State’ and ‘Majorities and Minorities in Secular India: Sensitivity and Responsibility’.

The second section is titled ‘Indian Polity, Identity, Diversity and Citizenship’. This is more substantial than the preceding segment and covers a range of topics that should engage readers with different interests and ideological orientations. Examples include ‘Identity and Citizenship: An Indian Perspective’, ‘Religion, Religiosity and World Order’, ‘Two Obligatory -isms: Why Pluralism and Secularism is Essential to our Democracy’. There are shorter pieces like ‘The Ethics of Gandhi’ and ‘The Dead Weight of State Craft’, ‘India’s Plural Diversity is Under Threat: Some Thoughts on Contemporary Challenges in the Realm of Culture’. How one wishes that these themes had been explored in greater detail.

To some it may appear that this is nitpicking, but this is the hazard of compiling a collection of comments and observations made on commemorative occasions such as inaugurating or concluding a seminar, a workshop or writing a short preface. Ansari is primarily a scholar, who is deeply distraught by the happenings around him and is restless to share his constructive thoughts and not just the distress and despair. The tone is always cautiously optimistic.

The concluding section deals with ‘Indian-Muslim Perception and Indian Contribution to Culture of Islam’. The essays on ‘Militant Islam’, ‘Islam and Democratic Principle’ and ‘India and Islamic Civilisation: Contributions and Challenges’ deserve to be read by all Indians, particularly the young. One may disagree with the author, but it is impossible to imagine that any meaningful dialogue can take place between the majorities and minorities in India without an understanding of how the ‘other’ thinks and perceives the world.

His convocation addresses delivered at Jamia Millia Islamia (where he taught) and the AMU (his alma mater) have a different flavour. The tone is personal and evokes shared nostalgia. The final essay is a review of India and muslim world.

The book has substantial end-notes that provide useful bibliographical information. One can flip through these pages to pursue the themes dealt in the book according to one’s own inclination and at leisure.


This book is for all. The general reader, who has no scholarly pretensions, too can turn the pages of this book with great pleasure. Many a time, the author peppers the prose with Urdu couplets that hook the reader to his line of arguments. One such piece is his Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Memorial lecture. Most people remember this vice-president as the supine individual who signed on the dotted line with dimmer when Indira Gandhi declared Emergency at midnight. Ansari, however,  has used the book brilliantly to make some hard- hitting comments that are im- possible not to take on the chin.

The chapter begins with: Yaad-e-maazi azaab hai yaa rab/ Chheen le mujhse hafiza mera (The memory of the past is torturous, O God/Take away my memory from me), and concludes with: “Can the amnesia, the compromises and the misconceptions of recent and not-so-recent past be overcome?” Yes, only if meaningful alternative is offered. We do stand at the crossroads.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Lifestyle> Books / by Pushpesh Pant / Express News Service / November 06th, 2022

Poignant Real-Life Stories

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Community Involvement / Social Issues, First War of Independence 1857 / Naval Mutiny 1946 / Others PreIndependece (wef. July 27th, 2022), Leaders, Martyrs of the Nation, Royal Families, PreIndependence -Descendants (wef. Jan 02nd,2022), Women/Girls(since May26-2021), World Opinion

xxx

When Nobles became non-entities, Princes became paupers and Begums were reduced to beggars…

  • Title: Tears of the Begums: Stories of Survivors of the Uprising of 1857  (Originally in Urdu  as ‘Begumat Ke Aansoo’)
  • Author: Khwaja Hasan Nizami
  • Publisher: Hachette India
  • Year of Publication : 1922 
  • Translator : Ms. Rana Safvi  (2022)
  • Pages: 212+xii
  • Price: Rs. 499

The Sepoy Mutiny (or the First War of Independence as we call it) started in 1857, over the issue of the greasing of the cartridges used in the guns of Indian soldiers of the East India Company army. It was known by the Urdu word “Ghadar” meaning rebellion or revolt. 

The rebellion spread rapidly in North India particularly around Lucknow and Delhi. The rebellious soldiers killed a large number of British officers, women and children. They adopted as their leader the surviving Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar without his consent. He was only a namesake Emperor who was on a generous pension given by the East India Company, and did not have any power beyond the precincts of the Red Fort, nor had the money to help the soldiers.  He was reluctant to take on the British army  but  was helpless and had to go with the demands of rebellious soldiers.

Though initially the British had a setback,  they quickly regrouped and took over Delhi. The Red Fort had about 3,000 royal families all of whom were descendants of the present and past emperors. The emperor’s court life was filled with pomp and grandeur, though he had no real authority. 

Bahadur Shah himself was a refined and gentle soul and a poet. Delhi was ruled by the English Resident. The lives of  the royals living in the “Lal Qila” was lavish with big mansions, large number of servants and slaves. Ghadar was a watershed moment in Indian history and the grand and elegant Mughal culture ended suddenly and dramatically.

Kulsum Zamani Begum was the beloved daughter of the last emperor Bahadur Shah. On the night he left the fort, he sent her and her family away entrusting them to the care of Khuda (God). Within a few days of leaving the Red Fort they were looted of all their money, jewels and even their expensive clothes. Finally on the way some villagers give them shelter in a thatched hut. The company soldiers were looking for the emperor’s descendants to arrest and punish. They escaped to Hyderabad, where they were given shelter by Nawab Lashkar Jung,  who had given shelter to many Mughal royals who had escaped from Delhi.

In a few years the British had their way and the Princess was advised to leave Hyderabad. Some of the well-wishers of the Mughals arranged for her to travel to Mecca.  One of the slaves she had freed while she was the Princess in Delhi had migrated to Mecca and had become an extremely wealthy merchant there.  He looked after her very well and made her family stay comfortable.

The Ambassador of Turkey  learnt  that the Emperor’s daughter had taken refuge in Mecca and arranged a pension for her from the Sultan of Turkey. She lived comfortably in Mecca for a number of years.  Ultimately she longed to return to her beloved Delhi.  When she went  back to Delhi, the English Governor  out of compassion, arranged a pension for her family. The British who had taken away her dad’s empire, gave her in return a grand compensation of ten rupees a month.

Sakina Khanum was the daughter-in-law of Nawab Faulad Khan. Nawab died while fighting the company soldiers during the Ghadar. When his body was brought  home by the soldiers, Sakina was writhing in severe labour pains. The Nawabs’ son had died four days earlier in the war, and his wife had passed away two years ago. Sakina delivered a boy with the help of the servants, while the corpse of the Nawab  was lying in the front yard, without even a shroud.  She had to run away from their mansion at midnight, taking a few jewels, some cash which was in the house and her new-born baby. The four maids who were in the house went with her. 

After a few days, the maids stole all the money and jewels and deserted her. They even took away the new-born son of the Princess.  She tried to eke out a living by working as a maid in households. Unfortunately for her, she had no skills needed for domestic help. After all she was the daughter-in-law of a Nawab and had lived in luxury with many servants and slaves at her command. She was frequently thrown out of many homes where she worked,  as she could not work hard enough.

Finally, the Princess became a beggar for her living. After a few years, one afternoon she was begging in front of a wedding house. She was exhausted due to the hot summer sun. She had not eaten for many days and was extremely hungry. As she was begging, one young handsome boy came out of the wedding hall. Hearing her wails, he sat in front of her and gave her the food he was carrying for himself.  The boy spoke to the beggar and consoled her and told that his mother was a maid in the wedding house. 

As he was speaking with her, his mother came out and Sakina immediately recognised her as her maid who had deserted her and realised that the boy  who fed her was her own son. After many years Sakina the beggar Princess had been reunited with her long lost son.

Qismat Baig worked as a chef at the palatial Taj Mahal hotel in Bombay. He was a recluse and an irascible and difficult man.  None knew his antecedents.  Whenever asked  about himself he would answer that he was a Badshah and walk away. The Maharaja of Bhavnagar would frequently stay at the Taj Mahal Hotel whenever he was in Bombay, and he immensely enjoyed the food cooked by Qismat Baig.

One day  the Maharaja expressed his desire to meet the chef.  Qismat  Baig, who never liked to meet anyone, was persuaded to visit him. When the king asked Qismat Baig as to who he was, Baig gave a long philosophical discourse.  Surprised at the erudition of the chef, the king persuaded him to tell his story.  Baig started recounting his long sad story. He was the son of the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah born to a slave girl.  He was named Timur Shah after the great ancestor of the Mughals. The emperor had provided well for him and his mother and they lived comfortably in luxury with servants and maids. As a young boy he was well educated and would often visit a Dargah near his home in the evenings and had imbibed Sufi mysticism and Dervish practices.

When Ghadar started, his mother lost everything. He worked as an assistant to a cook and learnt the culinary art.  Misfortune always haunted him.  He lost his mother, wife and children to illnesses and became alone in the world. Living in Delhi made him very sad and migrated to Bombay where Timur Shah changed his name to Qismat Baig, a man of destiny.  The son of the Mughal Emperor had become  a Bawarchi (chef) in a hotel.

These are some of the poignant real-life stories in the book “Tears of the Begums”. Khwaja Hasan Nizami was a young man at the time of Mutiny. In later years he became a writer. He personally interviewed many survivors of nobility and recorded their  tragic stories. It was published as  a book “Begumat Ke Aansoo” in 1922.  Ghadar was a cataclysmic event in the narrative of India. It ended the centuries of pomp of the Mughal Court and the wealthy refined and elegant lives of the aristocracy. Nobles became non-entities, Princes became paupers and Begums were reduced to beggars. The sad stories in the book bring “Aansoo” to the eyes of the readers.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / by Dr. C.D. Sreenivasa Murthy / October 11th, 2022

A Hyderabad woman went to Oxford in the 1930s. It wasn’t the most remarkable part of her story

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Hyderabad / BRITAIN:

A Hyderabad woman went to Oxford in the 1930s. It wasnt the most remarkable part of her story

Muhammadi Begum was a student of Osmania University, Hyderabad, where she topped the Bachelor’s examination in 1932.

Highlights

  • Having received a scholarship from the Nizam for higher education, Muhammedi Begum, a young woman from Hyderabad, travelled to Oxford University in 1934.
  • What makes her story even more remarkable is that she maintained an extensive record of her four years abroad.
  • Her diary has been translated from Urdu into English, and published, by her daughters

In 1934, a young woman from Hyderabad travelled to Oxford University in England to study, accompanied by her husband. She had received a scholarship from the Nizam of Hyderabad to pursue her higher education (for which she studied French, Arabic and English). During the nearly four years she spent in the UK, she had two children, travelled around Europe and established a pattern of living that would hold her in good stead her entire life.

The young woman was Muhammadi Begum, student of Osmania University, Hyderabad, where she topped the Bachelor’s examination in 1932. She was married to Delhi-born, Syed Jamil Husian, an alumnus of the Aligarh Muslim University.

Those days, women travelling abroad to pursue education was a rarity; although what made Muhammadi Begum’s story remarkable is a diary that she maintained at Oxford which recounted everything from her day-to-day concerns to reflections on the state of society.

Muhammadi Begum’s diary remained under a shroud till the year of her passing, in 1990. The little note-book, where she detailed her daily life as she lived across continents, was eventually a precious find. It went to her cousin first and meandered in the family, till it caught the attention of her eldest daughter towards the end of the decade.

“I was pleasantly surprised and was taken aback by it,” said Zehra Ahmad, Muhammadi Begum’s eldest daughter. “I came across the diary after she passed away. I would’ve asked her many questions if I knew about its existence.”

What followed over the years was translation (as Muhammadi wrote in Urdu), editing, followed by COVID-induced delays in publishing, before A Long Way from Hyderabad saw the light of the day in 2022. Zehra translated the book along with her sister Zainab Masud.

Translating the diary was no mean feat, as Muhammadi Begum made detailed records, even writing in the margins. The sisters read it multiple times, transcribed it, and then translated it – all of it laborious and time consuming.

Kulsoom Husein, her youngest, who came out of retirement to edit and rework her mother’s diary said, “The tone of the diary is true to her experience. It was a new experience for her to travel to England as few women did so in those days.”

Muhammadi and her husband Jamil. Photo courtesy Husain Family Archives

Charting new paths

Muhammadi Begum belonged to a well-known family of writers. Her mother, Qaiseri Begum, was the granddaughter of famous writer Moulvi Nazeer Ahmed, who’s work Mirat-ul-aroos is often dubbed as Urdu’s first novel. Qaiseri Begum, herself was a prolific writer whose memoirs Kitab-i-Zindagi details changes in Indian social history from the 1880s to the 1960s.

The diary successfully encapsulates the journey of a young couple making their way in the London of 1930s. Her observations are detailed, precise and provide an invaluable peek into the world at the time – be it shopping at Harrod’s, visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum, eating ice-cream at a restaurant in Elliston & Cavell or taking walks in University Parks in Oxford, it paints vivid vignettes of pre-World war- II London.

The diary, according to Ahmad, who also spoke for her other sister and co-translator Zainab, brought her mother alive. “Everything she wrote was an accurate account of herself; her worries for her baby or exams, her management of the household and juggling her studies with a baby. She was on the move all the time and led a full and active life,” said she.

The writing is assured and confident. It stays true to what it is intended to be — a record of its keeper’s time in a foreign land. It comments on the English way of life (an interesting nugget is the usage of blackcurrant jam to treat colds), the trials of learning French and the easy camaraderie between students from India. Her letters to her mother Qaisari Begum were even published in a Hyderabad Urdu daily, Ismat.

It also showcases Muhammadi Begum as an independent woman with agency. Travelling in Europe along with a toddler can be a daunting task at any time, but she managed it with a remarkable spirit. It is in fact this spirit that would hold her in good stead later in life, when at 42 she lost her husband and had to look after many children.

A Long Way from Hyderabad can be nostalgic. It’s all about an era gone by, of Urdu publications in Hyderabad which have long ceased to exist (Rahbar and Tehzeeb) or local traditions like Kalzana, a medicine made from chalk and calcium, and given to pregnant women.

What she wrote holds relevance even today, as her struggles (with food, culture and money) are similar to ones faced by many students studying abroad. The diary also strikes a balance between everyday details of life, reflections of the time and personal observations.

Pages from Muhammadi Begums diary in original Urdu script. Photo by Daniel Majchrowicz

A record of the time

Records of women travellers are rare. The few accounts which exist are those of Sikandar Begum, the ruler of Bhopal who wrote of her pilgrimage to Mecca in 1869, Maimuna Sultan who wrote an account of London in 1911 and Atiya Fyzee who published her travel writings in Zamana-I Tehsil in 1921. Typically, the women who published at the time were queens, politicians or activists; Muhammadi Begum was none of them and hence her account stands out because of its simplicity and honest rendition of her life.

Her writing is as much a record of her own life as it is of the times she lived in. The Independence movement was on in full throttle and she along with her husband eagerly took part in discussions with friends. She actively participated in cultural exchanges even though she was reluctant to lend her sarees to curious British women.

“My mother was very stirred by the experiences she had. Technology, in the form of planes and ship liners, was just coming up and when she visited the science museum she was struck by the difference in Indian and British kids. While rote learning was accepted in India, the children there were curious to explore scientific apparatus and experiments. She makes a mention of all these in her daily jottings,” observed Husein.

Indeed, the travel account shows that concerns have not changed much between 1935 and 2022. The author lamented the state of Indian museums on a visit to the V and A Museum and was entranced by a Buddha statue. She worried about land prices shooting up in Hyderabad and wondered if the family could afford to buy a house — valid concerns even after a century.

She throws light on the comfortable relationship between her and her husband. Muhammadi Begum’s husband, Jamil, took leave of absence from his work as a civil servant in Hyderabad to travel with his wife. According to Ahmad, her father was a hands-on parent. “He looked after the baby with her, which was unusual for the time. Also, they shared an equitable relationship,” she said. “He was an admirer of Gandhi and she looked up to Iqbal, which led to many discussions around each. They both liked exploring places and had a wide circle of friends.”

The years in Oxford had a lasting impact on her, as throughout her life she remained fond of open air, long strolls and staying independent. In fact, later in life, she took in paying guests in Lahore when she retired from her job and needed to supplement her income.

(L) Book cover by ClayPotStudio, featured photo courtesy Syed Jamil Husain. (R) Begum. Photo from Husain Family Archives.

A nod to the past

In producing the book, Muhammadi Begum’s daughters became closer, as Husein noted, “We exchanged information about relatives mentioned and forgotten. My elder sisters have translated and I reworked the text — so it was a collaborative effort. My daughter, Amena, helped with research on key figures who were at Oxford at that time, such as educationist Sir Michael Sadler and GM Sufi, a retired University of Delhi registrar and historian, and Miss Bharti Sarabhai, who hailed from a prominent Indian civil rights activist family.”

With an account of food, state of women, culture, feelings and a life well lived, A Long Way from Hyderabad, is a perfect addition to the archives of writing from pre-Independent India. It provides a reliable record of the times gone by. It also shows the lasting impact of the written word and its ability to transcend time.

source: http://www.news9live.com / News Nine / Home> Arts & Culture / by Mallik Thatipalli / June 03rd, 2022

MANUU Prof. Dr.Salman A Khan features in Stanford’s top International Scientists list

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Hyderabad, TELANGANA :

Dr Salman also featured in Stanford’s list in the years 2020, 2021 and continues to be in the prestigious top international scientists list’ of 2022.

Hyderabad: 

Dr. Salman Ahmad Khan, Professor in chemistry and Dean, School of Science, Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) featured in the prestigious Stanford University’s list of top 2% International Scientists third year in a row.

The list is also known as ‘Updated Science wide Author database of Stanford Citation Indicators’.

The database was released by Stanford University, USA and published by Elsevier BV on 10 October 2022.

Dr Salman also featured in Stanford’s list in the years 2020, 2021 and continues to be in the prestigious “top international scientists list’ of 2022 in recognition of his exceptional research work.

The selection was among top 100,000 scientists by c-score (with and without self-citations) or a percentile rank of 2% or above in their field from all over the world and was classified into 22 different fields and 176 subfields.

Prof. Syed Ainul Hasan, Vice-Chancellor, MANUU congratulated Prof. Salman. He said that Dr Salman’s achievement highlights our research competencies and university is on a path to find innovative solutions to complex problems of society through quality research work.

Prof. Salman A Khan has published 185 research Articles in reputed journals like Elsevier, Springer, Wiley and has also published 4 books and 2 book chapters.

He completed his PhD from Jamia Millia Islamia University New Delhi.

Back in 2020, Jamia Islamia’s Prof Imran Ali was selected as leading scientist in India in the field of Analytical Chemistry by the Standford University in the US.

In the same year, Professor Ahmed Kamal, Jamia Hamdard Pro-Vice Chancellor was also named among top 2 per cent cientists in the world by Stanford University.

source: http://www.ummid.com / Ummid.com / Home> Science & Technology / by ummid.com news network (headline edited) / October 20th, 2022