Shades of life (Clockwise from far left) Late Jabaramma in a still from Insha Allah; Director Bhaskaran with directors Bharathiraja and Bhagyaraj and Abdul Salam in a still from the film / Special Arrangement
SPP Bhaskaran’s film Insha Allah set in Coimbatore, releases in theatres on October 15
“It was a special moment,” says director SPP Bhaskaran about receiving praise from his mentors, director Bharathiraja and K Bhagyaraj, for his first feature film, Insha Allah .
He arranged a private screening for the veteran filmmakers in Chennai recently. “They had positive things to say about the film, location, cinematography which was done by T S Prasanna of Blue Ocean Film and Television Academy and recording of live sounds.
But what took them by complete surprise is the performances of poet Vikramathithan and his wife Bhagavathi Ammal who play an old couple in the film. Vikramathithan has played character roles in director Bala’s award-winning films like Naan Kadavul .”
After doing the festival circuit (it made to the official selection at 32 film festivals and won nine awards at international film festivals), the film gears up for a theatrical release in Tamil Nadu, on October 15. Bhaskaran shot the film at Pillyarpuram village in Coimbatore where hundreds of families from different religious communities live in perfect harmony.
The 84-minute film narrates the story of a middle-class Muslim society and is partly inspired by short stories by Thoppil Mohammed Meeran and Firdous Rajakumaran.
He chose death as a central theme and the script touches upon the five tenets of Islam that includes daily prayers, alms giving ( zakat ), fasting during Ramadan, pilgrimage to Mecca (Haj) and the profession of faith.
The protagonist is an ambulance driver played by Mogly K Mohan (who has been part of films like Kirumi , Bakrid and Master ).
Abdul Salam from Thanjavur who is related to Kamala amma, wife of late actor Sivaji Ganesan plays an important role in the film. “He converted to Islam many years ago and Sivaji Ganesan’s family stood by his decision and supported him. He plays the role of an elderly man who saves money to do Haj but gives it away to support a needy girl’s marriage.”
The film also has footage that shows the Cheraman Juma Masjid, believed to be the first mosque in the country, located at Kodungalloor in Kerala and the 800-year-old mosque at Keeranur, near Palani.
Insha Allah is produced by Shahul Hameed, under his banner Nesam Entertainment Private Limited. “To learn more about the community, I shifted my residence to Karumbukadai, a Muslim-dominated locality in Coimbatore, and lived there for six months,” says Bhaskaran, whose first short film Naanudaimai won recognition at online short film festivals. Insha Allah , he says, sheds light on the philosophy behind the Islamic way of life.
The film is dedicated to the late Jabaramma,who ran a mess at Pillyarpuram. “She served us all three meals during our 30-day shoot there. I wrote a character based on her during my stay there and nudged her to play the role. Though shy to face the camera, she learned acting at a workshop done by late Arunmozhi and his team during our shoot and performed confidently. Her role in the film showcases how looks become banal in a relationship bound by love.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> Metro Plus / by K Jeshi / October 08th, 2021
History proved beyond doubt that every Empire that evolved and flourished across centuries created its own grave-diggers. As is the case, the historians of all hues since the 18 Century have debated the causes of the decline of Mughal Empire. The notion of decline envisages a prior state of perfection, efflorescence, harmony, and cohesion, in contrast to corruption, moral degradation, and loss of ethical values, principles, and customs. Hence, historians wish to understand the phenomenon of change and its causes. For instance, social decay, deterioration of the previous order, and belief and long spells of chaos and disorder are considered the causes of such decline.
The OUP’s The Decline of the Mughal Empire, edited by Meena Bhargava provides a series of coherent answers to this question through a collage of ideas brought forth by many eminent historians as part of its Debates in Indian History and Society series. While there were divergent views and debates among historians about the withering of the “mammoth imperial banyan tree”, this collection attempts to focus on different paradigms or assumptions that have shaped interpretations on the decline of Mughal Empire.
According to the authors, the causes of the decline of the Mughal Empire can be grouped under the following heads: a) deterioration of land relations; b) emergence of regional powers as successor states; c) selfish struggle of nobles at the court; d) lack of initiative in modern weapons; e) lack of control over the bankers of the state and above all f) Aurangzeb’s Deccan campaign.
Unlike Emperor Akbar who preferred paying his officials’ salaries directly from the state treasury, his successors Shahjahan and Aurangzeb opted for jagirs (temporary allotment of lands to officials for their services – which may be according to the satisfaction of the Emperor) and Paibaqi (revenue from reserved lands which was sent to the central treasury). While the jagirdars tried to extract as much from the land by oppressing the peasants within a short period, the zamindars (who were given powers to manage the lands belongs to the state by managing the peasants and delivering the state’s prescribed share to the treasury) became a subordinate class within the ruling elite of the Mughal Empire. There was a constant clash of interest between the nobles at the Emperor’s court and zamindars. Consequently the main danger to law and order came from zamindars who refused to pay the revenue and had to be cowed down or destroyed by force.
The politics that emerged upon the collapse of the Mughal Empire was two kinds. In one class the ‘succession states’ like Hyderabad, Bengal and Awadh, which were really fragments of the Empire, had to stand on their own as the central government decayed and became powerless to assist or assert. In the second category were the Maratha confederacy, the Jats, the Sikhs and the Afghans. Their origins as polities were independent of Mughal Empire.
Mysore under Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan stood outside these two categories, and was in some ways most remarkable. It made a conscious attempt to implant Mughal administrative institutions in an area that had only been nominally a part of Mughal Empire. At the same time, it was the first state in India to make a beginning towards modernisation, first and foremost in the realm of the military and in the manufacture of weapons, but also in commerce, where the English East India Company’s practices were sought to be imitated.
The nobles found that their careers were not linked to talent and that loyal and useful service was ‘no security against capricious dismissal and degradation’. Their (selfish) struggle necessarily ranged them in factions, each group or bloc trying to push the fortunes of its members and hinder the success of its rivals. However, only some of them could establish their dominance . In order to sustain their power in court, these nobles had surreptitious relations with regional governors, zamindars and other chieftains. It is the case of Mushid Quli of Bengal who through his clout among the nobles at the court, effected reforms in revenue which ultimately led to the formation of a new, regional ruling group.
The period of imperial decline coincided with the increasing involvement of banking firms in revenue collections at regional and local levels. It brought bankers, more directly than before, into positions of political power all over India. In contrast to their earlier policies, the bankers extended trade and credit transactions to newcomers, the Dutch and the English. Ironically, the Jagat Seths (Imperial Treasurers) who helped the East India Company to overthrow Nawab Sirajuddaula, were cut to size by the same Robert Clive who stopped the allowance of Seths as ministers of the Nawab in 1770. Ultimately, they ceased to be Company Bankers by 1772.
In a sense, the Deccan Campaign became Aurangzeb’s Waterloo. In his eagerness for further expansion, Aurangzeb exposed to incessant raiding districts in the Deccan that were formerly secure from outside attack. Unlike Emperor Akbar, who assimilated Rajputs within his kingdom, Aurangzeb was unable to effectively assimilate the Maratha, Bedar, Gond or Telugu warrior chiefs formerly living in areas beyond the reach of direct administration by a Muslim state as imperial elites. Failure to sustain imperial officers in the province resulted in intensified disorder and defiance of imperial authority. Even though they were stationed in the Deccan, the Mughals failed to defeat the Marathas. It was these protracted wars that produced the signs of decline, namely an imbalance between the number of jagirdars and the jagirs available, peasant revolts and disloyal nobility. Together with the emergence of regional dynastic rulers who pioneered processes of growth and regeneration, the Mughal Empire did not fall — it was simply swallowed by a larger political organism. The Company was waiting on the wings to gobble them up whole soon.
For students of history, this attempt is really an opportunity to understand the inherent contradictions that prevailed under the Mughal Empire, which ultimately led to the emergence of British colonial rule in India.
THE DECLINE OF THE MUGHAL EMPIRE: Edited by Meena Bhargava; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, 1, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 795.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books> Reviews / y V.B. Ganesan / July 28th, 2014
Juxtaposing the life of Begum Hazrat Mahal, who worked behind the scenes, with one of the most well-known heroes of the time, Rani Lakshmibai
The villain in Rudrangshu Mukherjee’s A Begum & A Rani: Hazrat Mahal and Lakshmibai in 1857 is certainly the British, but it is also time and memory. Mukherjee places Begum Hazrat Mahal, an obscure figure who was integral to the mobilisation of the 1857 revolt — taught to students as “India’s first war of independence” — alongside Rani Lakshmibai, whose life has spurred not just biographies but hagiographies, calcified by myth and movies, the 2019 Kangana Ranaut shriek-historical, Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, notwithstanding.
The book, divided into four parts — Origins, Rebellion, Leadership, Afterlife — is attempting two important correctives.
The first is to give Begum Hazrat Mahal of Awadh her rightful place in history. Daughter of an African slave, she was briefly married to Awadh’s king Wajid Ali Shah, then divorced and left behind in Awadh, as Shah moved to Calcutta after the British annexed Awadh in 1856. She helped mobilise the military and administration of Awadh, which became the war theatre’s centrepiece after Delhi was vanquished by the British. This story is also important to counter the narrative that the 1857 revolt was a pastiche of mindless and uncoordinated violence, because it was meticulously planned. Mukherjee quotes generously, indulgently, with page-long historical anecdotes which could have been paraphrased or woven into the narrative. There are too many anecdotal jolts for a seamless read.
Eventual move
The second objective is to inject some history into the hagiography of Rani Lakshmibai. Mukherjee notes how she wasn’t the ready rebel we think of today. That she even wrote to British officials asking for help, declaring her support to their regime, and it was only when she was pushed against circumstances that she eventually took to the battlefield with vigour, dying in it, memorialised by it.
This is a clever framing here that Mukherjee employs, because there isn’t enough information on Hazrat Mahal to carry an entire book by itself. There isn’t even an available description of how she looked. Her role in the rebellion is behind-the-scenes, and her obscurity is thus, double.
To resurrect her, by pairing her with the most coveted figure of the rebellion — Rani Lakshmibai — is thus necessary, because Mukherjee gets to not just tell their stories, demystified or dusted, but to speak to the larger villainy of historic memory — who gets written about and why?
Putting it in context
Mukherjee is a master of context, providing a sense of the time, even as he is hazy on the details of main events, recounting them as historical facts and not narrations, preferring a depth of detailing around the event over the grip of a historical plot. That said, a map would have been helpful to make sense of the geographic dump of names.
It must be noted, though, that Lakshmibai and Hazrat Mahal never met, and in the 140-page book, their paths, and the paths of their rebellion also don’t cross, as if they were happening in different times, different places.
Sometimes, as a result, the book feels disjointed — that the only reason for having these two stories together is not that they will tangle, but that through comparison, each one’s story deepens, darkens.
Placing these figures side by side, the urge to compare them comes but naturally. Mukherjee’s insistence on Hazrat Mahal’s oblivion comes short of calling her more important and interesting than Rani Lakshmibai. That Rani Lakshmibai fought on the battlefield while Hazrat Mahal fled to Nepal is enough to deify the former, and forget the latter, he finds unfair. That Lakshmibai and her son were receiving pensions from the British government, while Hazrat Mahal who died in obscurity and her son, both refused it, he finds telling. That history is besotted with blood, he finds tragic. That historians can puncture history’s myopia, he finds hopeful. Thus, this book.
A Begum & A Rani: Hazrat Mahal and Lakshmibai in 1857; Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Penguin Random House India, ₹699.
The writer is a critic with a weekly online newsletter titled prathyush.substack.com
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books> History> Reviews / by Prathyush Parsuraman / October 02nd, 2021
Tracking soldiers from the subcontinent who fought on the battlefields of Europe
Whether it’s Dunkirk or Iwo Jima, we tend to associate World War II with other countries. India, of course, was in the midst of the struggle for independence during the years of the war. But, since the country was a British colony, it was also dragged into the war not just in terms of materials being shipped. A crucial factor were the soldiers from India who fought on the battlefields of Europe but remain unknown.
Multiple threads
Of late, we have had books on the Indian participation in World War II and here is another which looks at soldiers from undivided Punjab who arrived in France in 1939 and returned to find their country on the verge of Partition.
Ghee Bowman’s The Indian Contingent: The Forgotten Muslim Soldiers of the Battle of Dunkirk focuses on a group called Force K6, who were largely from the northwest provinces, now in Pakistan. They were part of the mule transport companies, which helped the British army transport supplies in areas where trucks could not reach. During the Battle of Dunkirk, some of these men were captured but many escaped to Britain and were relocated to various parts of the U.K. where they helped in the infantry training.
Bowman doesn’t lump all the individuals together into one unit. Each person has a story and he unravels the multiple threads till the reader gets a complete picture of the “poets and musicians, cooks and carpenters and a veterinarian… writers, cinema lovers, boyfriends and parents” — as author Yasmin Khan puts it in the Foreword — who comprised the Force K6.
On the one end you have poetry-writing Aurangzeb who died as an 18-year-old in Wales and is still remembered in his village in Pakistan; at the other is mule driver Mahmud Khan who is captured by the Germans, forced to join the Indian Legion, seduces his German officer’s daughter and a male orderly and escapes to Switzerland.
Forming bonds
Bowman also tracks the lives of the men in “obscure corners of the British Isles” where they “formed strong bonds with farmers, children and women”. Some of these bonds resulted in children and the story of Jeff Shapland who finds out about his father Jamal Khan much later in life is moving. Shapland recounts being singled out for his dark looks — at Leeds University South Asian men would talk to him in Hindi or Urdu and his landlady in Bristol wouldn’t let him eat in the common dining room, he was abused and punched by students at his school in Leicester —and how he came to accept himself.
There is a lovely little nugget of jemadar Malik Mohammed Khan visiting a school to hear Welsh folk songs and teaching the children a Punjabi lullaby that went ‘Sunate Sunate Sunate Krishna’. There are also anecdotes from those who were children at that time about their interactions with these soldiers.
In his Prologue, Bowman writes, “This book aims to reclaim them from the backwater and reinstate them in the mainstream: part of the current of recognition of Commonwealth and global contributions to the Second World War.” He has, indeed, succeeded in this.
The Indian Contingent: The Forgotten Muslim Soldiers of the Battle of Dunkirk; Ghee Bowman, Pan Macmillan, ₹699.
krithika.r@thehindu.co.in
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books> Review / by R. Krithika / October 02nd, 2021
The 221 pages book released by SIO briefly introduces all the 387 Mappula leaders who fought British and Hindu feudal lords.
Following the Indian Council of Historical Research’s (ICHR) decision to remove the names of Mappila or Moplah leaders from the ‘Dictionary of Martyrs: India’s Freedom Struggle 1857-1947‘, the Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO) Kerala unit released the ‘Dictionary Of Mappila Martyrs’ compiling the names of all the 387 martyrs.
The book “Dictionary of Mappila Martyrs” was handed over by Amjad Ali E M, State President of SIO Kerala to Alavi Kakkadan, a prominent historian and chairman of Variyamkunnath Kunjahammad Haji Foundation of India. Abdul Hakeem Nadwi, State secretary of Jama’athe Islami Kerala, Rashad V P, State secretary of SIO Kerala, and Sahel Bas Joint Secretary of SIO Malappuram were present at the launch of the event at Press Club Malappuram on Monday.
Amjad Ali EM said that the Malabar Uprising of 1921, which is described by historians as the first mass-scale uprising against the British in southern India, discomforts Hindutva politics and therefore the dictionary released by the governing Sangh Parivar can’t include Malabar martyrs.
A three-member panel, which reviewed the entries in the fifth volume of the Dictionary of Martyrs: India’s Freedom Struggle 1857-1947, brought out by the ICHR, recommended the deletion of the names of Mappila martyrs, saying that the 1921 uprising against the British was never part of the independence struggle but a fundamentalist movement focused on religious conversion.
“The greatness of Variyan Kunnathu and Ali Musliyar lies in not getting into the good list of Sangh Parivar. And history will remember them for getting omitted from Sangh distorted history, therefore, to mention the names of the Mappila martyrs who were cut off by the ICHR is to express a strong stand against the Hindutva regime,” Amjad Ali said. Alavi Kakkadan, Abdul Hakeem Nadwi, Rashad V P, and Sahel Bas also expressed their opinions in the meet.
The 221 pages book released by SIO briefly introduces all the 387 Mappula leaders who fought British and Hindu feudal lords.
Was The Moplah Uprising Part Of Indian Freedom Struggle And Was It Anti-Hindu? / video source: thecognate.com
source: http://www.thecognate.com / The Cognate / Home> News / by The Cognate News Desk / September 14th, 2021
Masoom Muradabadi’s book was launched at the Press Club on Thursday by eminent journalists
The event was organised to launch the Hindi translation of journalist Masoom Muradabadi’s book on Maulvi Baqar.
New Delhi :
The Press Club of India on Thursday held a seminar to commemorate the death anniversary of Maulvi Mohammad Baqar, the first journalist who was executed by the British following the rebellion of 1857.
A Hindi translation of the book titled ‘1857 Ki Kranti Aur Urdu Patrkarita’ (The Revolution of 1957 and Urdu Journalism) authored by journalist Masoom Muradabadi was released at the seminar.
It chronicles the life of Baqar as a journalist and freedom fighter. Moreover, two journalists — Swati Mathur, a reporter with The Times of India, and Shams Tabrez Qasmi, the editor of popular news portal Millat Times — were also felicitated with an award named after Baqar.
A number of veteran journalists and writers spoke on the occasion paying tributes to the ‘first martyr journalist’. They described Baqar as an icon of Hindu-Muslim unity whose ideals are increasingly relevant in the present times.”
“Maulvi Muhammad Baqir was one of the great journalists who preferred martyrdom to collaboration with Britishers.” A U Asif, a senior journalist and member of Press Club’s managing committee, said. “He is the ideal and role model for the new generation of journalists.
Satish Jacob, a BBC veteran, said Baqar was a journalist who sacrificed his life for the sake of the nation. He described him a proponent of Hindu-Muslim unity.
Jacob said he is proud of the fact that he hails from old Delhi which gave birth to a person like Baqar. He said that Baqar had started an Imam Barah in the Kashmere gate area which is still functioning. The Imam Barah was built with the expressed goal of communal harmony, he added.
Noted journalist Meem Afzal, who has been a member of Parliament and India’s ambassador in four countries, lashed out at the current government for communal divide and accused it of obliterating the contributions of people like Baqar. He said that Baqar used his pen to fight for the idea of India.
Maroof Raza, another journalist, appealed for steps to find the original source and preserve the archives of ‘Delhi Urdu Akhbar’, the newspaper Baqar used to publish.
Jai Shanakar Gupta, senior journalist and a member of the Press Council of India, urged the government to get copies of the newspaper that Baqar edited from Britain where they are lying in a museum.
SQR Ilyas, journalist and president of the Welfare Party of India, said that the sacrifice of Baqar should inspire the present-day journalists to speak truth to power. He lauded the Press Club for commemorating Baqar.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Syed Aijaz Aslam, editor of Radiance Viewsweekly.
Mathur and Qasmi expressed their gratitude to the Press Club for felicitating them with the award. “This recognition in the form of an award in Maulvi Baqar’s name is a big thing for me, ” said Mathur.
Qasmi credited his whole team of Millat Times for the work that earned him the award.
source: http://www.clarionindia.net / Clarion / Home> Editor’ Pick / by Zafar Aafaq, Clarion India / September 16th, 2021
THE Muslims-stirred to the acknowledgment of their actual situation in India especially after the Mutiny of 1857. The exit of the last Mughal monarch from the throne of Delhi was not only a symbol of their downfall but also an end to their existence as a separate and dominant group in Indian political life. A new phase in India’s history opened after the 1857 rebellion and the consequent dissolution of the East India Company. The era of the colonial Raj began with Queen Victoria’s proclamation of 1 November 1858. This benign document set a new tone of authority and conciliation. The post-Great Revolt period was probably the gloomiest period in the history of the Muslim community in the Indian Subcontinent. Muslims had created and taken an unmistakable part in the events of 1857, in the British eyes, whereas Hindus kept a low profile. Therefore, the Muslims were to bear, alone, the fault. Two factors influenced the creation of this image: the first was, of course, the nature of the movements led by Shariatullah and Syed Ahmad decades before the Mutiny; and second was the lingering imagery in the West of Muslims authored by European Christian perseveres during the Crusades (1095-1291). Quick and savage responses were to be incurred by the British administration, which would bring about a cruel reality for the Muslim people group. They lost their moorings, their confidence, their hope. And, for the first time, they realized with the anguish of bitterness that they were nothing but a weak, powerless, supine minority. This was the first casting of the seeds of nationalism, the first kindling of a feeling of loneliness and prostration, the first awakening to the need of solidarity. It was a period of gigantic political, social, economic, and social change that stirred a feeling of nationalism in the people groups of India. It was a period when a modernized Muslim scholarly and political initiative came to characterize and explain fundamental Muslim community and political necessities under the Raj, simultaneously as a beginning nationalist development was being fashioned by a more extensive working-class tip-top challenging British absolutism. The pressure among Hindus and Muslims started to arise in this period. At the point when it turned out to be extraordinarily disturbed after the mid-1920s, a practically unrecoverable hole opened up between what we may call Indian nationalism and Muslim rebellion, prompting the decisive division of Pakistan from the remainder of India in 1947.
It was a period when questions began emerging among the Ashraf classes about how Muslims could approach obliging western social impacts without negating the religious statutes of Islam. It was an issue stacked with subtleties, owing more to singular inclinations than a communitarian agreement. There were tones and layers of dark in trades between Muslims of various leanings on the suitable Islamic reaction toward the western experience. Modernity itself was a challenging thought, open to many fluctuated understandings. One of the main courses through which modernity contacted the Muslim people group of India was through the press. Also, it was one of the main channels through which educated Muslims aired their perspectives on the degree to which a social system informed by Islam could serenely get the inundation of western thoughts and innovation.
It was also a time when an extremely important character came into the frame, which went by the name of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. The founder and intellectual pioneer of Muslim nationalism. And it was this nationalism that evolved into becoming a movement that strived to carve out a separate Muslim-majority country in the subcontinent, and then further evolve to become Pakistani nationalism. Sir Syed is the one who acted with the tide of functions and established the Aligarh’s framework in the unfriendly, undoubtedly threatening milieu of the 1880s. Sir Syed, though by no means consciously made possible the emergence of two most outstanding Muslim leaders who had enthusiastically started out as staunch Indian nationalists, ended up finally at the threshold of Muslim nationalism. Belonging to a family which had roots in the old Muslim nobility, Sir Syed’s prolific authorship on the Muslim condition in India (during British rule) and his activism in the field of education, helped formulate nationalist ideas in the Muslims of the region. These ideas went on to impact and influence a plethora of Muslim intellectuals, scholars, politicians, poets, writers and journalists who then helped evolve Syed’s concept of Muslim nationalism into becoming the ideological doctrine and soul of the very idea of Pakistan. It was Sir Syed that had initiated the educational, intellectual, ideological, cultural and political trends and engendered tendencies that laid the groundwork for a Muslim renaissance in India. It is certainly true to say that Sir Syed was too much impressed by western rationalism and wanted to show that every doctrine of Islam could measure up to all principles of science, reason, and common science. In doing this, he was trying to be both rationalist and a good Muslim. He was one of the first Muslim scholars to offer a point by point answer to British authors who were presenting and introducing the tradition of Islam as something which was damaging and retrogressive. Sir Syed reminded the British that Islam was inalienably a progressive and modern religion, and it had empowered and encouraged the study of philosophy and the sciences. He actively campaigned for the adoption of modern Western education in India, particularly for Muslims. He both started and joined a number of organizations whose purpose was to make European knowledge accessible to young Muslims and other Indians in Urdu vernacular. In 1870 the appearance of Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s Tahzib-ul-Ikhlaq exhorting Muslims to reform their religious worldview had a catalytic effect on the newspaper business. Sir Syed reprimanded ulema for compelling the Muslims to dismiss science. He composed that Muslims needed new religious philosophy of Islam, which was discerning and dismissed all doctrinal ideas that were in conflict with good judgment and reason. Threatened by Sayyid Ahmad’s bold forays into the domain of Islam, many of his co-religionists ventilated their outrage by resorting to the print medium, colonial modernity’s most attractive gift for instantaneous self-promotion. The response to Sayyid Ahmad’s arguments on the compatibility of Islamic teachings and modern ideas was similarly sharp in the North-Western Provinces and Punjab. While in the North-Western Provinces numerous new names arose on the guide of Urdu journalism as pundits of the Aligarh school, Sayyid Ahmad’s religious thoughts were given an extreme dressing down in Punjab by the Ahl-I-Hadith’s Ishaat ul Sunnat. Sayyid Ahmad’s way to deal with Islamic religious philosophy and statute acquired him the gashing maltreatment of “orthodox” Muslim ulema. His advancement of ijtihad or free-thinking and dissatisfaction with regards to taqlid or adherence to the four definitive schools of Islamic statute set him at loggerheads with the ulema who effectively found in it a scarcely masked attack on their pre-famous status as the strict watchmen of the Muslim people group. His support of western knowledge and culture as well as loyally to the raj drew astringent remarks from Muslims joined to their cultural moorings and the ideal of an all-inclusive Muslim ummah. Among Sayyid Ahmad’s fiercest critics was the Persian scholar Jamaluddin al-Afghani who lived in India somewhere in the range of 1879 and 1882 and called for Hindu-Muslim solidarity as the initial step to dislodging British imperialism.
Jamal Al-Din Al-Afghani — a bright young political activist, journalist, reformer, and Afghan ideologist who showed up in India in 1855. He one of the most prescient of modern Muslim thinkers, who had travelled and preached across British India. In contrast to the conventional ulema, Afghani didn’t perceive any great in turning inwards and drastically dismissing the modernity associated with British rule. His belief in the potency of a revived Islamic civilization in the face of European domination fundamentally impacted the development of Muslim thought in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He recognized the matchless quality of Western education, however, accentuated that Muslims should grasp it to improve their parcel and afterward reverse the situation against Western imperialism by ousting it and setting up a worldwide Islamic caliphate. Al-Afghani held that Hindus and Muslims should work together to overthrow British rule in India. He worked to transform Islam into a lever against western imperialism. Afghani was the prototype of the modern fundamentalist. Like Sir Syed, he also had been influenced by western rationalism and the ideological mode of western thought. Afghani welded a traditional religious hostility towards unbelievers to a modern critique of western imperialism and an appeal for the unity of Islam, and while he inveighed against the west, he urged the adoption of those western sciences and institutions that might strengthen Islam. Afghani saw Western innovation as a solution to recover regenerate the Muslims, not as an approach to assist them in discovering a spot inside colonial settings yet to completely comprehend and afterward eradicate imperialism. Afghani was rather progressive and modernistic in his thinking. A contemporary English admirer described Afghani as the leader of Islam’s liberal religious reform movement. The pan-Islamist thought which he spearheaded esteemed the significance of changing and reforming the Muslim mentality through modern scholarly methods, and afterward utilizing the transformed as a weapon against the political incomparability of Western imperialism.
Another prominent sage of the modern Muslim intellectual movements of the time was Justice Ameer Ali. His History of the Saracens and Spirit of Islam enjoyed a wide readership both in India and Britain, but his target audience was the Western public. He wished to familiarize this public with the history and religion of Islam, and he was successful at that. He accepted that there were issues that made it problematic for his Western contemporaries to appreciate Islam as a religion suited to the needs of the modern world, but he remained unapologetic on central Islamic beliefs. Chiragh Ali (1844–95), a lawyer from Hyderabad, argued for the reform of Muslim civil law and the establishment of a humane Islamic law based on the Quran rather than on later accretions and interpretations. Altaf Husain Hali’s The Musaddas described the drama of Islam, its glories and its tragedies, in simple, sensuous, and passionate poetry; and, at the same time, he highlighted the need for the reform of Muslim society. The Musaddas became a best-seller in Urdu-speaking India, and it is still read and enjoyed by thousands even today. The scope and spirit of Urdu literature augmented during this period. Akbar Allahabadi (1846–1921), acclaimed for his gnawing parody, censured Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s zing for Western culture and analyzed Muslims aping Western ways of life as ‘playing out monkeys’ for their British coaches. The Urdu weekly by Agra Akhbar, distributed by Khwajah Asif Ali denounced the Muslim Anglo-Oriental University conspire at Aligarh as ‘eccentric and illusory’. Much good Urdu prose was being written in this period; however, three specific improvements significantly advanced its reach and quality. The first one was the development of journalism. Despite the fact that the Urdu press returns to the late eighteenth century, it started genuinely to thrive and flourish from the 1870s onwards. Papers like Akhbar-e Am in Lahore (1870), Oudh Punch in Lucknow (1877–1936), and Paisa Akhbar in Delhi (1888) revolutionized journalism by receiving new patterns, for example, eye-getting features, notices, modest value, newspaper design, alongside the publication aptitudes of ironical composition, spontaneous extemporization, and powerful questioning. Hostile to British assessments were regularly communicated in such political papers as the Zamindar of Lahore, the Al-Hilal, and Al-Balagh, began by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in 1912 and 1915, and the Hamdard edited by Muhammad Ali. The second significant advancement in Urdu writing was the introduction of the novel. Finally, we must record the rise of Urdu drama in this period.
To sum up, Sir Syed received harsh criticism. His religious naysayers remained positioned in their mosques and madrassahs. Thus, the greater part of his religious adversaries couldn’t discover a spot in the school that he set up in Aligarh. This school evolved into becoming a college and then an institution which began to produce a specific Muslim world-class and metropolitan bourgeoisie who might go on to dominate Muslim nationalist thought in India and eventually decide the course in 1906 when the consciousness of Muslim nationalism took practical form when a deputation of Indian Muslims – Shimla Deputation – held a meeting with the Governor-General Lord Minto in Shimla and secured the viceroy’s consent in respect of separate electorate for Muslims.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Kashmir Observer
The author is a student at University of Hyderabad
source: http://www.kashmirobserver.com / Kashmir Observer / Home / by Inayathullah Din, Guest Author / December 18th, 2020
A book entitled “Nizaam-I-Bhopal”, highlighting the forgotten facets of Bhopal’s military history, penned by Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Milan Lalit Kumar Naidu, PVSM, AVSM YSM, the former Vice-Chief of Army Staff, was recently released.
The book was released by current Vice-Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen. C. P. Mohanty at Dronachal, the headquarters of Sudarshan Chakra Corps, in Bhopal.
Lt. Gen. Naidu’s untiring efforts gave shape to his book “Nizaam-I-Bhopal”. It took five years of research, poring through Farsi (Persian) and Urdu records that led to the book.
It is only befitting that this wistful narrative is brought out by Bhopal’s very own son, Milan Naidu, who personifies that gentility, sophistication and aesthetic refinement to do justice to any literature to do with Bhopal. As a thoroughbred officer-and-a-gentleman with the highest military credentials and an illustrious career behind him only could have produced such an exquisite and masterful body of work “Nizaam-I-Bhopal”. The unforgiving ravages of time, circumstances and dominant instincts that governed its leadership from time-to-time, have been minutely analysed, explained and postulated for posterity. The rich, unsung and often unknown facets and tapestry of Bhopal’s military traditions, legacy and its continuing imprints are generously captured, documented and brought alive in this book.
In the book “Nizaam-I-Bhopal” Lt. Gen. Milan Naidu (Retd.) has charted the transformation story of rag-tag forces of the Indian princely states, from the 18th century to that modern Army. He has lucidly described the socio-economic-politico environment which existed in those times and analysed the evolution, rules, service conditions, ceremonials and battles fought by state forces, with special reference to Bhopal State.
The Book is a historical analysis of the Militaries of the Bhopal Princely State. Bhopal had the singular position in the comity of Princely States in British India, with a 175 years’ continuous line of Begums rulers. They were visionaries, educated and erudite. They displayed tremendous administrative ability, leadership qualities and diplomatic acumen, coupled with comparable skill at horse riding and arms. These Rulers set the tone of the Militaries and its motivation. The Bhopal Battalion, as part of the Indian Expeditionary Force, was the first non-Europeans to have disembarked at Marseilles in France to fight the War on foreign shores battling the weather and enemy alike.
A Bhopal battalion was even awarded one of only nine Victoria Crosses given out to Indian soldiers in Mesopotamia in the Great War. That same unit is part of Pakistan now. In the 1965 India-Pak war this battalion was awarded “Nishan-e-Haider”. The icing on the cake was that its Militaries were demobilized in a peaceful and a placid manner, to be absorbed by the Civvy Street in a symbiotic equation.
With such historical genesis and background of the State Forces, Lt. Gen. Naidu (Retd.) helps us to understand how much of our present Army developed its traditions, values and ethos; the singular character which it win the Kargil war despite the severe adversities.
This book is of true historical value, especially of the painstaking research, much from many primary sources, obtaining information from abroad (including Pakistan), interviewing progeny of the soldiers, and finally putting all of it in order.
The author’s observations on the governance and policies of the rulers help us to trace the developmental process of the state. How these issues impinged at various times on the States Forces is reflected subtly. Some of the anecdotes narrated in the book are hilarious and some quite poignant.
Kalim Akhtar, a historian and researcher says: “It is interesting to read how the Bhopal army collaborated with the British and fought the World Wars as well. It presents a true picture of history after years of research of Farsi (Persian) and Urdu records maintained in libraries, as far as the UK. It will be of great interest to lovers of history and especially those who love Bhopal.”
While Iram Khan, a housewife, in her comments about the book says: “It is well researched and attention grasping and would recommend it to anyone who has even a slight curiosity about the old world charm that the city of Bhopal still exudes”.
Meanwhile, the author of the book, Milan Naidu joined the National Defence Academy and was commissioned into the famed Rajput Regiment in 1967. He served for 41 years, holding several key positions – including worked as Military Attaché in Germany; Commanded 5th Battalion the Rajput Regiment in Sri Lanka; Commander of the Corps in Ladakh and GOC-in-C Army Training and Doctrine Command at Shimla before being made the Army Vice-Chief. He attended Canadian Forces Command and Staff College Course in Toronto. After retirement, he was appointed a member of the Armed Forces Tribunal at New Delhi.
His other assignments include: Working Chairperson of the Organising Committee for the Military World Games 2007; Member of the Executive Council of the Indian Golf Union; Chairperson of the Centre for Land Warfare Studies; Member of the Executive Council of the United Service Institution of India.
Lt. Gen. Naidu (Retd.) was born and brought up in Bhopal, the state capital of Madhya Pradesh. He did his schooling from Bhopal passing out X Class (Matric) from St Josephs Higher Secondary School, Bhopal in 1963. I may mention here that he was seven years senior to me in the school where I too studied in the sixties.
He did his M.Sc. in Defence Studies from Madras University in1984-85. Later on he did M. Phil in Defence Management in 1989-90. He completed Post Graduate Diploma in Environment and Ecology, Barkatullah University, Bhopal in 1996-97.
He won the Junior Small Bore in the National Shooting Championship in 1963. He was awarded ‘Shooting Blue’ in NDA.
source: http://www.maeeshat.in / maeeshat.in / Home> Books> Business / by Pervez Bari / August 02nd, 2021
Khan says that the story her grandmother told stayed with her for years and when she started researching the Rampur culture, it kept coming back to haunt her while she walked through the old settlement of Rampur city.
New Delhi :
She doesn’t really remember when she heard the story of the woman she named Feroza Begum in her book. Perhaps it was one of those tales her grandmother narrated when the children gathered around in the courtyard of their rambling home. “We loved to listen to the stories of bygone years as they had an immediacy, a reference point – about some relative or friend we knew,” she recalls.
Author Tarana Husain Khan, whose book ‘The Begum and the Dastan’ (Tranquebar) recently hit the shelves goes back to the year 1897 where in the princely state of Sherpur, Feroza Begum, beautiful and wilful, defies her family to attend the sawani celebrations at Nawab Shams Ali Khan’s Benazir Palace. Feroza is kidnapped and detained in the Nawab’s glittering harem, her husband is forced to divorce her, and her family disowns her. Reluctantly, Feroza marries the Nawab, and is compelled to negotiate the glamour and sordidness of the harem.
Khan says that the story her grandmother told stayed with her for years and when she started researching the Rampur culture, it kept coming back to haunt her while she walked through the old settlement of Rampur city.
“I wanted to know how Feroza lived her life, her thoughts and aspirations and her death. I was surprised by my emotional investment in the ancient tale. It made me feel suffocated and vulnerable at the same time maybe because it was a sort of cautionary tale for young girls,” she tells IANS.
Talk to her about the metamorphosis of Feroza’s character — how she starts to ‘accept’ the circumstances with the Nawab, and if a modern reader would be comfortable with that, and Khan asserts that the protagonist’s options were limited by her predicament.
“She was confined in the Nawab’s harem and her family had abandoned her. How did a woman in the late nineteenth century deal with such circumstances? It might be difficult for the ‘modern’ or ‘feminist’ person to understand her actions. I didn’t want Feroza to be a modern woman dressed in ancient clothes. I didn’t want to project these sensibilities to Feroza’s character. In fact, I had to restrain myself from putting my words and thoughts into her persona. She belonged to a certain time in history and her actions and thoughts had to mirror those times.”
The author, who has weaved two timelines in the book, insists that at the core of ‘The Begum and the Dastan’ is the question of patriarchy. “I began with writing Feroza Begum’s story but the question of the state of the girl child in small town India had been troubling me because of my first hand experience teaching young children. Ameera who lives in modern times poses the question — has anything changed for the young girls today. I wanted my readers to think beyond Feroza’s plight. Patriarchy affects young girls in Indian homes by restricting their vision of themselves as well as posing physical constraints. So the life of the veiled Begums and their limited options has a modern counterpoint in Ameera’s life,” she says.
While researching Feroza’s story, Khan realised that there were many women who had disappeared from the pages of history and whose voices inhabited oral history. There were women who left their imprint on political decisions and on cultural developments but rarely found mention in cisgender male histories. “In giving cadence to some of these voices, this book was born,” says Khan, whose previous books include ‘I’m Not a Bimbette’ (2015) and its sequel ‘Cyber Bullied’ (2020).
Currently, Khan is researching on Rampur culinary archives, which is a part of ‘Forgotten Foods: Culinary Memory, Local Heritage and Lost Agricultural Varieties in India’, a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council that brings together researchers and practitioners.
“So my translation of nineteenth century Persian cookbooks meets the skill set of the khansama and we create something that is workable. The ultimate aim is to expand the repertoire of the local khansamas and enhance their employability. This should also popularize the ‘forgotten’ dishes of Rampur cuisine.The penultimate aim is to publish a cookbook of the forgotten dishes and to showcase the dishes at a cultural fest, the ‘Jashn e Benazir’, which we plan to host in Rampur in 2022.”
Editing a book on Rampur cuisine and culture which is slated for publication in April 2022, Khan is also writing a novel. “It is still in its initial stages. I am essentially a storyteller, a dastango like Mirza Kallan, a character in my book, who spins tales till the boundaries of reality and fiction blur,” she concludes. — IANS
source: http://www.clarionindia.net / Clarion India / Home> Books / by IANS / August 02nd, 2021
Ruler of Oman, Sultan Qaboos bin Said has honoured Dr. M.I.H.Farooqi, with an award of US$ 25,000 (Rs 12 lakh) in appreciation of his books Plants of the Quran and Medicinal plants in the Traditions of Prophet Mohammad.
Both the books contain scientific descriptions of plants mentioned in the Qu’ran and Sunnah .
Dr. Farooqi is a well-known Lucknow-based plant chemist with more than 125 research papers to his credit, published in Indian and foreign journals.
He is also the author of several books and more than hundred articles in English, Hindi and Urdu on science subjects of common interest like environment, modern technology, medicinal plants, economic plants, Islamic science and Prophetic Medicine.
Plants of the Quran has been translated and published in several languages including Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Kannada, Malayalam and Indonesian languages. Based on Quranic and Prophetic Plants, UNESCO has approved Multimillion Dollars Project of Quranic Botanical Gardens in the Gulf countries.
Works on the establishment of such gardens in Sharjah and Qatar have already started.
(Dr. MIH Farooqi may be contacted at mihfarooqi[@]gmail.com)
source: http://www.milligazette.com / The Milli Gazette / Home> News> Focus / by The Milli Gazette / March 26th, 2011
