Between Nation and ‘Community'
Muslim Universities and Indian Politics after Partition

This book examines the political role of Muslim universities, in nation-building as well as minority politics and community development.

Laurence Gautier (Author)

9781009358491, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 July 2024

360 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 3.2 cm, 0.887 kg

'Between Nation and 'Community' provides an important new interpretation of the history of Muslim universities and Muslim politics in postcolonial North India. Based on rich archival materials in English and Urdu, the book rejects the overly simplistic analysis of much of the scholarship on Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia. Instead, this research unearths the many complexities, tensions and debates within these universities and in India's Muslim communities as they coped with the aftermath of partition, the rise of Mandal politics and the emergence of Hindutva as a political force. It is sure to become essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the second half of the twentieth century in India.' Taylor C. Sherman, author of Nehru's India: A History in Seven Myths

This book proposes a political history of Muslim universities in post-independence India, from 1947 to the 1990s. Based on a wide range of sources in English and in Urdu, it highlights the central role that these educational institutions played in the debates on national integration, secularism, minority rights and Muslim backwardness. After independence, Muslim universities found themselves at a critical juncture between central state authorities and India's Muslim population. As public and Muslim institutions, they were to participate in nation-building as much as in the development of the Muslim 'community'. By closely looking at the relation between these institutions and state authorities, the book teases out the ambiguities of the state's Muslim policy. It also examines, in turn, how university members responded to this policy and developed competing conceptions of Muslim identity and citizenship, which structured the wider public debates on Muslims' status in post-partition India.

Acknowledgements
Tables and figures
Map and illustrations
Abbreviations
Glossary
Note on translations and transliterations
Introduction
1. Jamia, a laboratory for composite India
2. Aligarh, from the 'arsenal of Muslim India' to a symbol of India's national integration?
3. Re-legitimising minority rights. Aligarh and the demand for minority status (1965–1981)
4. Resisting minority politics, holding on to composite nationalism: Jamia in the post-Nehruvian period
5. Uplifting backward Muslims: the new consensus?
6. Bastions of Islam: the defence of Islam as a narrative of empowerment and contestation
7. Women in Muslim universities: guardians of tradition or actors of change?
Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Asian history [HBJF]