Grief and the Shaping of Muslim Communities in North India, c. 1857–1940s

Eve Tignol investigates the impact of collective grief on Muslim community formation in north India from 1857 to the 1940s.

Eve Tignol (Author)

9781009297653, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 March 2023

208 pages
23.5 x 15.5 x 2 cm, 0.56 kg

'Eve Tignol's theoretically sophisticated and beautifully laid out monograph is both an intellectual and an aesthetic feast. She explores the many shapes grief went through between 1857 and the 1940s, weaving together questions from the history of emotions and emotional practices with a close reading of poetry, showing a rare sensibility to language.' Margrit Pernau, Max Planck Institute for Human Development

Drawing on approaches from the history of emotions, Eve Tignol investigates how they were collectively cultivated and debated for the shaping of Muslim community identity and for political mobilisation in north India in the wake of the Uprising of 1857 until the 1940s. Utilising a rich corpus of Urdu sources evoking the past, including newspapers, colonial records, pamphlets, novels, letters, essays and poetry, she explores the ways in which writing took on a particular significance for Muslim elites in North India during this period. Uncovering different episodes in the history of British India as vignettes, she highlights a multiplicity of emotional styles and of memory works, and their controversial nature. The book demonstrates the significance of grief as a proactive tool in creating solidarities and deepens our understanding of the dynamics behind collective action in colonial north India.

Introduction
1. A garden lost: grief and pain in 1857 shahr ?shob poetry
2. Useful grief: the Aligarh movement
3. Memorials, feelings, and public recognition, c. 1911–1915
4. Empowering grief: poetry and anti-colonial sentiments in the early twentieth century
5. Nostalgia in Delhi: local memory and identity, c. 1910–1940
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Asian history [HBJF]