Between Nation and ‘Community’: Muslim Universities and Indian Politics after Partition

The Centre for Studies of Plural Studies (CSPS) hosted a book discussion on “Between Nation and ‘Community’: Muslim Universities and Indian Politics after Partition” by Dr. Laurence Gautier (Centre de Sciences Humaines). The session was chaired by Dr. Amir Ali (Jawaharlal Nehru University). It included discussants Dr. Irfanullah Farooqi (South Asian University), Dr. Javed Wani (Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University), and Dr. Mohd Osama (CSPS), along with doctoral candidates and students from various universities. The discussion’s focus was on the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) as political sites that have shaped the location of Muslims in Indian nation-state after independence.
The central theme of the book is around--how JMI and AMU emerged “as crucibles for competing conceptions of ‘Indian Muslimness’ in post-independence India.” The objective of the book is to locate Muslim politics post-independence and demonstrate how these institutions became a site for building the idea of community as a ‘composite nation’ in opposition to the majoritarian narratives. Moreover, how partition shaped their political stances, paved the role of the university in nation-building, and national integration. To do this, she uses rigorous methodological tools such as data from the archives, autobiographical accounts, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, combined with the in-depth interviews.
About CSPS:
The Centre for Studies of Plural Societies aims to the pluralistic conception of the individual and society, concomitant with a liberal democratic state. The CSPS has evolved on ideas of questioning and critical engagement with the issues of representation and plurality in our increasingly modernized yet complex social organization
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