As the son of a (now late) mother who had spent five of her college years (1941-46) at Aligarh Muslim University, I do not hold any malice towards the one and a half centuries old institution or its founder. Yet the thoughtless way in which history is being selectively interpreted by a sizeable chunk of its alumni every year on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan on October 17 and on subsequent days across the globe needs to be countered.
Objectively analysing the history-in-the-making is not an easy job because contemporary events are shrouded in bias, emotional proximity and lack of complete information. E. H. Carr, in his book “What is History” (1961) explained that contemporary historians find it very difficult to separate or detach themselves from the social, political and other developments taking place around them. Contrary to this, the latter-day writers have the advantage of hindsight and substantial material to coolly look back and dispassionately study that very period.
Strictly speaking, Sir Syed was not a historian, yet it is a fact that he wrote on the contemporary developments in the late 1850s. The brutal way in which the British crushed what they called the Sepoy Mutiny had a great impact on his mind. He concluded that the Indian Muslims were defeated in the First War of Independence in 1857 because of their intellectual stagnation, opposition to learning English and absence of a scientific approach.
Though he discussed the decline of the community since the 18th century, what he missed is that the Muslims, or (read: Mughals) were thrown out of power more than a century before. In 1857 the British drove the last nail in the coffin and exiled the rebellious Mughal figurehead in Delhi, Bahadur Shah Zafar..
The Mughals were routed by Persian invader Nadir Shah in 1739 when the Europeans were just marginal players in south and west India. Notwithstanding the massive defeat inflicted by Ahmad Shah Abdali on the Marathas in 1761, the latter managed to expand their influence in a large part of India. Among other political and military factors, the decline of the Mughals can be attributed to the bitter infighting within the ruling class, which became pleasure-loving, corrupt and lost the sense of purpose required for rulers. The tussle with Afghans also worked against them.
In 1857 several Indian rulers, which included Marathas and other Hindu and Muslim chieftains, made an unsuccessful attempt to rebel under the banner of aging Bahadur Shah Zafar. Thus, Muslims alone were not the sufferers, though it is also a fact that the British primarily targeted them. Whatever may be Sir Syed’s interpretation of this tumultuous upheaval in latter years, it came to be known as the First War of Independence.
Military humiliation is not always attributed to the lack of scientific development. Had it been so, the Soviet Union, the superpower, would not have disintegrated in 1991 after being chased out of Afghanistan, educationally among the most backward countries on the planet.
The Soviet Empire, having a huge arsenal of nuclear bombs, thousands of tanks and fighter aircraft and a huge army, collapsed like a house of cards because the rulers themselves lost faith in the Communist ideology, which came to power in 1917.
Badzaat Julahas Remarks
When the need of the hour is to dispassionately revisit the 19th-century history, especially in the background of various Pasmanda (Backward) Muslim organisations denouncing Sir Syed Ahmed Khan for using the highly offensive expression ‘Badzaat Julahas’ (low-born weavers) for those who had rebelled against the British in 1857, the Aligarh Muslim University Old Boys Associations all over the world, without making any retrospection, are parroting the same old line that Muslims lost the glory of power because they were educationally very backward.
This pejorative term was used by him in his apology, Asbab-i-Baghawat-i-Hind (The Causes of the Indian Revolt), written a year after the 1857 First War of Independence.
Sir Syed was entitled to hold his view about the educational backwardness of the community—even though it was not wholly true–but where was the need to use such derogatory language for the Muslim artisans and weavers (Ansaris) who had borne the brunt of the brutal British destruction of their flourishing textile industries, which used to produce world-class clothes. Why was the insulting word ‘Badzaat’ (outcast) not used for Bahadur Shah Zafar, Begum Hazrat Mahal, Rani of Jhansi,, Nana Saheb, Kuer Singh and a large number of upper-caste Muslims and Hindus who took up arms against the British then?
Sir Auckland Colvin and Major General G S I. Graham, in the English translation published in 1873, strategically omitted this casteist slur ‘Badzaat Julahas’ and toned down the whole passage on page 60, as Sir Syed’s Asbab-i-Baghawat-i-Hind was to be presented in the British Parliament.
Intellectual Stagnancy Questioned
Sir Syed’s view on educational backwardness was not corroborated by the British writers of that time, like Colonel William Sleeman and later by William Dalrymple and Shashi Tharoor. Whatever may be his opinion about the intellectual stagnancy of Muslims and their resistance to adopting the English language, the fact is that India produced a huge number of Muslims in 19th century who excelled in all walks of life. A small section of ulema, clergy, who opposed him, did so because of Sir Syed’s strong pro-British and pro-Christian view, and not necessarily because of his efforts to establish a college or university.
Curiously, personalities like Shibli Noamani, satirist-cum-judge Akbar Allahabadi and later poet and philosopher Sir Mohammad Iqbal, though appreciative of Sir Syed’s efforts in the field of education, strongly disagreed with his religious views and his blind loyalty towards the British imperialists.
Incidentally, it was in the 19th-century era of so-called intellectual stagnancy that these three reputed scholars, and hordes of other Muslims who excelled in all walks of life, were born. Fatima Sheikh, along with Savitribai Phule, established the first modern school by Indians for girls in her brother’s home in Pune in 1848—that is almost three decades before Sir Syed’s Mohammadan Anglo Oriental College in Aligarh was established.
One may disagree with some of these prominent figures, but it is a fact that Barrister Mohammad Ali Jinnah, freedom fighters Shaukat Ali, Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi (born as a Sikh and converted to Islam), writer and the first Muslim judge of Calcutta High Court in 1890 Justice Ameer Ali, first Muslim barrister of the Bombay High Court in 1867 and third president of Indian National Congress, Badruddin Tayabji, Zakir Husain, who later rose to become President of India, founder of Darul Uloom, Deoband, Maulana Qasim Nanawtawi and religious scholars Ashraf Ali Thanvi, Syed Sulieman Nadvi and hordes of others were born in those very period.
And if a small section of post-1857 Muslims really resisted the British system of education, what is the point for alumni of AMU to highlight it now? There is a quota of people in all religious communities who oppose modern education. Ultra Orthodox Jews, who form 14% of Israel’s population and 12% of the total Jewish population in the United States, do not take modern secular education. There is complete segregation of men and women in their society.
Amish, a small group of religious Christian group in the US, never send their children to schools beyond Grade VIII. They are reluctant to use phones, cars, and other latest technological inventions.
As he could not detach himself from the ground situation, Sir Syed may have made some misjudgment in reading it. But if 150 years later the AMU alumni take the same stand, then it is simply alarming. They need to read Colonel William Sleeman’s 1844 two-volume book, “Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official”. He wrote, “that education was exceptionally widespread among Muslims in India.” Noting that even modest wage-earners provided their sons with a high level of education “through Arabic and Persian, students engaged with subjects comparable to elite European classical studies.” He equated madrasas of Delhi with Oxford and Cambridge and called their standard world-class. Modern subjects were taught in them; the only difference was that they were imparted in Persian, while Lord Macaulay was trying to thrust English-medium education. The British finally succeeded in their goal after 1857—incidentally, that was the year when Bombay, Madras and Calcutta Universities came up.
William Dalrymple in his 2006 book, “The Last Mughal”, and elsewhere too extensively quoted Sleeman, a military official, known for crushing the thugs and dacoits. He spent 47 years in India between 1809 and 1856. His writings exploded the myth of the educational backwardness of Muslims.
Era of Darkness
Shashi Tharoor, while denouncing the so-called British claim of spreading Western enlightenment, in his book “An Era of Darkness” criticised how the imperialist power destroyed the widespread guru-shishya Parampara, patshalas, gurukuls, madrasas and maktabs. Quoting from an official study done in early 19th century he strongly argued that there were one such institute for 400 students in all the villages of the then Bengal, which the British systematically dismantled to set up some clerk-producing factories, that is, schools, in urban pockets. He questioned if the British had done so much for educational improvement, why was the literacy rate in India just 16% when they left? They just created a small section of English-speaking class to assist them in running the government.
The stark fact is that mass education can not be spread by establishing largely government-aided Oxford or Cambridge-like universities in Aligarh or anywhere else, but by making arrangement for primary and middle-level education in all the villages and localities of India. The truth is that the much-maligned maktabs and madrasas, largely run on community donations, are still fulfilling this job among the sub-altern section of the society. Not to speak of prominent madrasa-educated Hindu personalities of the past like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Munshi Prem Chand, Rajendra Prasad and many others, but even the present Bihar chief minister Samrat Chaudhary had got his early schooling in a madrasa at his native village in Munger district. Now it has been upgraded to an Urdu-medium middle school.
On coming January 8 the Mohammadan Anglo Oriental College would be completing its 150 years since the laying of the foundation stone by the then Viceroy Lord Lytton, on whose name the library was established. It was renamed in 1960 after Maulana Azad following the completion of the new structure. A medical college was established in 1962, which was named as Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital in 1965 following his death.
It was during the tenure of Maulana Azad as the first education minister that the AMU underwent a massive expansion. Ironically, the Aligarhians of the pre-partition years, who migrated over to Pakistan in overwhelming numbers, never forgave him for opposing Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s demand for a Muslim homeland.
