Laurence Gautier’s research delves into the discursive history of Indian minority universities. She begins her investigation using Habermas’ immanent relationist approach,1 highlighting the intricate connections between universities, legislative bodies, and community dynamics. By challenging liberal notions that relegate universities to mere technical hubs disconnected from political contexts, Gautier’s work, Between Nation and Community: Muslim Universities and Indian Politics after Partition, reveals the complex power dynamics and hegemonic struggles that have shaped Muslim universities in post-independence India.
Gautier’s investigation spans from the Nehruvian era to the 1990s, critically examining contemporary Muslim questions and minority politics in India. Building on Talal Asad’s insights, she demonstrates how nation formation involves identifying minority groups as internal others, mediated through authoritative representations distinguishing the nation’s core from those who do not fully fit into these representations.
Through a nuanced analysis of Muslim universities run by Muslim agencies, Gautier uncovers the interplay between nation-building, communal politics, and educational institutions in post-independence India. By tracing Nehru’s efforts to integrate Muslim universities into India’s national body, Gautier reveals the wounds inflicted by partition and the unique features of these colleges that resisted assimilation. This research offers a critical perspective on the discursive history of Muslim minority universities, highlighting the power dynamics and hegemonic struggles that have shaped their development.
The book highlights the conflicts arising when an integrationist government clashes with campus discourses striving for a national vision on their own terms. This tension is evident in debates surrounding the minority status of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI). The author reveals the contradictions of an integrationist government seeking to nationalize these spaces claimed by Muslims while using them to communicate with the Muslim community on its own terms.
The book explores topics such as the re-emergence of Muslim political mobilization through the minority status movement, which was delegitimized after partition. It examines how Muslim organizations, despite the lack of a national party, led mass movements and how issue-based Muslim coalitions found new frameworks to articulate their demands. Gautier also details the role of the state and secular left in India, as well as the intelligentsia, in suppressing discourse related to minority status through communal arguments.
The author shows how national-level struggles within the Muslim community contributed to the rise of “Little Selves” after the 1960s, which scholars like Jaffrelot have termed a “silent revolution.” By moving away from nationalist and left-secular historiographies that focus on AMU’s role in the Pakistan movement, the book reveals the conflictual history of the conditions that led to its formation and its resistance to dominant forces.
Chapter 1 examines the conflict-ridden history surrounding the establishment of Jamia Millia Islamia. Jamia was founded as a space for composite nationalism, aligning with the Gandhian Congress position, which conflicted with Aligarh Muslim University’s (AMU) colonial subject position and feudal structure. The author evaluates why such efforts were reduced to representations of hyphenated citizens in Nehruvian secular discourse, leading to economic discrimination and majoritarian nationalism. Jamia developed a pluralistic approach to religious studies, critiquing the limited influence of domain-focused studies like those at AMU. The chapter suggests that Jamia serves as a laboratory for educational Muslim agencies in post-independence India, shaped by Western influence.
Chapter 2 explores how AMU and Muslims were represented in the post-independence Nehruvian era, unraveling the complex interplay between national discourse and Aligarh. Despite efforts to integrate AMU into Indian nationalism, alienation and communalization persisted. The chapter highlights how changes in Aligarh’s Muslim character in the 1950s impacted the Muslim community and how specific Muslim representations were suppressed.
The enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) sparked widespread dissent across major universities, but the state’s violent response to protests in Muslim universities reveals a stark contrast in its treatment of Muslim spaces. This discrepancy has its roots in historical processes that predate the partition of India. These chapters seek to explore this internal othering of Muslim communities by posing the question: Can a Muslim university be an Indian university? Through a critical examination of partition and its aftermath, the chapter uncovers the significant contributions of Muslim universities to the development of Muslim identity and the role of Islam as a language of contestation and development in post-independent India.
By delving into these complexities, the chapter sheds light on the efforts of these universities in mediating between the government and the community, referencing the intricate dynamics of identity, citizenship, and nation-building.
Chapter 3 covers discourses involving policies and struggles related to minority status from the 1960s to the 1980s. The struggles over AMU’s unique minority status reinstated Muslim political agency, subverting dominant nationalist political discourses that delegitimized Muslim political subjectivity after partition.
Chapter 4 analyzes Jamia’s post-independence history, focusing on its developmental efforts prioritizing Urdu over minority status. The chapter exposes majoritarian attempts to elevate Hindi-Hindu equations against endeavors to defend Urdu as a transnational language, highlighting Jamia’s efforts to participate in nation-building.
Chapter 5 examines the development-oriented Muslim political changes that began in the 1970s. The author argues that the strengthening of Pasmanda politics and similar backward community movements redefined the dominant Muslim political character, impacting social justice and economic equality. However, these developments also led to the consideration of the Muslim community as an unavoidable backward minority.
Gautier also examines the impact of Maududian ideas on Muslim universities and institutions after the 1950s. Abul A’la Maududi’s vision of empowering the Muslim community through the reinstatement of Islamic values in these institutions resonated with Muslim organizations like Jamaat-e-Islami and its interlocutors. They significantly influenced public discourse and protests against minority status, challenging the dominant leftist intellectual narrative on campuses and politicizing Muslim students. The chapter argues that secular nationalism has historically favored the dominant community, creating space for marginalized communities to assert their presence in this discourse. By exploring these dynamics, the chapter sheds light on the complex interplay between religion, politics, and identity in shaping the intellectual and political landscape of Muslim universities in India.
Chapter 6 identifies the characteristics and interventions of Islamist movements since 1980, including their role in shifting the community’s attention to rights struggles. She also explores the impact of the Babri Masjid and Shah Bano case on national politics, leading to the communalization of Muslim political subjectivity. Additionally, it investigates the resistance made by Islamist movements against Sir Syed’s purely qawmi politics.2 Contrary to reducing Muslim subjectivity to a mere reactionary movement against dominant forces,3 this research reveals the potential of Islam to emerge as a language of development, contestation, and mobility, fostering a Ummatic sensibility rooted in Islamic ethical paradigms. By shifting the focus from a solely reactive narrative, this study highlights the agency and empowerment that Islamic values and principles can inspire in Muslim individuals and communities, enabling them to navigate and challenge dominant discourses and shape their own trajectories and destinies.
The final chapter focuses on Muslim women’s representation in both universities. Despite limited opportunities, female students have built their own space, emerging as custodians of cultural heritage within male-centric institutions. The chapter highlights the rise in the number of Muslim women on both campuses after the Shah Bano discourses. It clearly depicts how women have marked their presence in debates related to the Shah Bano case and minority struggles, leading strong resistance movements against Hindutva-fascism and citizenship movements.
Asad highlights the prioritization of national identity over other forms of self-identification,4 which nation-states consider a citizen’s primary responsibility for the common good. However, Gautier argues that these state interests often involve imposing a reconstructed identity from above, without mutual respect. The author contends that this leads to the denial of rights for minority identities, perpetuating violence in the name of national interest.
The author evaluates the minority rights struggles in the 1960s as a natural critique of the failure to build an inclusive national imagination, beyond just criticizing the secular consciousness. The institutions of AMU and JMI play a unique role in making the imposed uniform public virtue of the state more inclusive and diverse. Gautier sees Muslim schools as sites of conflict with linear national imaginaries, inspiring us to imagine minority universities as spaces of pluralization that envision democracy as the collaborative existence of diversity, challenging the monolithic historiography of unity in diversity.
In the context of recent events like Batla House and the CAA struggle, which have transformed student politics, Gautier urges us to reexamine the current history of Muslim socio-cognitive politics, particularly in the context of the debated Muslim minority status. This requires moving beyond a monolithic Hindu consciousness and embracing a new ethical imagination of democracy’s pluralization.
References:
- Habermas, J. (1970). Toward a rational society: Student protest, science, and politics. Beacon Press (MA).
- Ahmed, H. (2019). Muslim political discourse in postcolonial India: Monuments, memory, contestation. Routledge Chapman & Hall.
- Ahmad, I. (2009). Islamism and democracy in India: The transformation of Jamaat-E-Islami. Princeton University Press.
- Asad, T. (2003). Formations of the secular: Christianity, Islam, modernity. Stanford University Press.
