Book Review: Hilal Ahmed, Muslim Political Discourse in Postcolonial India: Monuments, Memory, Contestation

AuthorChristophe Jaffrelot
Published date01 June 2017
Date01 June 2017
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/2321023017698270
Subject MatterBook Reviews
Book Reviews
Hilal Ahmed, Muslim Political Discourse in Postcolonial India: Monuments, Memory, Contestation. Delhi:
Routledge. 2014. 328 pages. ` 850.
The ‘Muslim political discourse’ that Hilal Ahmed scrutinizes in this book has two aspects—one, con-
cerning ‘the process by which historic buildings become monuments’ (what he calls the ‘process of
monumentalisation’) and the other, ‘the manner in which these historic/legal entities are transformed
into political objects’ (p. xi). After a long introduction of 50 pages, the first two chapters are dedicated to
the first issue. The author shows that the British (and Syed Ahmed Khan) invented what they called the
‘Indian Muslim Architectural Heritage’ in the second half of the nineteenth century, an approach that
mirrored their assumption that the Muslims formed a homogenous community neatly separated from
others. After 1947, this ‘monumentalisation process’ was completed by the Archaeological Survey of
India (ASI), which classified and protected sacred sites (including places of worship) as historical sites.
Hilal Ahmed argues very pertinently that this ‘secularism of historical monuments’ (pp. 98 ff.) clashed
with the ‘secularism of minority rights’ (pp. 115 ff.) which, enshrined in the Indian Constitution, recog-
nized the right of Muslims ‘to preserve their own heritage’ (p. 115) and to protect their religious life.
This contradiction between the two variants of secularism prepared the ground for the unleashing of
tensions after the 1970s, when these issues got politicized. The shift from a rather defensive to a more
offensive Muslim discourse in the 1970s is not very clearly explained. Hilal Ahmed suggests that it is
related to the fact that ‘the creation of Bangladesh as an independent country significantly affected the
Muslim political discourse’ (p. 133), but the relation between both phenomena remains unclear. In the
conclusion, the author argues that the new assertiveness of the Indian Muslims in the 1970s was also due
to their level of education and to their economic status that had risen again, decades after Partition.
Another factor, according to him, has been the post-1967 election ‘crisis of the Indian state, [a state
which] played a crucial role in intensifying religious conflicts, but also at the same time, created the pos-
sibilities of negotiations among (…) selected political-religious leaders’ (p. 278; Ahmad’s emphasis).
While all these considerations are certainly relevant, the rise of the Hindu nationalist movement should
have been factored in too. After all, the first pan-Indian Muslim organization, the All India Muslim
Majlis-e-Musharawarat, had been founded in 1964 in the wake of a wave of communal riots (including
those of Aligarh and Jabalpur).
In the 1970s, the political mobilization of the Muslims used the monuments of the Islamic legacy to
claim that the community had inherited a ‘royal Muslim past’. The first sign of this collective offensive
was the creation of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board at Hyderabad in 1973. But monuments
(and not the Shariah) remained key issues. In 1975, Imam Bukhari challenged the authority of the Delhi
Wakf Board and the ASI over the Jama Masjid, a monument to which a whole chapter is devoted. Until
1986, Imam Bukhari instrumentalized the royal past of the Jama Masjid to project himself as a Muslim
leader, with the support of the Congress—a party for which, in return, the Imam requested the Muslims
Studies in Indian Politics
5(1) 92–104
© 2017 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2321023017698270
http://inp.sagepub.com

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