Muslim Identities and Universities: Laurence Gautier on AMU and JMI’s role in post-partition India
Gautier, with a PhD from Cambridge, explores the complex role of Muslim universities in India post-partition, examining their impact on national integration, minority rights, and secularism.
Interviewer: Ansab Amir
Amazon
"Between Nation and ‘Community' examines the role of two universities – Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia – in shaping the discourse on Muslims in post-independence India, as citizens and as a minority group. Both universities were more than educational institutions – they acted as political sites, at the intersection between state actors, community organisations and ordinary Muslim citizens. Through them, state authorities sought to reach out to the so-called Muslim community and aimed to produce ‘good Muslims’ who would simultaneously be ‘good Indians’. This book is a close study of the relations between state and university actors thus giving us precious insights into the state’s ambivalent attitude towards Indians Muslims – at once urging them to act as un-hyphenated citizens, and yet constantly looking at them as a ‘different’ group."
Between Nation and ‘Community': Muslim Universities and Indian Politics after Partition
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