MAULANA ABUL Kalam Azad is, perhaps, modern India?s tallest Muslim leader. Let us not get it wrong?he wasn?t a leader of the Muslims in India; that claim would rightfully be Muhammad Ali Jinnah?s. Azad, monikered ?Maulana? for his scholarly command over Islam?s rich history and culture, was never a mass leader?his leadership evolved vastly different, as the alternative Muslim voice to the separatism championed by Jinnah.
Given his role in the Congress-led movement for freedom, his rise as a scholar of Islam and his stint as India?s first education minister, it is a pity there is not much, in terms of literature, that familiarises us with Azad. In this context, Islam Pluralism Nationhood, edited by historian Mushirul Hasan, is a much-needed documentation of confidential memos, facsimiles, notes and letters that helps in understanding Azad?s role in public life. Most of these documents relate to the Khilafat Movement, a pan-Islamic movement in India, which Azad actively supported, and the Non-Cooperation Movement, led by Mahatma Gandhi.
A reading of the documents, keeping in mind the Maulana?s training as an Islamist scholar and an advocate of pan-Islamism, explains why he stood against the wind on the question of Muslim separatism.
Azad was trained as a scholar of Islam in Mecca, Calcutta and at the Muhammedan Anglo-Oriental College (now Aligarh Muslim University). However, his running the Al-Hilal, a newspaper that ?dealt with affairs in the Arab world?, reflects that his interests went beyond just the scriptures and that he saw Islam as a nation as much as he did India.
His strong affiliation with pan-Islam was, perhaps, rooted in those years. He would later choose to be a part of the Khilafat Movement, a rising of Indian Muslims for the preservation of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey, and this, as per Azad himself, solidified his faith in pan-Islamism. Yet, he never veered off his stance against Muslim separatism.
Reconciling his views of Islam as ?one community, beyond borders? and his steadfast commitment to ?cultural syncretism? and ?composite nationalism? would seem difficult, given that he didn?t contest the Partition decision of the Congress. He did hold it to be ?one of the greatest fraud? that religious affinity could unite areas which are geographically, economically, linguistically and culturally different? though.
But making sense of the Maulana?s seemingly divergent views and his version of secularism would require putting these in the right historical context, of the period that the man himself belonged to. Pan-Islamism then wasn?t a radical, literal interpretation of Islam as being ?one nation? that it has become today in a process of politicisation for which fundamentalists across religions are responsible. Neither was identity so polarised. One could be pan-Islamic and be Indian, or Turkish, or whatever?or be of the Maulana mould.
Sarthak Ray