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A New Pablik: Abdul Halim Sharar, volunteerism, and the Anjuman-e Dar-us-Salam in late nineteenth-century India*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2015

C. RYAN PERKINS
C. RYAN PERKINS*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Portland State University, United States of America Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In the second half of the nineteenth century an increasing number of Indians entered the world of volunteerism and public activism. One such individual was the prolific Urdu writer Abdul Halim Sharar (1860–1926), who served as the secretary for a short-lived voluntary association, the Anjuman-e Dar-us-Salam, during the late 1880s in Lucknow, India. Using readers’ letters as printed in Sharar's widely circulating monthly periodical, Dil Gudāz, this article seeks to understand the reasons behind the increasing role of volunteerism as part and parcel of a modern sharīf Muslim identity in the post-1857 period. Having adopted the role of a community activist, Sharar began using his periodical, soon after its inception, to mobilize and recruit his readers to participate in what he described as a passionate movement sweeping through the ‘Islami pablik’. Both rhetorical and descriptive, such an idea provided hope for a divided and struggling community to overcome the divisions that were central to their many challenges in a post-1857 world. Through the study of the vicissitudes and challenges faced by Sharar and his fellow activists, this article underscores the ways in which public activism and volunteerism simultaneously represented the possibility for Muslims to use their own resources to bring about real social and political change, and also reminded them of their shortcomings and the limits of an informal activism. This article seeks to show that ultimately, even such ‘failed’ and ephemeral attempts were foundational for more effective mass mobilization efforts in the following decades and into the twentieth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , July 2015 , pp. 1049 - 1090
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

1 London, British Library, Or. 5288, fol. 79.

2 While technically sharīf was a term used to describe Muslims who could trace their lineage to Arabia, in the latter half of the nineteenth century it came to connote a more generic sense of belonging to a particular respectable cultural milieu. I use this category of sharīf in a similar manner that Marshall Hodgson used the term ‘Islamicate’ to refer to a broader cultural world that was not defined by religious tenets but rather was characterized by a shared culture spanning the Muslim world. Thus, in this context, Urdu-speaking Hindus and Muslims could both participate in a shared sharīf cultural world.

3 The Indian Association, established in 1876, was one major factor in the increased political activity in the country. See Chandra, Sudhir, ‘Subjects’ Citizenship Dream: Notes on the Nineteenth Century’, in Bhargava, Rajeev and Reifeld, Helmut (eds), Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2005), pp. 117–120.Google Scholar

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9 Lelyveld, Aligarh's First Generation, p. 82.

10 According to Hali, the Scientific Society was formed in 1863 while Sayyid Ahmad Khan was stationed in Ghazipur. It moved to Aligarh in 1864 along with Khan. See Hali, Altaf Husain, Hayāt-e Javaid (New Delhi: National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, 1999, reprint), p. 124Google Scholar. David Lelyveld provides different dates. According to him the Scientific Society was formed in 1864 and moved in 1865 to Aligarh along with Khan; see his unpublished paper prepared for a conference on ‘Cultural Institutions, Knowledge Arenas, Post-1947: Revisiting the Roles of Maulana Azad’, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, 21–23 March, 2013, ‘Sir Sayyid, Maulana Azad and the Uses of Urdu’, p. 8. Francis Robinson provides different dates again. He writes that the Society was formed in 1864 in Ghazipur and moved with Khan to Aligarh when he settled there in April 1864. See Robinson, Francis, Separatism among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United Provinces’ Muslims, 1860–1923. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), p. 93Google Scholar. In 1866 a building known as the Aligarh Institute was erected and its journal, the Aligarh Institute Gazette, began publication.

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13 Stark, ‘Associational Culture’, p. 31.

14 Joshi, Sanjay, Fractured Modernity: Making of a Middle Class in Colonial North India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 2.Google Scholar A ‘project of self-fashioning’ implies a greater level of control than seems to be accurate. While this description is more helpful than seeing class as a flat sociological fact, I want to draw attention to the ways in which this project had the auxiliary effect of necessarily excluding some. That is to say, it is impossible to fashion oneself as civilized without creating a less civilized ‘other’.

15 ‘Abdul Ḥālīm Sharar, ‘Maulānā Sharar Marḥum Kī Ḳhūd Navisht Sawānih ‘Umrī ‘Āp Baitī’’, Dil Gudāz (January 1934), p. 3.

16 Sharar, ‘Maulānā Sharar Marḥum Kī Ḳhūd Navisht Sawānih ‘Umrī ‘Āp Baitī’, p. 56–57. To give a sense of the scale for this period, the circulation numbers of Naval Kishore's famous Awadh Akhbar never reached one thousand.

17 ‘Abdul Halim Sharar, ‘London meñ Ḳhāne-e Ḳhudā’, Dil Gudāz (January 1887), pp. 15–16.

18 ‘Abdul Ḥālīm Sharar, ‘Hamārā Jadīd Nāvil’, Dil Gudāz (January 1889), p. 14.

19 ‘Abdul Ḥālīm Sharar, ‘Chand Muḳthaṣir Khalayat’, Dil Gudāz (August 1910), pp. 23–24.

20 Despite Sharar having created several uproars with his writings and being known as a divisive figure, it is important to recognize him as someone who strove to unite Muslims—not in the doctrinal arena, but in the broad religious, social, and political life of the community.

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22 Joshi, Fractured Modernity, p. 21.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid, p. 23.

25 The Urdu phrase used was kam ḥaiṡīyat, which could also be translated as ‘little means’. Abdul Halim Sharar, ‘Muhammadan National Volunteer Fund’, Dil Gudāz (March 1888), p. 13. Ikanni was a one-anna coin, and doanni was a two-anna coin.

26 The following mentions that Sharar's article was the first of its kind in Urdu to address blank verse poetry. Muḥammad Qamar Salīm, Āshāriya-e Dilgudāz, Vol. I (Mumbai: Qaumī Konsil, 2003), p. 86.

27 ‘Abdul Ḥalīm Sharar, ‘Blaink Vars yā Naẕ-e Ġhair Muqfā’, Dil Gudāz (June 1900), p. 10.

28 Ibid, p. 10.

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32 Ibid.

33 Aziz, Public Life in Muslim India, p. 488.

34 Bhargava, Rajeev, ‘Introduction’, in Bhargava, Rajeev and Reifeld, Helmut (eds), Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship: Dialogues and Perceptions (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2005), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

35 Frevert, Ute, ‘Civil Society and Citizenship in Western Democracies’, in Bhargava and Reifeld (eds), Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship, p. 68.Google Scholar

36 Ibid.

37 Stark, ‘Associational Culture’, p. 29.

38 Ibid.

39 Sharar, ‘Anjuman-e Dār-us-Salām’ (November 1888), p. 171.

40 Perkins, ‘From the Meḥfil to the Printed Word’, p. 52.

41 Panipati, Shaikh Muhammad Isma’il (ed.), Ḳhuṯbāt-e sar Sayyid, jild-e duvvum (Lahore: Majlis Taraqqi-e Adab, 1973), p. 6.Google Scholar The translation below is that of Frances Pritchett. See http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_sir_Syed_lucknow_1887_fwp0106.html#fwp04, [accessed 27 February 2015]. The relevant excerpt of the speech is as follows: ‘Please reflect that, to sit with the Viceroy in Council, there must be an honored [mu’azziz] person among the honored persons of the land. Will the Ra’ises of our land like it if a man of low [adna] community [qaum] or low rank [darjah], even if he has taken a B.A. degree or an M.A., and even if he is also worthy, would sit and rule over them, would be master of their wealth, property, and honor? Never—nobody at all will like it. [Cheers [chi’arz].]’

42 For a brief discussion of this, see Joshi, Fractured Modernity, p. 44.

43 ‘Abdul Ḥālīm Sharar, ‘Muhammadan National Volunteer’, Dil Gudāz (February 1888), p. 11.

44 Ibid.

45 Eickelman, Dave F. and Salvatore, Armando, ‘Muslim Publics’, in Public Islam and The Common Good (Leiden: Brill, 2004), p. 12.Google Scholar

46 ‘Abdul Halim Sharar, ‘Muhammadan National Volunteer Fund’, Dil Gudāz (April 1888), p. 62.

47 Lelyveld, Aligarh's First Generation, p. 123.

48 Ibid, pp. 122–123.

49 Chandra, ‘Subjects’ Citizenship Dream’, p. 113.

50 Sharar, ‘Muhammadan National Volunteer’, p. 11.

51 ‘Opening of the Allahabad University’, Aligarh Institute Gazette, Allahabad, 15 November 1887, pp. 1303–1304.

52 Sharar, ‘Muhammadan National Volunteer’, p. 11.

53 Ibid, pp. 11–12.

54 Ibid, p. 11.

55 Ibid, p. 14.

56 For a look at Sayyid Ahmad Khan's acceptance of even the smallest gifts, see Hali, Altaf Husain, Hayat-i Javed, Qadiri, K. H. and Matthews, David J. (trans) (New Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli, 1979), pp. 148–159.Google Scholar

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59 For a fuller treatment of the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ in the context of colonial India, see Chatterjee, Partha, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 6Google Scholar; and Prakash's, Gyan critique in ‘The Urban Turn’, in Vasudevan, Ravi, Bagchi, Jeebesh, Sundaram, Ravi, Narula, Monica, Lovink, Geert, and Sengupta, Shuddhabrata (eds), Sarai Reader 2002: The Cities of Everyday Life (Delhi: Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, 2002), p. 3Google Scholar.

60 Gardiner, Michael E., Critiques of Everyday Life (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 77.Google Scholar

61 Lefebvre, Henri, Critique of Everyday Life, Volume I: Foreword, Moore, J. (trans.) (London: Verso, 2008), p. 87.Google Scholar

62 The Anjumān-e Ḥimāyat-e Islām formed in 1884 out of a desire to defend Islam in writing as well as to provide education to Muslim children. In particular, they wanted to protect poor children and orphans from the proselytizing activities of other religious groups. Aziz, Public Life in Muslim India, 1850–1947, pp. 73–74; Minault, Gail, Secluded Scholars: Women's Education and Muslim Social Reform in Colonial India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 175–182.Google Scholar

63 Sharar, ‘Muhammadan National Volunteer’, p. 13.

64 Ibid.

65 Abdul Halim Sharar, ‘Anjuman-e Dārus Salām Lucknow’, Dil Gudāz (October 1888), p. 15.

66 Sharar, ‘Anjuman-e Dār-us-Salām’, p. 171.

67 Zaidi, S. A., ‘Who Is a Muslim? Identities of Exclusion—North Indian Muslims, c. 1860–1900’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review 47, 2 (2010), p. 206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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69 Sharar, ‘Muhammadan National Volunteer Fund’, (March 1888), pp. 14–15.

70 Gorakhpuri was a mint in Gorakphur under the authority of the Nawabs of Awadh. These coins have the mint-name ‘Muazzamabad’ inscribed on them which was an Islamic alias of Gorakhpur. By 1888, they were no longer in production, but continued to circulate. Their value depended on the price of grain and ranged from approximately 60 to a little over 100 gorakphpuris per rupee. I want to thank Shailendra Bhandare for illuminating me on the Gorakhpuri currency. Also see, Gazetteer of the Province of Oudh, Vol. I.–A. to G. (Lucknow: Oudh Government Press, 1877), pp. 170 and 521.

71 Ibid, pp. 15–16.

72 Chandra, ‘Subjects Citizenship Dream’, p. 121. Chandra illustrates this point by reference to Gopal Krishna Gokhale's speech in the supreme legislative council where he unconsciously makes a distinction between Mahomedans and the people of Bengal.

73 Guha, Sumit, ‘The Politics of Identity and Enumeration in India c. 1600–1990’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 45, 1 (2003), p. 153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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75 Chandra, ‘Subjects’ Citizenship Dream’, p. 114.

76 Perkins, ‘From the Meḥfil to the Printed Word’, p. 53. Shafique Virani has made a similar point regarding the need to re-evaluate the terms ‘“Hindu” and “Muslim” as either/or categories’, in Virani, Shafique N., ‘Taqiyya and Identity in a South Asian Community’, The Journal of Asian Studies 70, 1 (February 2011), pp. 124–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

77 Sharar, ‘Muhammadan National Volunteer Fund’, (April 1888), pp. 63–64.

78 For a brief mention of the association, see Joshi, Fractured Modernity, p. 30.

79 Pandit Ajudhia Nath was a prominent Kashmiri Brahmin lawyer, leading pleader of the Allahabad High Court, and ‘spokesman of Hindu educated opinion in the UP’. He was also a proponent of Urdu in the Hind–Urdu debates of the period and one of the leading supporters of the National Congress. For more information regarding Nath, see Robinson, Separatism among Indian Muslims, pp. 31–32; 114–120.

80 United Indian Patriotic Association, Showing the Seditious Character of the Indian National Congress and the Opinions Held by Eminent Natives of India who Are Opposed to the Movement (Allahabad: Pioneer Press, 1888), p. xxxiii.

81 Āzād, a newspaper published out of Lucknow states: ‘The three halls of the Baradari were crowded to suffocation, the number of persons present on the occasion exceeding 20,000. Such a large crowd of people has never assembled in the Kaisarbagh since the Mutiny.’ As found in SVN, p. 308. Sharar estimated that 20,000–25,000 people attended the gathering; see ‘Abdul Ḥalīm Sharar, ‘Qaisarbāġh meñ Islām kā ro‘b o dāb’, Dil Gudāz (April 1888), p. 9. The Aligarh Institute Gazette stated: ‘All those gathered agreed that apart from Eid, at least for the last thirty to thirty-two years, such a gathering of Muslims in one place in Lucknow has not been seen.’ See ‘Kārespānḍans: Anti-Congress kā Jalsah Lucknow meñ’, Aligarh Institute Gazette, (12 May 1888), p. 535.

82 United Indian Patriotic Association, Showing the Seditious Character of the Indian National Congress, p. xxxiii. The Indian Patriotic Association was established in August of 1888 in order to convince the British that Congress demands were unrepresentative. The ‘United’ in its name was added later to underscore its pan-communal nature. For more information on the Association, see Robinson, Separatism among Indian Muslims, pp. 120–122. For a fuller treatment of this debate, see Perkins, ‘From the Meḥfil to the Printed Word’.

83 This debate erupted in 1905 after Sharar published a critical review of Brijnarayan Chakbast's new edition of Pandat Daya Shankar Kaul Nasim's (1811–1843) maṡnavī [‘narrative poem’], ‘Gulzār-e Nasīm’ [‘Rose Garden of Nasim’]. See Muḥammad Shafī Shīrāzī and Amīr Ḥasan Nūrānī (eds), Ma’rakah-e Chakbast o Sharar, Y‘anī, Mubāḥiṡah-e Gulzār-e Nasīm (Lucknow, 1966), pp. 318–321.

84 The quote reads that the secretary of Dar-us-Salam ‘wrote to say that the Anjuman agreed with the United Indian Patriotic Association and was opposed to the National Congress, believing it to be very harmful, not only for Muhammadans but for the whole people of India; and that the Anjuman had worked hard against the Congress in Lucknow, the great meeting of 20,000 people on May 6th having been held under its auspices’. See United Indian Patriotic Association, Showing the Seditious Character of the Indian National Congress, p. xxiii.

85 ‘Abdul Ḥalīm Sharar, ‘Qaisarbāġh meñ Islām kā ro‘b o dāb’, Dil Gudāz (April 1888), p. 12. Lyall Hall was named after Sir Alred Comyn Lyall (1835–1911) who served as lieutenant governor of North West Provinces and chief commissioner of Awadh from 1882 to 1887.

86 ‘Abdul Ḥalīm Sharar, ‘Qaisarbāġh meñ Islām kā ro‘b o dāb’, Dil Gudāz (April 1888), p. 9.

87 Stark, ‘Associational Culture’, pp. 15, 30–31. The two associations had high cross-membership and almost merged at one point. However, this did not occur, and membership numbers for the Jalsah continued to decline, while those of the Rifah increased. See Report on the Administration of the NWP & Oudh, for the year ending 31 March 1883, p. 92. As cited in Stark, ‘Associational Culture’, p. 30.

88 Sharar, ‘Qaisarbāġh meñ Islām kā ro‘b o dāb’, Dil Gudāz (April 1888), pp. 8–9. During the time of Wajid Ali Shah, Qaisarbagh was the venue for performances which the nawab himself choreographed.

89 Ibid, pp. 10–11. For descriptions of the Battle of Badr, see Lingis, Martin, Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources (Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1983), pp. 138–152Google Scholar; Kennedy, Hugh, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates (Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited, 2004), pp. 35–36.Google Scholar

90 ‘Abdul Ḥalīm Sharar, ‘Qaisarbāġh meñ Islām kā ro‘b o dāb’, Dil Gudāz (April 1888), p. 10.

91 ‘Kārespānḍans’, Aligarh Institute Gazette, p. 535.

92 Guha, ‘The Politics of Identity and Enumeration’, p. 160.

93 United Indian Patriotic Association, Showing the Seditious Character of the Indian National Congress, p. xxiii.

94 For a comparison, see the following, in which the description of those in attendance at Sayyid Ahmad Khan's 1888 speech at the Muhammadan Educational Conference in Lucknow included only those it considered to be the ‘intellect and the aristocracy, the brain and the muscle, of the Mahomedan community’. Ahmed, Syed, Sir Syed Ahmed on the Present State of Indian Politics, Consisting of Speeches and Letters Reprinted from the ‘Pioneer’ (Allahabad: The Pioneer Press, 1888), pp. 1–2.Google Scholarhttp://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_sir_Syed_lucknow_1887.html, [accessed 27 February 2015].

95 Sharar, ‘Qaisar Bāġh meñ Islām kā ro‘b o dāb’, Dil Gudāz (April 1888), p. 12.

96 Guha, ‘The Politics of Identity and Enumeration’, p. 160.

97 SVN, p. 309.

98 ‘Kārespānḍans’, Aligarh Institute Gazette, p. 536.

99 SVN, pp. 309–310.

100 Sharar, ‘Qaisarbāġh meñ Islām kā ro‘b o dāb’, pp. 12–13.

101 SVN, pp. 308, 310.

102 ‘Kārespānḍans’, Aligarh Institute Gazette, p. 536.

103 SVN, pp. 309.

104 Ibid.

105 Ibid, pp. 308–309.

106 ‘Kārespānḍans’, Aligarh Institute Gazette, p. 536.

107 SVN, p. 309.

108 Sharar, ‘Anjuman-e Dār us Salām Lucknow’, pp. 13–14.

109 Aziz, Public Life in Muslim India, pp. 73–74; Minault, Secluded Scholars, pp. 175–182; ‘Abdul Ḥālīm Sharar, ‘Anjuman-e Ḥamāyat-e Islām Lahore’, Dil Gudāz (December 1887), pp. 6–7.

110 ‘Sharar, Abdul Ḥalīm, Lucknow: The Last Phase of an Oriental Culture, Harcourt, E. S. and Hussain, Fakhir (trans.) (London: Paul Elek, 1975), p. 23.Google Scholar

111 ‘Abdul Halim Sharar, ‘Qaumī Library’, Dil Gudāz (April 1890), pp. 14–16. The authors of the letters are from the following areas: Gwalior, Gorakhpur, Jaunpur, Lahore, Agra, Lahore, Ferozpur, Aligarh, Gorakhpur, Delhi, Zil’a Basti, Dera Ismail Khan, and Hyderabad.

112 Stark, ‘Associational Culture’, p. 31.