By Arshad Alam, New Age Islam
22 June 2023
In Memory of Professor Imtiaz Ahmad
Main Points:
1.
Prof.
Imtiaz Ahmad, a renowned sociologist, passed away earlier this week.
2.
His
scholarly contribution on Indian Muslims has been phenomenal; he worked on the
issues of caste, religion and communalism, etc.
3.
He
was also a public intellectual, lecturing to audiences on the dangers of
communalism.
4.
He
particularly warned Muslim audiences of the dangers of religious orthodoxy due
to which the Ulama were not happy with him.
5.
He
threw political correctness to the winds, which resulted in his being sidelined
by the political and academic establishments.
------
Prof. Imtiaz Ahmad
----
Prof. Imtiaz Ahmad is no more with us. For
nearly five decades, he was engaged in teaching and research. First, as a
teacher of political sociology in the Jawaharlal Nehru University, afterwards
as a valued mentor to many students who wanted to work on Muslim issues or more
generally wished to engage with his ideas. JNU was not kind to him; he remained
suspended for the best part of his career, over an issue which could have been
sorted out a long time ago. Coming from a middle-class family in Uttar Pradesh,
Imtiaz did not posses the “right” kind of social and cultural capital to
negotiate his way through the elite and frequently upper caste corridors of the
university. Imtiaz was out of the university system, but through his sheer
academic output, he made sure that he was taught and remembered in all
universities.
He once told me that if one does not have
intellectual honesty, then there is no point in doing academics. I understood
the full import of this comment very gradually. Over the years, I realized why
he was not feted like other academic dons and why no government recognition was
ever conferred on him. His intellectual honesty always meant that he was on the
wrong side of the political establishment. Today, when I understand how leading
academics tailor their research to be “politically correct” or remain loyal to
a “network”, I understand Prof. Ahmad’s comment with more clarity. It is painful
that a scholar of his stature was ignored not just by various governments but
also by the academic establishment.
Prof. Ahmad’s oeuvre spans original
writings on caste and religion in Indian Muslims, the specter of communalism,
education, kinship systems, etc. It was through his writings that we understood
the multiple identities which Indian Muslims inhabit. His edited volume on
caste amongst Muslims is still the best resource for any researcher willing to
interrogate the category. Towards the later phase of his life, he devoted
special attention to the question of backward castes amongst Muslims. Today
organized under the umbrella of Pasmanda movement, many consider him the most
important reason why the talk of Muslim caste permeated the Indian academia and
civil society. He not just wrote on the issue but also toured different parts
of country to deliver lectures. He would invite empirical pieces on caste and
collect them in an edited book in which he would write a long introduction
laying thread bare the problem at stake. At times, some of the pieces would
argue the exact opposite of what he was proposing in the introduction but like
a true scholar, he would include the contrary view also. He argued that caste
discrimination existed with the Indian Muslim society and that there was no
point denying it. This certainly did not go down well the Muslim establishment
whose politics, academically or otherwise, depended on the denial of caste
within their society.
I remember his interjections when the Sachar
Committee Report was published in 2006. The Report showed that as a community,
Muslims lagged far behind others in crucial indicators like education,
representation, etc. The reception of the Report among Muslim intellectuals and
those on the left was along predicted lines. Both made common ground in
accusing state discrimination as the primary locus responsible for Muslim
backwardness. It was only Prof. Ahmad who brought some nuance to the debate. He
reminded the upper caste Muslim intellectuals how their forefathers had
declared English education to be the work of the devil and hence had shunned
modernity for nearly 150 years. He reminded them that Muslims were late
starters in accessing modern education and that historic lag was bound to show
as inequality between different communities. He reasoned that since there is a
very small percentage of Muslims who can be called middle class, higher
educational attainments will continue to be low.
To those on the left, he subtly pointed out
that the indices for West Bengal (which was ruled by the CPM for the longest
time) was far worse when compared to Gujarat (which had a BJP government). He
reasoned that it was not the government or the state which was solely
responsible for Muslim backwardness but rather matters internal to the
community should also inquired into. But then discrimination and exclusion were
the buzzwords of the time and no one paid any heed to what Imtiaz was arguing.
I must also add that he was one of the few scholars who had actually read the
Report; others were just fluffing.
Indian Islam was another area which
retained his abiding interest. In his Ritual and Religion in India, he had
stipulated that Indian Islam was simultaneously local and universal. The local
elements could be seen in the practice of visitation to various dargahs, use of
amulets and even rituals and practices in common with Hindus. At the same time,
Indian Islam was also part of the universalism of the faith, seen in practices
like Salat, Saum, Hajj, etc. This was not an idea which was original to Prof.
Ahmad; such theorizations had an old history in the discipline of social
anthropology. But his original formulation was that both these tendencies will
continue to co-exist in what he called “Indian Islam”. In other words, he was
arguing that the average Indian Muslim was perfectly happy to co-exist in two
simultaneous and at times contradictory worldviews: those of the local Hindu
cosmology and that of the great tradition of Islam. The historian of Islam in
South Asia, Prof. Francis Robinson got into a detailed argument with him over
the issue. Other scholars weighed in with the result that today no serious
researcher of Islam in India can overlook the debate initiated by Prof. Ahmad.
Prof. Ahmad always encouraged difference
and plurality of views. In that spirit, I must say that he was too much wedded
to the idea of Nehruvian secularism and a linear view of modernization. Many a
time, he assumed that modernization will take care of the orthodoxy within the
Muslim community. Today, we know that things are far more complex: that Muslim
orthodoxy is on the increase even as the educational levels of the community
are going up. He also assumed that religious pluralism was inherent in the Indian
ethos. While this might be true, placing too much emphasis on it makes us
oblivious to the processes, internal to religious communities, which lead to
the very subversion of that pluralism.
After he retired from the university, he
was regularly seen on television adding nuance to otherwise drab debates. He
weighed in on the majoritarian turn which the country was taking but was always
optimistic that this was a passing phase. Sadly, his belief in the innate
moderation of Indian normative psyche might not have too many takers. But the
conviction with which he uttered those words could only come from a man deeply
weeded to the idea of India.
Anyone writing the story of Indian Muslims
post-Independence will have to engage with Prof. Ahmad’s ideas. And that’s a
legacy that very few academicians leave behind.
-----
A regular contributor to NewAgeIslam.com, Arshad Alam is a writer and
researcher on Islam and Muslims in South Asia.
URL:
https://newageislam.com/islamic-personalities/professor-imtiaz-intellectual-honesty/d/130052
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