Book Talk: Between Nation and ‘Community’: Muslim Universities and Indian Politics after Partition
Book Talk: Between Nation and ‘Community’: Muslim Universities and Indian Politics after Partition
Referentin
Dr. Laurence Gautier (Universität Freiburg)
Datum und Zeit
1. Dezember 2025, 16:00 - 17:30
Ort
Rämistrasse 71, CH-8006 Zürich, Raum KOL-N-20
Abstract
Between Nation and ‘Community’: Muslim Universities and Indian Politics after Partition explores the manifold debates on Muslims’ location in post-partition India through the lens of two prominent Muslim universities, Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia. It shows that these educational institutions played a pivotal role in the wider discussions on national integration, secularism, minority rights and Muslim backwardness. After independence, these universities found themselves at a critical juncture between central state authorities and India’s Muslim population. As public and Muslim institutions, they were to participate in nation-building as much as in the development of the Muslim ‘community’. By closely looking at the relation between these institutions and state authorities, the book teases out the ambiguities of the Indian state’s policy vis-à-vis Muslim citizens. It also examines, in turn, how these universities became crucibles for competing conceptions of Muslim identity and citizenship, involving students, teachers, as well as religious organizations and political parties.
Laurence Gautier is a historian of contemporary South Asia. She earned her PhD from the University of Cambridge. Her research explores what it means to be a minority citizen in a postcolonial secular nation-state. Gautier focuses on Indian Muslims, who form the largest Muslim minority in the world in a famously diverse society.
Students, staff and everyone interested is cordially invited.
Organisation
Asien-Orient-Institut - Indologie