ASHA: Blast From The Past

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

History retains what power seeks to erase. Across centuries, we have mourned the destruction of Nalanda and Vikramashila, not as architectural losses but as civilisation’s self-inflicted wounds. Their names have become synonymous with knowledge consumed by conquest, with learning reduced to rubble by those who feared what books might teach. We condemn those responsible because they attacked humanity’s shared intellectual inheritance. Yet this condemnation rings hollow if we fail to ask an uncomfortable question of ourselves. What shall we call the threat of destruction that hangs over functioning institutions of learning in our own age? Can we invoke the sanctity of universities destroyed centuries ago while remaining silent when universities are threatened today?

This question acquires urgent particularity in the context of the proposed demolition of thirty-eight of the forty buildings comprising Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar University in Rampur. Whatever legal disputes may surround the institution or its founder, the larger issue transcends personalities. A university is never identical with the individual who establishes it. Once created, it belongs to generations of students, teachers, researchers and to society at large. Its classrooms, libraries, laboratories and archives embody years of intellectual labour and public investment. To destroy such an institution is to damage a public good whose beneficiaries extend far beyond those who conceived it. The threat alone is an assault on public trust.

No one disputes that a democratic state has both the authority and the obligation to enforce the law. Illegal construction, violations of planning regulations and administrative irregularities should be investigated and remedied. No institution, however eminent, should stand above the law. But the very essence of the rule of law lies in proportionality. Law exists to secure justice, not to maximise destruction. When demolition becomes the preferred instrument of governance, the line separating justice from spectacle begins to disappear. The threat of demolition, wielded as a political weapon, serves a purpose quite distinct from the enforcement of legal norms.

Justice and vengeance are fundamentally different. Justice seeks accountability while preserving the public good. Vengeance seeks visible punishment, often regardless of collateral damage. When universities become casualties of political conflict, those who suffer most are neither politicians nor administrators but students whose education is interrupted, teachers whose work is disrupted, employees whose livelihoods vanish and society which loses a centre of learning. The question is not whether the law should be enforced but whether destruction serves justice or merely satisfies a political appetite for visible retribution. The spectacle of demolition is not about legality; it is about sending a message.

There is, however, an even deeper danger. Educational institutions do not exist in a political vacuum. They often become symbols in larger ideological contests. When the demolition of a university is presented, celebrated or perceived as the defeat of a community rather than the impartial enforcement of the law, the consequences extend far beyond the campus. The act ceases to be merely administrative and begins to acquire a powerful political and communal symbolism. The threat itself becomes a performance, enacted for an audience that is meant to understand who holds power and who does not.

The events surrounding Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar University cannot be viewed entirely in isolation. They invite comparison with a wider pattern of political rhetoric and state action directed at certain educational and religious institutions. Many of those who today appear determined to see thirty-eight of the forty buildings of Jauhar University demolished are also among the most persistent critics of Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Millia Islamia and Jawaharlal Nehru University. The same public discourse has frequently extended to madrasas, many of which have faced closure or heightened regulatory intervention, while waqf properties have increasingly become subjects of intense political contestation. Each of these matters has its own legal history and must ultimately be judged on its own facts. Yet it is equally impossible to ignore the cumulative impression that such episodes create. When institutions associated with one section of society repeatedly become sites of political confrontation, demolition, legislative intervention or sustained public hostility, many citizens inevitably begin to perceive a pattern rather than a series of unrelated events. Whether or not governments accept such an interpretation, the perception itself carries profound consequences. It weakens confidence in the neutrality of public institutions and encourages the belief that educational and cultural establishments associated with minorities are especially vulnerable to the coercive power of the state.

This is how societies become communalised. Rarely does it happen through a single dramatic declaration. It occurs gradually through repeated public spectacles that encourage citizens to view universities, schools, neighbourhoods, places of worship and charitable institutions not as common national assets but as markers of competing religious identities. The language of equal citizenship slowly gives way to the language of majoritarian entitlement. Instead of asking whether an institution serves education, society begins to ask whom it symbolically represents. Once that transformation occurs, the demolition of a university can be applauded not because it advances justice but because it appears to satisfy the sentiments of a political majority. The spectacle of demolition is complete when the audience applauds the performance.

That is a dangerous path for any democracy. Governments undoubtedly possess the authority to enforce the law, but they also bear the responsibility of ensuring that their actions cannot reasonably be perceived as selective or discriminatory. The rule of law derives its legitimacy not merely from legality but from public confidence that it is applied consistently, impartially and without regard to religion, ideology or political convenience. When that confidence erodes, the law becomes merely another instrument of power rather than a shield against it. The spectacle of demolition does not strengthen the rule of law; it parodies it.

The gravest casualty of this process is the very idea of citizenship. A university named after Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar should first and foremost be regarded as an Indian university serving Indian students. The same principle applies equally to Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jawaharlal Nehru University and every other institution of higher learning, irrespective of their history or nomenclature. Their classrooms belong to the Republic; their libraries belong to humanity; their future belongs to generations yet unborn. Once educational institutions begin to be judged primarily through communal or ideological lenses, the Republic itself begins to fragment into competing identities rather than remaining a shared constitutional community. The university becomes a battlefield; education becomes collateral damage.

There is another historical irony that deserves reflection. We often describe those who destroyed centres of learning in earlier centuries as barbarians. Whatever the complexities of those historical episodes, those rulers neither professed democratic ideals nor claimed to be governed by constitutional principles. They ruled as conquerors or monarchs in an age when concepts such as equal citizenship, fundamental rights, judicial review and constitutional accountability did not exist. They were products of their time; we claim to have transcended it.

The twenty-first century claims to be different. Modern governments derive legitimacy not from conquest but from elections. They govern under constitutions. Every public authority swears allegiance to the rule of law. Citizens are promised equality before the law, due process and protection from arbitrary power. If these ideals are to mean anything, then governments today must be judged by standards far higher than those applicable to medieval kingdoms. The democracy that threatens to demolish a university commits a sin that no medieval conqueror could have conceived, because it betrays not merely knowledge but the very principles that legitimate its existence.

For that very reason, the threatened destruction of an educational institution by a constitutional democracy carries an even heavier moral burden than comparable acts committed in pre-modern times. Medieval rulers may have possessed power without constitutional restraint. Democracies claim legitimacy precisely because power is restrained by law, reason and accountability. When elected governments choose demolition over preservation without convincingly demonstrating that no less destructive remedy exists, they invite comparisons that should trouble every democrat. The barbarians of the past had no constitutions to betray. We do.

Universities are unlike ordinary buildings. They preserve memory, encourage critical thought, produce knowledge and cultivate citizenship. They train doctors, scientists, historians, lawyers, engineers, teachers and artists. They are repositories of archives and manuscripts, laboratories of ideas and homes of intellectual dissent. Their value cannot be measured in square feet of construction or in market valuations of land. A university is not real estate; it is a republic of minds. Its demolition is not urban renewal; it is intellectual impoverishment. Even the threat of such destruction diminishes the public culture in which knowledge thrives.

History repeatedly teaches that societies become stronger by building universities, not by demolishing them. Every classroom destroyed diminishes educational opportunity. Every library lost narrows the horizon of future generations. Every campus reduced to rubble weakens the intellectual foundations upon which a nation ultimately rests. Nations that demolish their universities are not asserting sovereignty; they are committing a slow form of national suicide. The ruins they create will not be remembered as monuments to justice but as tombstones of their own short-sightedness. Even the threat, if left unchallenged, becomes a precedent for future destruction.

None of this implies that universities should enjoy immunity from legal scrutiny. Financial misconduct, corruption or violations of law should be investigated thoroughly. Those responsible should be held personally accountable after fair and transparent proceedings. But democratic justice distinguishes between punishing individuals and destroying institutions. The law should aim to preserve what serves the public while punishing those found guilty of wrongdoing. To demolish a university because some of its administrators may have erred is to punish students for the sins of their elders, a logic that no civilised legal system should countenance. The spectacle of demolition confuses the punishment of individuals with the obliteration of institutions.

Civilisations are remembered as much for what they preserve as for what they create. Nalanda survives today less as an archaeological monument than as a moral lesson. It reminds us that when knowledge is destroyed, everyone becomes poorer. That lesson loses all meaning if we commemorate the tragedies of the past while repeating similar mistakes in the present. If Nalanda continues to evoke our sorrow, it is because we recognise something in its destruction that transcends time, the tragic waste of human potential, the violence of ignorance against knowledge. To honour Nalanda while enabling its contemporary equivalent is not memory; it is hypocrisy.

If we continue to condemn those who destroyed centres of learning centuries ago, intellectual honesty demands that we apply the same moral standard to ourselves. Otherwise, history ceases to be a guide to ethical conduct and becomes merely a convenient weapon against the past. We cannot claim the moral authority to judge the barbarians of yesteryear while becoming the barbarians of today, armed not with swords but with bulldozers, not with conquest but with legal technicalities that serve as fig leaves for political vengeance.

The true measure of a democracy is not the ease with which it can demolish buildings. It is the restraint with which it exercises power. It is its willingness to distinguish between justice and retribution, between legality and spectacle, between accountability and collective punishment. A confident nation does not seek political triumph in the ruins of its universities. It builds them, protects them and reforms them where necessary, recognising that every institution of learning, irrespective of its name or origins, ultimately belongs to the nation. A democracy that understands itself does not need to demolish its universities to prove its strength; it preserves them precisely because strength lies in knowledge, not in rubble.

If the destruction of Nalanda and Vikramashila continues to evoke our sorrow a thousand years later, then we must ensure that future generations never have reason to look back upon our own age and ask why a democratic Republic, armed with a Constitution and governed in the name of the people, chose to destroy its own centres of learning. Should that happen, history’s verdict upon us may prove harsher than the verdict we have long reserved for those whom we call the barbarians of the past. They destroyed without the pretence of justice. We would destroy in its name, and that is the greater betrayal.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

The historical Gorakhpanthi tradition presents a striking contrast to the political ideology now associated with its most prominent institutional representative, Yogi Adityanath. The contrast does not lie simply between religion and politics, for the Nath Yogis were never entirely removed from worldly power. They advised kings, received land grants, intervened in disputes and sometimes conferred legitimacy upon ruling dynasties. What separates the older tradition from its contemporary political appropriation is the manner in which power was conceived and exercised. Historically, Nath authority rested upon renunciation, inward discipline, freedom from social distinctions and an ability to communicate across religious boundaries. The political world represented by Adityanath, by contrast, has been shaped by the language of Hindu consolidation, suspicion of Muslims and the conversion of a flexible ascetic inheritance into a more rigid majoritarian identity.

Simon Digby’s Wonder-Tales of South Asia, especially “The Tale of Gorakh Nath” and the accompanying section on medieval Sufi tales of Jogis, offers an unusually rich entry into this earlier world.¹ The narratives collected and translated by Digby are neither doctrinal manuals nor dependable biographies. They belong to the domain of hagiography and popular memory. Yet precisely for that reason they reveal what successive generations believed Gorakhnath to represent. He appears not as the guardian of a territorialised Hindu community but as a wandering master of yoga, austerity, compassion and spiritual power. His authority comes from siddhi, discipleship and control over the self, not from the mobilisation of one religious community against another.

The first word through which the reader encounters this world is Alakh. Digby explains it as meaning, approximately, “beyond all perception”, the name of the divine used by Yogis as a greeting. Gorakhnath’s world therefore begins with a God who cannot be confined within image, institution or sectarian definition. The cry of Alakh accompanies the Yogi who moves from door to door seeking alms, without asking whether the householder belongs to a preferred community. It directs attention away from external identity towards the invisible and ungraspable divine.²

This orientation towards the formless was one of the reasons why Nath teachings could converse so readily with Sufi and later nirguna devotional traditions. The religious language of the Yogis did not depend upon a fixed opposition between Hindu and Muslim. It could employ Saiva, yogic, Islamic and vernacular vocabularies without treating their coexistence as a theological embarrassment. Religious identity was real, but it was not necessarily exclusive.

Digby’s narratives repeatedly define the true Yogi through renunciation. Gorakhnath rebukes his own guru, Matsyendra Nath, when the latter succumbs to luxury and sexual pleasure in the Land of Women. He reminds him that as a “semen-retaining and perfected Yogi” he has compromised the honour of the Nath path by becoming inflamed with passion.³ The point of the story is not merely sexual restraint. It establishes a larger distinction between yogic sovereignty and worldly captivity. The true master is the person who rules himself. A king surrounded by wealth, armies and flatterers may remain enslaved to desire, while an ascetic without possessions may exercise genuine power.

The cycle of Gorakhnath, Bharthari and Gopi Chand repeatedly dramatises rulers abandoning royal splendour for the life of a Yogi. Political sovereignty is thereby relativised. The king is not the highest form of human authority. He must eventually recognise the superiority of the renouncer who has conquered hunger, pride, attachment and fear.⁴ The historical Nath tradition could certainly become involved in politics, but its legends preserved a warning against mistaking possession of a kingdom for mastery of the self.

Compassion is equally central. In one of Digby’s stories, Gorakhnath’s disciple is maliciously directed towards an impoverished household to request milk. The woman of the house is so poor that she and her husband lack sufficient clothing. When the disciple explains her distress, Gorakhnath’s “heart melted with compassion”. The miracle that follows is generated not by hostility towards an enemy but by sympathy for the humiliated poor.⁵ Elsewhere, when Matsyendra Nath threatens a woman who has made a mistake, Gorakhnath intercedes: “the lady of the house has done nothing wrong. Please pardon her!” Matsyendra responds that Gorakhnath’s magnanimity proves his spiritual worth.⁶

These episodes are important because they locate spiritual greatness in mercy, restraint and protection of the vulnerable. The Yogi’s miraculous power becomes legitimate only when governed by compassion. Anger may possess enormous force, but force without moral control is not siddhi. It is spiritual failure.

The same principle governs the relationship between asceticism and political authority. In Digby’s account of Gorakhnath’s intervention in Nepal, the Yogi opposes a ruler who persecutes the followers of Matsyendra Nath. When the king temporarily promises to stop the oppression, Gorakhnath forgives him. Only when persecution resumes does he conclude that “such an unjust man has no right to remain on the throne” and that a ruler inclined towards oppression is a sinner.⁷

This is not an endorsement of theocracy. Gorakhnath does not seek the throne for himself. His political action is justified as resistance to oppression, while kingship remains morally conditional. The Yogi stands outside the state and judges it by justice. This differs fundamentally from a modern situation in which the head of a religious establishment becomes the head of government and the moral distance between ascetic authority and state coercion virtually disappears.

The inclusive dimension of the older Nath tradition is even clearer in the materials examined by Christine Marrewa-Karwoski in her two important essays for The Wire. Her 2018 article, “The Erased ‘Muslim’ Texts of the Nath Sampraday”, draws attention to two early-modern texts, the Avali Siluk and the Kafir Bodh. These were known to P. D. Barthwal when he prepared his influential edition of the Gorakhbani, but they were not included in the published compilation. Marrewa-Karwoski shows that the two teachings appear in an early Hindavi manuscript dated 1614 and continued to circulate in later manuscript traditions. They were directed unmistakably towards Muslim audiences.⁸

Their importance is not that the Naths secretly became Muslims, or that they ceased to belong to a broad Saiva and yogic world. Rather, they demonstrate that Nath teachers could acknowledge Islamic belief and ritual while presenting yogic knowledge in a vocabulary intelligible to Muslims. The Avali Siluk employs Persianised religious terms and treats Islamic ethical categories with respect. One of its memorable formulations is rendered as: “Anger is haram, truth is halal.” It continues by equating uncontrolled desire with Satan and purity of heart with freedom from desire.⁹

The language is not decorative. It places yogic discipline inside an Islamic ethical idiom. The teaching does not demand that Muslim listeners first renounce their inherited religious identity. It tells them that self-control, humility, truth and purification are recognisable within their own vocabulary.

A further passage treats the mosque, prayer niche, ablution and profession of faith as meaningful symbols rather than objects of ridicule. Marrewa-Karwoski argues that such texts invited Muslim devotees into a sacred space where Islamic practices could coexist with yogic teaching without being stripped of their Islamic specificity. She quotes Barthwal’s conclusion that the Yogis made no distinction between Hindus and Muslims as servants of the same Lord.¹⁰

This was not modern secularism, nor should it be romanticised as complete equality. Medieval ascetic traditions competed for followers, patronage and prestige, and their inclusiveness could also serve strategic purposes. Yet the strategy itself remains revealing. The Naths sought authority by crossing boundaries, not by sharpening them. They increased their spiritual reach by incorporating, translating and accommodating. Their confidence did not require the vilification of another community.

Digby’s “Medieval Sufi Tales of Jogis” supplies parallel evidence from Muslim sources. The Chishti saint Gesudaraz could recount narratives concerning Matsyendra Nath and Gorakhnath by describing the elder Yogi as a pir and his disciple as a murid. Digby notes that Gesudaraz was aware of the special “Jogi language” employed by the Naths and could narrate their traditions within Sufi conceptual categories.¹¹ This was a world of debate, competition and occasional polemic, but also of translation. Yogis entered Sufi hagiography, while Sufi terms entered the narration of yogic lineages.

The historical Gorakhpanthi world also included Muslim Yogis as a social reality. Communities in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar preserved ballads of Gopi Chand and Raja Bharthari while wearing the dress associated with Nath renouncers and performing with the sarangi. Many belonged to occupational groups such as weavers and cotton carders who stood outside the centres of Brahmanical authority. Their gurus were often drawn from their own communities rather than from Brahman priesthood.¹² The legacy of Gorakhnath therefore survived not only in monasteries and Sanskrit texts but in mixed communities, itinerant singers and occupational groups whose lives complicated any simple Hindu-Muslim division.

Marrewa-Karwoski’s 2020 essay, “By Attacking the Mughals, Adityanath Is Erasing the History of His Own Nath Sampraday”, (The Wire) develops the argument further. It points out that Nath establishments received patronage from both Hindu rulers and Mughal emperors. The relationship was not uniformly peaceful, and individual Yogis sometimes opposed rulers. Yet the evidence does not support a timeless struggle between the Naths and Islam. Grants, gifts, requests for yogic or alchemical knowledge and relationships with individual ascetics continued under Mughal rule.¹³

Aurangzeb, so frequently converted into the archetypal Muslim enemy in contemporary political rhetoric, appears in Nath traditions in a far more ambiguous fashion. Scholarship on Nath lore shows him both as a threatening sovereign and as a ruler attracted to the powers of Yogis. A letter associated with the Jakhbar establishment reportedly requests treated mercury, valued in alchemical traditions for its connection with bodily perfection and longevity. Whether every detail of later monastic memory is accepted literally or not, the evidence reveals interaction where modern polemic prefers an unbroken history of persecution.¹⁴

The Gorakhpur monastery itself emerged through layered relationships that cannot be reduced to Hindu resistance against Muslim power. Historical accounts connect its expansion to Baba Roshan Ali, a Muslim faqir and devotee of Gorakhnath, and to support attributed to the Nawab of Awadh. The memory of Roshan Ali remains embedded in the sacred geography of Gorakhpur.¹⁵

The decisive transformation came much later. Marrewa-Karwoski locates the systematic Hinduisation and militant politicisation of the Gorakhpur establishment in the twentieth century, particularly under Mahant Digvijaynath.¹⁶ Nath Yogis had interacted with rulers for centuries, but Digvijaynath recast monastic power within the idiom of Hindu nationalism and mass electoral politics. A member of the Hindu Mahasabha, he was arrested for inflaming passions against Mahatma Gandhi and played a leading role in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in 1949, which culminated in the appearance of Rama idols inside the Babri Masjid.¹⁷ His successors, including Mahant Avaidyanath, inherited an institution increasingly aligned with the Hindu Mahasabha, the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and eventually the BJP.¹⁸ This transformation marked a departure from the temple’s earlier syncretic character, turning it into a space associated with hard-line, right-wing politics.¹⁹

Yogi Adityanath’s politics therefore cannot simply be projected backwards and described as the timeless political expression of Gorakhnath’s teachings. It represents a selective modern reconstruction. The ochre robe, the title of Yogi and the authority of the math supply religious continuity. The ideological content, however, has been substantially reworked.

The historical Nath vocabulary sought to overcome duality. Contemporary Hindutva politics depends upon producing a durable duality between majority and minority, native and alien, patriot and suspect. The old tradition could speak of Allah, Muhammad, mosque and kalima in order to engage Muslim listeners. The contemporary political idiom often treats Muslim historical presence as a wound to be avenged or erased. The older Yogi sought freedom from pride and possession. The modern political ascetic commands the instruments of the state. Gorakhnath’s legendary authority rested upon disciplining anger. The current political culture repeatedly converts anger into electoral solidarity.

It would be too simple to say that the historical Naths were apolitical pacifists. They possessed land, cultivated royal patrons, claimed supernatural powers and occasionally intervened forcefully in dynastic affairs. Nor was the tradition entirely free of religious competition. But its historical plurality is undeniable. It included ascetics and householders, Hindus and Muslims, Sanskritic and vernacular strands, temples and itinerant performers, kings and marginal occupational communities. Its central religious imagination remained capacious enough to inhabit contradictions.

A more complete picture of this tradition requires attention to its social dynamics, particularly its relationship with caste. The Nath movement attracted considerable support from lower caste and marginalised communities, and its critique of Brahmanical orthodoxy had social as well as theological implications. Scholarly accounts note that the Nath sampradaya never believed in untouchability or birth-based discrimination. In Bengal, the householder Naths were degraded by Brahmanical society during the twelfth century and placed outside the mainstream, yet they resisted this marginalisation by asserting their identity.²⁰ The ascetic branch, in contrast, remained beyond the varna system because its practices did not conform to Puranic Hinduism. This dual nature of the tradition – egalitarian in its spiritual ideals yet accommodating of caste in its householder manifestations – complicates any straightforward narrative of its relationship to social hierarchy.²¹ The Bengal case shows that while the Nath cult was philosophically anti-caste, over time and in certain regions it developed endogamous caste frameworks, with householders forming communities that became designated as Other Backward Classes.²²

The politics of Yogi Adityanath is deeply entangled with these caste dynamics. His government has at times been praised for rising above caste arithmetic and focusing on development that benefits all sections of society. His identity as a renunciate is presented as enabling a form of governance that transcends narrow caste loyalties. Yet critics point to persistent upper caste dominance in his administration and political appointments. The irony is familiar: a tradition that questioned caste distinctions is now deployed in a politics that must continually negotiate the very caste identities it claims to transcend.

The narrative of the Nath tradition also has a gendered dimension that deserves consideration. Ann Grodzins Gold’s ethnographic work, particularly Listen to the Heron’s Words, demonstrates how women in North India use expressive traditions – songs, stories, and oral narratives – to reimagine kinship, conjugality, and their own agency within patriarchal structures.²³ While her work is not primarily about Nath tradition per se, it illuminates how religious and folk traditions in the same region as Gorakhpur contain counter-hegemonic possibilities. The Nath tradition’s ambivalent treatment of female figures and sexuality, as seen in the story of Matsyendra Nath’s temptation, exists alongside a broader landscape where women’s expressive cultures have long offered subtle critiques of social hierarchy. A fuller engagement with this material might reveal unexpected continuities: both the Nath tradition and women’s songs share a capacity to subvert dominant social orders through spiritual or poetic means.

The material conditions that enabled the transformation of the Gorakhpur math into a political powerhouse also deserve closer attention. The math was not always the dominant political force it is today; its rise is a modern phenomenon, rooted in the early twentieth-century consolidation of Hindu majoritarian politics. Digvijaynath, who became Mahant in the 1930s, allied the institution with the Hindu Mahasabha and the Gita Press management, and he played a role in the early Ram Janmabhoomi movement.²⁴ His successor, Avaidyanath, expanded the math’s reach, and Yogi Adityanath inherited and enlarged this political machinery.²⁵ The math’s influence is primarily felt in Gorakhpur and adjoining districts, sustained by organisational efforts, claims to developmental leadership, and the projection of its abbots as vikaspurush (figures of development). Its trajectory shows how a monastic establishment could evolve into an alternative power centre capable of displacing gangster politics and offering protection to the local population, thereby creating the conditions for its eventual electoral dominance.²⁶

Finally, comparisons with similar transformations in other religious traditions help situate the Nath case within broader patterns of modern religious politics. Nadeem Farooq Paracha’s work on Sufism in Pakistan shows how the state and political actors have repeatedly attempted to model Sufism in their own image – as a pacifist, inward-looking tradition under Ayub Khan; as a Sharia-abiding orthodox force under Zia-ul-Haq; and as a symbol of “enlightened moderation” under Musharraf.²⁷ Each attempt failed to capture the complexity of Sufi traditions, reducing them to instruments of state policy. The Nath tradition’s contemporary appropriation by Yogi Adityanath follows a recognisably similar pattern: a complex, syncretic, and socially diverse tradition is simplified and redeployed for majoritarian politics. The parallel suggests that the selective use of ascetic traditions for political ends is not unique to India but reflects a recurring tension between the fluidity of mystical or ascetic religions and the rigidity of modern political ideologies.

The deepest irony of Adityanath’s position is therefore not that a Yogi has entered politics. Naths entered politics long before the modern age. The irony is that a custodian of Gorakhnath’s legacy now represents a politics that narrows the very tradition from which his authority derives. The older Gorakhpanth accumulated prestige by travelling across boundaries. Its modern political expression consolidates power by policing them.

Simon Digby’s stories and Marrewa-Karwoski’s research return us to a Gorakhnath who cannot easily be recruited into a simple history of Hindu assertion. He belongs to a shared religious world in which a Yogi could be understood through the vocabulary of the Sufi pir, Muslim performers could sing his legends, Mughal rulers could patronise his followers, and teachings associated with his lineage could declare truth halal and anger haram. That inheritance does not fit comfortably within the politics of exclusion. It is precisely for this reason that recovering it is historically and politically important.

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Notes

¹ Simon Digby, Wonder-Tales of South Asia, translated from Hindi and Urdu by Leonard Harrow (New Delhi: Oxford India Paperbacks, 2006), 3–24.

² Digby, Wonder-Tales, 5.

³ Digby, Wonder-Tales, 8.

⁴ Digby, Wonder-Tales, 17–20.

⁵ Digby, Wonder-Tales, 11.

⁶ Digby, Wonder-Tales, 13.

⁷ Digby, Wonder-Tales, 22.

⁸ Christine Marrewa-Karwoski, “The Erased ‘Muslim’ Texts of the Nath Sampraday,” The Wire, 21 December 2018.

⁹ Marrewa-Karwoski, “The Erased ‘Muslim’ Texts.”

¹⁰ Marrewa-Karwoski, “The Erased ‘Muslim’ Texts,” quoting P. D. Barthwal.

¹¹ Digby, Wonder-Tales, “Medieval Sufi Tales of Jogis,” 89–94.

¹² For the role of marginal communities in preserving Nath-related performance traditions, see Sukanta Chaudhuri, The Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), 234–36.

¹³ Christine Marrewa-Karwoski, “By Attacking the Mughals, Adityanath Is Erasing the History of His Own Nath Sampraday,” The Wire, 13 December 2020.

¹⁴ Marrewa-Karwoski, “By Attacking the Mughals.”

¹⁵ William Pinch, Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 89–94; see also Marrewa-Karwoski, “By Attacking the Mughals,” for discussions of Nath-Muslim interactions and the Roshan Ali tradition.

¹⁶ Marrewa-Karwoski, “By Attacking the Mughals.”

¹⁷ For Digvijaynath’s role in the Hindu Mahasabha and the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, see Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics (London: Hurst, 1996), 89–92; also Marrewa-Karwoski, “By Attacking the Mughals.”

¹⁸ See Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, 95–98, for the involvement of Nath maths in the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign; see also Marrewa-Karwoski, “By Attacking the Mughals.”

¹⁹ Marrewa-Karwoski, “By Attacking the Mughals.”

²⁰ For the Nath tradition’s relationship with caste in Bengal, see Hiteshranjan Sanyal, Social Mobility in Bengal (Calcutta: Papyrus, 1981), 123–35.

²¹ Sanyal, Social Mobility in Bengal, 128–32; see also “Nath” in the Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 2003), which documents the householder Nath community’s caste status.

²² Sanyal, Social Mobility in Bengal, 130–35; Government of India, Report of the Backward Classes Commission (New Delhi: Government of India, 1955), vol. 2, 147–49, for the classification of Nath communities as OBCs.

²³ Gloria Goodwin Raheja and Ann Grodzins Gold, Listen to the Heron’s Words: Reimagining Gender and Kinship in North India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 3–15.

²⁴ Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, 89–92; Marrewa-Karwoski, “By Attacking the Mughals.”

²⁵ For the expansion of the Gorakhpur math under Avaidyanath, see Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, 95–98; also Jaffrelot, “The Modi Model of Governance: Development as a Political Tool,” South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 21 (2019).

²⁶ See Jaffrelot, “The Modi Model of Governance,” for the math’s role in providing protection and development in Gorakhpur; also R. S. Mishra, “The Politics of Yogi Adityanath,” Economic and Political Weekly 52, no. 43 (2017): 13–15.

²⁷ Nadeem Farooq Paracha, The Pakistan Anti-Hero: History, Politics and the Pop-Culture Icon (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2019), 145–78.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

The reconstruction of medieval Indian society has long rested upon chronicles, inscriptions, administrative documents, travellers’ accounts and archaeological evidence. Together, these sources have enabled historians to craft sophisticated narratives of political institutions, dynastic change, economic structures and religious movements. Yet they remain largely the products of courts, bureaucracies and learned elites. They illuminate the actions of kings and nobles far more readily than they reveal the assumptions, aspirations and moral universe of ordinary men and women. Questions concerning how society imagined kingship, understood justice, negotiated religious diversity or viewed the supernatural often find only partial answers in official sources. It is here that popular narratives assume particular significance.

Folktales, romances and wonder tales cannot be approached as literal historical records. Their chronology is fluid, their characters often larger than life, and the supernatural is accepted as an integral part of reality. Yet, as modern social historians increasingly recognise, such narratives preserve something that formal chronicles rarely capture: collective memory, social values and the mental world of the communities that produced and transmitted them. They tell us less about what happened than about what people believed ought to happen—what they admired, what they feared and what they considered just.

Simon Digby’s Wonder-Tales of South Asia represents one of the most important contributions towards understanding this neglected dimension of medieval Indian history. Bringing together translations from Hindi, Urdu, Persian and Nepali traditions, Digby does far more than present an anthology of entertaining stories. Through his learned introduction and, more importantly, his detailed historical commentary in “The Background of the Tales,” he demonstrates how these narratives may be read alongside chronicles and inscriptions as valuable historical evidence. The tales preserve memories of courts, villages, shrines, forests, pilgrimage centres and social relationships that illuminate the cultural landscape of medieval India from an entirely different perspective.

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One of the dominant themes emerging from Digby’s collection is the medieval conception of kingship. Unlike modern political narratives that emphasise military conquest, the tales consistently portray the ruler primarily as the guardian of justice. The opening description of Raja Niladhwaj in Madhumalati and Madhukar immediately establishes this ideal:

“He was adept in distinguishing between justice and injustice, like Brihaspati in wisdom… He was stalwart, brave, warlike and glorious, and also merciful towards the poor and the unfortunate… So he was replete with all good qualities… but he had a single great fault; and that was whenever he found time to get away from his royal task he always used to go off to hunt in the jungle.”1

The passage is striking for what it chooses to celebrate. The king’s legitimacy rests neither upon conquest nor wealth but upon justice, wisdom and compassion. Yet the narrator immediately introduces the weakness that eventually destroys both ruler and kingdom. Niladhwaj’s fondness for hunting – a pastime enjoyed by medieval rulers across South Asia – becomes the narrative device through which he abandons the discipline expected of a sovereign and falls prey to deception. The moral is unmistakable: political authority is inseparable from ethical responsibility. A kingdom declines not merely because of external enemies but because its ruler allows personal passions to override sound judgement. In this respect the tale stands comfortably alongside the political ethics of Barani, the Persian Akhlaq tradition and even the Sanskrit Arthashastra, all of which regarded self-control as one of the essential virtues of rulership.

Closely connected with this conception of kingship is the equally important role assigned to the minister. Medieval political literature throughout South Asia repeatedly emphasised that kings required wise counsellors capable of speaking uncomfortable truths. Digby’s translation preserves this ideal with remarkable clarity. Shar Sen is described as a minister accomplished in finance, diplomacy, war, secrecy and administration. More importantly, he possesses the courage to oppose injustice. When Niladhwaj orders the execution of his innocent queens and sons, the minister responds:

“Maharaja! This will be a great injustice. It is not right to bring down such a thunderbolt on those who are blameless.”2

The king refuses to listen, but the minister quietly substitutes the hearts of deer for those of the princes and secretly saves their lives. The episode demonstrates a sophisticated conception of political morality. Loyalty is directed not merely towards the person of the sovereign but towards justice itself. Such an understanding closely resembles the ideals articulated in Persian advice literature, where the wazīr functions as the conscience of the monarchy. The story suggests that popular political imagination valued ethical government no less than official political theory.

The narratives also contain revealing observations concerning education and the formation of the ruling elite. Niladhwaj does not merely prepare his sons for warfare. Instead, he “sent for learned men from many countries and appointed them to instruct his sons in the six branches of knowledge.”3 This apparently incidental remark reflects several assumptions about medieval education. Learning is presented as cosmopolitan, depending upon scholars who travel across regions, while the education of princes extends beyond martial accomplishment to embrace intellectual cultivation. Such details correspond closely with evidence from the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal courts, where princes were instructed by distinguished scholars in literature, ethics, languages, theology and statecraft.

Equally informative are the stories’ representations of family life and gender. The seven queens are described as “faithful to their husband,” accomplished in household management and “skilled in the secrets of love.”4

Such descriptions undoubtedly idealise queenship, but therein lies their historical significance. They reveal the qualities medieval society associated with female virtue: loyalty, domestic competence, beauty and maternal responsibility. Against these ideals stands the witch queen, whose beauty conceals deception and whose ambition destroys the moral order of the court. She persuades the king to exile his own family and finally demands the execution of his children. Rather than reading these figures literally, historians should recognise them as symbolic expressions of social anxieties concerning kingship, succession, sexuality and the stability of the household.

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One of the greatest strengths of Digby’s anthology lies in its portrayal of the religious landscape of medieval India. The stories move effortlessly between Hindu, Islamic and yogic traditions without suggesting rigid cultural boundaries. Krishna, Gorakh Nath, Muslim saints, Persian heroes and Sufi masters inhabit the same imaginative universe. Digby’s discussion of the tales concerning Gorakh Nath and the medieval Sufis demonstrates that interaction between yogic and Sufi traditions formed an accepted part of popular memory. The traditions surrounding Kamal Jogi and Sayyid Ashraf Jahangir Simnani, for example, reveal a world characterised by dialogue, adaptation and shared spiritual vocabulary rather than simple confrontation.

This cultural fluidity reaches its clearest expression in Digby’s discussion of The Flower of Bakawali. Although surviving in Urdu versions heavily influenced by Persian literary conventions, the story preserves older Indian traditions while continuing to evolve through successive retellings. Digby perceptively observes that the tale illustrates “…the cultural complexities of late Mughal and pre-modern India” which “defy simplistic politico-religious classification.”5

This observation extends beyond literary criticism to become an important historiographical statement. The medieval literary world was characterised not by isolated religious traditions but by continuous borrowing, adaptation and translation. Stories crossed linguistic boundaries with ease, acquiring new meanings while retaining older cultural associations. The collection therefore provides compelling evidence for the composite literary culture that flourished across much of South Asia.

The stories also illuminate aspects of everyday social organisation that rarely appear in court chronicles. Digby’s discussion of the tale of Ganga Ram the Headman and Bulakhi Ram the Barber demonstrates how popular narratives preserve memories of the traditional north Indian village before the transformations brought about by colonial rule.6

The relationship between the headman and the barber reflects neither complete equality nor simple domination. Rather, it reveals a society organised through reciprocal obligations in which occupational groups depended upon one another for the functioning of village life. Humour softens hierarchy, while mutual dependence tempers authority. Such narratives remind historians that medieval society cannot be understood solely through the perspectives of kings and nobles.

Hospitality likewise emerges as a recurring social virtue. When Raja Niladhwaj arrives at the mysterious palace deep within the forest, he pleads with its occupant:

“Do not leave the guest who has arrived in the middle of the night without hope! It will be a great merit if you light the fire and make arrangements for our eating and sleeping.”7

The appeal assumes that receiving travellers constituted a recognised moral obligation, even under extraordinary circumstances. Such moments reveal ethical expectations embedded within everyday life that official documents seldom record. Hospitality appears not merely as social etiquette but as a religious and moral duty recognised across cultural traditions.

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Finally, historians should resist the temptation to dismiss the supernatural elements of these narratives as irrelevant fantasy. Demons, enchanted flowers, miraculous journeys, shape-shifting beings and saintly miracles were not peripheral embellishments but formed part of the medieval understanding of reality. For historians, their importance lies not in determining whether such events actually occurred but in recognising what they reveal about contemporary mentalities. These stories illuminate the boundaries of the imaginable, demonstrating how the visible and invisible worlds coexisted within the medieval imagination. They preserve beliefs, fears and hopes that no administrative record could ever capture.

In the Preface to the volume, Digby modestly remarks that “the translator claims no moral rights over the tales that he has translated, and he will be glad if they are retold and give pleasure.”8

Yet their value extends well beyond literary pleasure. Through centuries of retelling, these narratives accumulated the experiences, ideals and collective memories of the societies that preserved them. They constitute a different kind of historical archive, one shaped not by state institutions but by popular transmission.

Wonder-Tales of South Asia therefore demonstrates that historians need not confine themselves to chronicles, inscriptions and official documents. Popular narratives, read critically and comparatively, recover dimensions of medieval Indian society that formal historical writing often leaves in shadow. They reveal ideals of kingship founded upon justice rather than conquest, ministers who embodied ethical governance, villages sustained by reciprocal obligations, educational values rooted in cosmopolitan learning and a religious world characterised by interaction rather than isolation. Above all, they remind us that history survives not only in monuments and manuscripts but also in stories. When approached with historical sensitivity, these tales cease to be merely tales of wonder. They become indispensable reflections on the social, moral and cultural world of medieval India.

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Notes

1. Simon Digby and Leonard Harrow, trans., Wonder-Tales of South Asia (New Delhi: Oxford India Paperbacks, 2006), 14.
2. Ibid., 15.
3. Ibid., 14.
4. Ibid., 14.
5. Ibid., xxxiii.
6. Ibid., xxix.
7. Ibid., 18.
8. Ibid., viii.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

After having so far dealt with how I chose the subject, what type of teachers I was privileged with and how I evolved in life, I will here deal with another type of training and education altogether. It is about the education that no curriculum prescribed, no examination tested and no degree formally recognised. Yet, in retrospect, it was perhaps the most important education I ever received. The University did not merely teach me history. It taught me how to live with history.

Beyond the classrooms lay another world: the MA Seminar Room where afternoons effortlessly merged into evenings; the endless shelves of the Maulana Azad Library where one entered searching for a single reference and emerged having discovered an entirely different subject; hostel debates that continued well past midnight; endless cups of tea consumed while quarrelling over historiography; friendships forged in moments of intellectual excitement as well as financial hardship; and the exhilarating discovery that history was not merely a subject to be studied but a way of thinking and living. My life at the University bore little resemblance to the life I had known at school.

Academically, school had never been particularly kind to me. History and literature came naturally enough, but arithmetic and physics seemed determined never to reveal their secrets. Numbers stubbornly refused to obey me, and scientific formulae appeared to inhabit a universe to which I was never fully admitted. Yet outside the classroom my life had been remarkably comfortable. I was the only son of a highly respected scholar, surrounded by the affection of two doting sisters and protected by a family that ensured I seldom worried about the practical difficulties of life. Looking back, I sometimes think I lived like a young prince without ever realising it. That comfortable world disappeared almost overnight.

Within the first few months of my entering the University, my father passed away. The emotional loss was devastating enough, but it was accompanied by a crisis that only later did I fully comprehend. Suddenly there was no earning member in the family. The security that had always seemed permanent vanished in an instant. For the first time I understood the uncertainties that accompany financial hardship. Curiously, while my personal life entered one of its darkest periods, my academic life entered one of its brightest. Every morning I walked into classrooms where some of the finest historians in the country unfolded before us worlds that fascinated me. Unlike my school years, I understood what was being taught. More importantly, I enjoyed understanding it. History was no longer a subject that required memorisation. It became an intellectual adventure.

There was another reason why I found the Department so welcoming. Many of my teachers had known my father personally. Some had been his close friends. Others had been frequent visitors to our home. They were towering names in Indian historiography, yet I never found them intimidating. They had watched me grow up long before they became my professors. That familiarity gave me a confidence that many of my classmates understandably lacked. Something else also happened almost imperceptibly. The diffidence that had characterised my school days began slowly to disappear. At school I had remained reserved, almost painfully shy. At the University I gradually found myself becoming increasingly outgoing. Perhaps it was the stimulating intellectual atmosphere, perhaps the encouragement of inspiring teachers, or perhaps the simple joy of finally discovering a subject that genuinely excited me. Whatever the reason, I found myself making friends with remarkable ease.

Some sought my friendship because of the elaborate notes I prepared after every lecture. I had acquired the habit of recording almost everything my teachers said, supplementing their lectures with additional reading and arranging the material systematically. Before long, my notebooks acquired a circulation of their own. Others appreciated that, having studied in a convent school, I was reasonably comfortable expressing myself in English, a skill that many students educated in Urdu or Hindi medium institutions wished to cultivate. Amongst my earliest friends was Amjad Afridi from Jammu. Like me, he had received a convent education and possessed an easy command over English. He was also closely related to Professor Haqqi, the distinguished Head of the Department of Political Science. We shared similar backgrounds and quickly became close companions.

Quite different was my friendship with Jawaid Akhtar from Purnea. Jawaid came from an Urdu medium background and had set his heart upon joining the Civil Services. During our earliest encounters he regarded Amjad and me with considerable suspicion. Whenever we approached him, he would greet us with a barrage of sarcastic remarks, accusing us of belonging to an unduly privileged class of students. According to him, we had every conceivable advantage. Perhaps he was not entirely wrong. Friendship, however, has a remarkable ability to dissolve such distinctions. Gradually the sarcasm disappeared, conversations became longer, and before very long we had become inseparable companions. When Amjad later left for Jawaharlal Nehru University to pursue his postgraduate studies, Jawaid naturally filled the void. For several years we were almost constantly together.

There was one difficulty that both of us shared. Neither of us possessed much money. Necessity, however, often stimulates ingenuity. Those were the days when even BA (Hons) students remained in the Department until late in the evening. Hunger therefore became an almost daily companion. Unfortunately, our pockets rarely cooperated. So Jawaid and I devised what we considered a brilliant strategy. We would quietly occupy a table at one of the dhābas outside the campus and patiently wait until some senior student, or preferably someone known to possess a reasonably healthy wallet, appeared. The moment our unsuspecting benefactor arrived, we would begin a loud and entirely fabricated argument. Within moments voices would rise, accusations would fly, and both of us would display dramatic talents that neither of us had exhibited elsewhere. As expected, the kindly senior would intervene. “Arrey bhai, why are you fighting? Sit down, both of you.” Then, in accordance with the finest traditions of Aligarh hospitality, he would immediately order tea, pakoras and generous helpings of fried dālmoth in the hope of restoring peace. The miracle invariably occurred. Our quarrel would instantly subside. We would consume the refreshments with appropriate seriousness, thank our peacemaker for his wisdom and generosity, and leave in perfect harmony. Looking back now, I cannot decide whether we deserved Oscars or disciplinary action. Perhaps both.

The episode that taught me perhaps the greatest lesson of my student life came quite unexpectedly. One afternoon a few friends informed me that Aftab Hall was organising its annual debate competition. One of them requested that I write a speech for him opposing the motion. I readily agreed. Writing had never frightened me. I spent the next few hours preparing what I thought was a reasonably convincing speech. Just before the competition was about to begin, an idea suddenly struck me. If I could write a speech for someone else, why could I not deliver one myself? With all the confidence that only youth can possess, I walked to the organisers’ table and entered my own name as a speaker. Since my friend was speaking against the motion, I decided to speak for it.

There was only one small problem. I had completely forgotten who I was. Throughout my school life I had remained painfully shy. Public speaking was something I had carefully avoided. Standing before an audience had never been one of my strengths. Yet, buoyed by the confidence that the University had slowly instilled in me, I convinced myself that speaking would be no more difficult than writing. Confidence, however, is not always accompanied by experience. When my name was announced, I walked confidently towards the podium. The confidence lasted exactly as long as it took me to look at the audience. My mind went completely blank. Not a single sentence remained. Not a single argument survived. Everything that I had thought I knew vanished in an instant. I stood there staring at the audience while the audience stared back at me. Then came the inevitable hooting. The louder the hooting became, the more paralysed I felt. It was as though someone had suddenly switched off my brain. I do not know how long I stood there. It could not have been more than a minute or two, but to me it felt like an eternity. Eventually, defeated and utterly embarrassed, I lowered my head and quietly stepped down from the podium.

For a young man who had only recently begun to discover confidence, it was a crushing humiliation. There remained, however, another problem. The debate was to be followed by dinner. Anyone who studied at Aligarh in those days will understand that one simply did not miss a hostel dinner after a hall function, especially when qorma and freshly baked rotis, kabābs and biryāni followed by a sweet dish, mostly shāhi tukda were on the menu. But how could I possibly return after making such a spectacular fool of myself? Providence, or perhaps desperation, suggested an ingenious solution. I walked straight to Shamshad Market and entered a barber’s shop. “Shave it off,” I said, pointing to my beard. The barber looked mildly surprised but asked no questions. Within minutes the beard that I had carefully nurtured had disappeared. I looked into the mirror. The young man staring back at me appeared sufficiently different to convince even me that he was someone else. Feeling reassured, I returned to the lawns of Aftab Hall where dinner was being served. I quietly joined the table, accepted my plate of qorma and rotis, found a comfortable corner and enjoyed my meal with complete satisfaction. As far as I could judge, nobody recognised that the clean-shaven fellow enjoying his dinner was the very same unfortunate individual who, less than an hour earlier, had stood speechless before the audience while they mercilessly hooted him down.

Even today, whenever I remember that evening, I cannot help smiling. What seemed at the time an unbearable humiliation became one of the most valuable lessons of my life. That evening taught me that possessing knowledge and communicating knowledge are two entirely different accomplishments. It is not enough to understand a subject. One must also learn to express one’s thoughts clearly, confidently and persuasively. Scholarship locked away within one’s own mind serves little purpose. Knowledge fulfils its true purpose only when it is communicated to others. Ironically, the greatest lesson I ever learnt about public speaking came not from delivering a memorable speech but from being completely unable to utter a single word. Far from discouraging me, that failure transformed me. I resolved that never again would I allow fear to silence me. From then onwards I deliberately sought every opportunity to speak before an audience, however small. Every discussion, every seminar, every informal gathering became an exercise in overcoming the paralysis that I had experienced that evening at Aftab Hall. Looking back today, I often tell my own students that failure is sometimes the finest teacher one can ever have. Success may give confidence, but failure gives determination.

Around the same time another transformation was quietly taking place. I came from a deeply religious Shi’i family. My father had been a distinguished theologian, and religion naturally formed an integral part of my upbringing. Yet almost as soon as I entered the University I found myself exposed to an intellectual atmosphere very different from the one in which I had grown up. Many of the brightest students in the Department were associated with the Students’ Federation of India, the student wing of the Left. Before long I too found myself attending their meetings. The experience introduced me to Marxist literature, political activism and ways of looking at society that were entirely new to me. I learnt much from those associations. At the same time, I remained deeply rooted in my own religious traditions. There were aspects of Left politics that appealed to me greatly, particularly its emphasis on social justice and equality. There were others with which I felt less comfortable.

Perhaps it was an unconscious attempt to reconcile these different worlds that led me to one of the more amusing episodes of my undergraduate years. If there could be an SFI representing the Students’ Federation of India, why could there not also be another SFI? And so, with all the idealism and confidence of youth, I floated an organisation bearing exactly the same initials. Mine stood for the Shia Federation of India. The similarity of names was entirely intentional. It never possessed the organisational machinery or political ambitions of the other SFI. Nor was it intended to. It simply reflected the world from which I had come and the identity that continued to shape me. Through this organisation I began arranging programmes entirely at my own expense. Looking back, I often wonder where the money came from, given the financial circumstances through which my family was then passing. Somehow, however, one always managed. I do remember one benefactor however: an Engineering teacher at ZH Engineering College, Dr Aliul Hasan of Banaras, who would keep on funding my programme materially and intellectually. During my undergraduate years we organised three substantial functions. One was held in the Arts Faculty Lounge, another at Bait-us-Salaat, the University’s principal centre of Shi’i religious and cultural activity, and a third in the Kennedy Auditorium. Those programmes gave me an education that no classroom ever could. They taught me how to organise an event from beginning to end, how to persuade people to participate, how to coordinate speakers, arrange logistics and assume responsibility for success as well as failure. Only much later did I realise that these experiences were preparing me for a lifetime spent organising seminars, conferences and academic gatherings. The training had begun long before I knew that I would spend my professional life in a university.

By the time I entered the MA programme, however, another transformation had quietly begun to take place. The rather exclusive outlook that had characterised my undergraduate years slowly gave way to something much broader. It was not that I had become any less attached to my own religious identity. My upbringing, my family and my father’s influence remained inseparable parts of who I was. Rather, I had begun to appreciate that history, by its very nature, refuses to remain confined within narrow boundaries. The more one reads, the more one realises that societies, cultures and religions are intertwined in ways that simple labels fail to explain. The historian’s first loyalty must ultimately be to evidence and understanding rather than to inherited assumptions. Without consciously deciding to do so, I found myself moving away from specifically Shi’i student activities towards a much more inclusive academic engagement. The change was so gradual that I scarcely noticed it myself. Instead of organising religious gatherings, I began organising student seminars on Medieval Indian History. They were modest affairs by the standards of later years, but for us they represented an entirely different kind of intellectual exercise. Students were encouraged to read original texts, prepare papers and defend their arguments before their peers. We learnt not merely to collect information but to formulate questions, construct arguments and, perhaps most importantly, accept criticism.

Not every initiative, however, received enthusiastic encouragement. There were occasions when the then Chairman of the Department (I won’t name him as I still respect him a lot) would take a rather dim view of our activities. Sometimes we were told that the Seminar Room could not be occupied indefinitely. On other occasions we were gently reminded that students were expected to attend classes rather than organise them. Being young and thoroughly convinced of the importance of what we were doing, we accepted these interruptions with remarkable good humour. If we were turned out of the Seminar Room, we simply shifted the seminar to the lawns. Someone would spread a newspaper on the grass, another would produce a notebook, and within minutes the discussion resumed exactly where it had been interrupted. Looking back today, I often feel that those informal baithaks beneath the trees were among the finest seminars I have ever attended. There were no microphones. No inaugural ceremonies. No chief guests. No interminable votes of thanks. Only students, and occasionally a visiting Professor, arguing passionately about history.

One afternoon the discussion might revolve around the nature of the iqta system under the Delhi Sultans. On another occasion we debated whether Akbar’s theory of sovereignty represented a genuine ideological departure or merely a political necessity. Sometimes the arguments became so animated that passers-by would stop and look at us with curiosity. They probably wondered why a group of young men seemed prepared to quarrel so passionately over emperors who had been dead for centuries. For us, however, those emperors were very much alive. They represented ideas. They represented problems. Above all, they represented different ways of understanding the past.

It was during those years that another important academic tradition began within the Department. Professor Irfan Habib initiated what were then known as the Thursday Seminars of the Aligarh Historians Group, an enterprise that would, in later years, evolve into the Aligarh Historians Society. Few of us realised at the time that we were witnessing the birth of an institution that would eventually become one of the most respected historical forums in the country. To us it was simply Thursday. Those seminars became an event around which our week revolved. There was much to be done before each meeting. Chairs had to be arranged, notices circulated, visiting scholars received, papers duplicated and countless small details attended to. A seminar that appears effortless to an audience invariably rests upon the unseen labour of volunteers. I was fortunate to be one of them. Along with a few fellow students, I became actively involved in organising these meetings. There was no financial reward, no certificate of appreciation and no expectation of recognition. We participated simply because we enjoyed being part of an intellectual community that was visibly growing before our eyes.

The rewards were immeasurable. For the first time I found myself listening not only to my own teachers but also to distinguished scholars from universities across the country. I watched eminent historians disagree with one another, sometimes quite vigorously, yet without any trace of personal bitterness. Arguments were supported by evidence, challenged by evidence and refined through evidence. That experience fundamentally altered my understanding of scholarship. Until then I had imagined that history consisted of established facts waiting to be learnt. The seminars taught me something very different. History is, in reality, an unending conversation. Every generation returns to the same evidence with new questions. Every historian contributes one interpretation amongst many others. Scholarship advances not because everyone agrees, but because informed disagreement compels us to think more carefully. It was a lesson that remained with me throughout my own academic career.

The MA Seminar Room itself gradually acquired an almost sacred significance. It was no longer merely a room where students sat between classes. It became the intellectual heart of our lives. Hours disappeared there unnoticed. One discussion naturally gave birth to another. Someone would introduce a newly published article. Another would disagree with its conclusions. A third would rush to the library to fetch a relevant book. Before long what had begun as a casual conversation had become a miniature research seminar. Equally important was the Maulana Azad Library. To visitors it was one of the University’s most magnificent buildings. To us it was home. I often think that no historian is ever truly educated until he has learnt to lose himself in a great library. One entered intending to consult a single volume and emerged several hours later carrying references to half a dozen books that one had never originally intended to read. A footnote led to another book; that book suggested another article; the article referred to an obscure Persian source; and before one realised it, the entire afternoon had disappeared. Long before electronic databases transformed research into a matter of computer searches, scholarship depended upon serendipity. One learnt to browse. One learnt to wander. Above all, one learnt patience.

The friendships forged during those years have remained amongst the greatest blessings of my life. Some began in classrooms, others in the Seminar Room, still others over countless cups of tea in the canteens and dhabas that surrounded the campus. We borrowed one another’s books, criticised each other’s papers with ruthless honesty, argued over historiography with youthful certainty and reconciled ourselves over yet another cup of tea. Looking back now, I realise that the University was educating us in ways that no curriculum could ever prescribe. The lectures gave us knowledge. The library taught us discipline. The seminars taught us to think. Friendships taught us generosity. Failure taught us resilience. Organisation taught us leadership. And life itself taught us humility.

When I first entered Aligarh, I imagined that education took place inside classrooms. By the time I completed my MA course, I knew better. The classrooms had given me teachers. Life beyond them had made me a historian. The story, however, was far from over. The years that followed would take me from the Seminar Room to research, from student life to teaching, and eventually to the very Department that had nurtured me. Looking back now, I often feel that everything that came later had its origins in those unforgettable years when the University quietly taught me lessons that no textbook could ever contain. That, however, is a story yet to be told.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

Professor Hitendra Patel’s two-part essay published in The Statesman on July 12 and July 13, 2026 is a thoughtful reminder that constitutional history deserves sustained attention in any account of late colonial Bengal. His emphasis on the Morley-Minto reforms, the Government of India Act of 1935, provincial autonomy, coalition politics, the Bengal Pact, and the constitutional debates of the 1940s serves as a useful corrective to historical narratives that concentrate exclusively on nationalism, communalism or Partition. Political institutions undoubtedly mattered. Constitutional debates shaped the language through which Bengal’s political elite articulated competing visions of representation, democracy and provincial autonomy.

Yet the essays also invite a number of questions. They claim to “rethink” Bengal’s history by placing constitutional politics at its centre. The issue is whether this constitutes a genuinely new historiographical direction or simply shifts emphasis within an already well-developed body of scholarship.

The first difficulty lies in the suggestion that constitutional history has been relatively neglected. This is not entirely convincing. Much of the finest scholarship on Bengal over the past four decades has consistently explored the relationship between constitutional reforms, representative institutions, communal politics and provincial autonomy. The works of Joya Chatterji, Sugata Bose, Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, Ayesha Jalal, Gordon Johnson, Judith Brown and others have never treated constitutional developments as peripheral. Rather, they have integrated them into broader analyses of Bengal’s political transformation. Constitutional politics is therefore hardly a neglected subject awaiting rediscovery.

More importantly, the essays tend to present constitutional politics as an almost autonomous sphere of historical explanation. Constitutions, however, do not operate independently of society. Institutions derive their significance from the social, economic and cultural contexts within which they function.

The elections of 1937 provide a good illustration. They certainly marked a constitutional watershed. Yet their outcome cannot be explained merely by electoral arrangements or representative institutions. They reflected agrarian discontent, the mobilisation of Muslim peasantry, the rise of the Krishak Praja Party, urban Hindu politics, educational expansion, changing social aspirations and the cumulative consequences of colonial land revenue policies. Constitutional reforms created the arena within which politics unfolded, but they did not determine the political forces that occupied it.

Similarly, the Bengal Pact of 1923 was far more than a constitutional compromise. It represented an attempt to address longstanding anxieties over education, employment, representation and access to public institutions. Those concerns had emerged through wider social and economic developments. Constitutional negotiation was therefore one expression of deeper historical processes rather than their origin.

The role of colonial power also receives less attention than it deserves. British constitutional reforms were not neutral experiments in democratic development. Every constitutional measure, from the Morley-Minto reforms onwards, sought to reconcile limited political participation with the preservation of imperial authority. Separate electorates, reserved representation and provincial autonomy were carefully calibrated mechanisms of colonial governance. To analyse constitutional evolution without placing imperial objectives at the centre risks overlooking the very framework within which these institutions operated.

The essays also establish an unnecessary opposition between constitutional reasoning and ideology. Professor Patel argues that constitutional considerations rather than ideological differences explain many of the choices made by Bengal’s political leadership. Yet constitutional preferences themselves emerged from ideological commitments. Fazlul Huq, Sarat Chandra Bose, H. S. Suhrawardy, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and others differed not merely over constitutional arrangements but over fundamentally different conceptions of community, democracy, federalism and the future of India. Constitutional arguments were themselves expressions of political ideology.

Nor can constitutional history be separated from popular politics. The legislative debates of the period unfolded alongside the Swadeshi movement, peasant mobilisation, labour unrest, revolutionary nationalism, communal mobilisation and, ultimately, the Bengal Famine. Public opinion, organised protest and mass political participation shaped constitutional developments as much as constitutional institutions influenced society. The relationship was reciprocal rather than one directional.

The second essay rightly emphasises that the constitutional alternatives discussed during the 1940s remind us that Partition was not inevitable. This is an important point. Yet it is also one that modern historiography has long recognised. Historians have repeatedly demonstrated that multiple constitutional futures remained possible until remarkably late in the transfer of power. The existence of unrealised alternatives enriches our understanding of contingency, but it does not fundamentally revise the existing historiography.

There is another omission that deserves attention. Throughout both essays, constitutional debates are largely viewed from the perspective of political leaders and legislative institutions. Missing are the experiences of ordinary Bengalis. Constitutional ideas were interpreted, contested and reshaped through newspapers, voluntary associations, student movements, district politics, caste organisations, religious institutions, municipal bodies and peasant organisations. The constitutional history of Bengal was not written only in Calcutta or in legislative chambers. It was equally fashioned in villages, towns and local public spheres.

Ultimately, the greatest strength of Professor Patel’s essays lies in reminding readers that constitutional history deserves serious consideration. Their weakness lies in presenting constitutional politics as the principal explanatory framework for understanding Bengal’s modern past. Constitutional institutions mattered enormously, but they functioned within larger processes of social change, economic transformation, ideological contestation and imperial governance. None can adequately be understood in isolation from the others.

History rarely advances by replacing one dominant narrative with another. Rather, it progresses through synthesis, by recognising the interaction of institutions, ideas, social forces and historical contingency. Bengal’s history is no exception. Its richness lay precisely in the complex interplay between constitutional innovation, political ideology, agrarian change, communal negotiation, intellectual life and popular mobilisation.

There is, however, one final point that deserves reflection. Every generation rewrites history, but the timing of such rewritings is itself historically significant. The current enthusiasm for “rethinking” Bengal’s past has emerged not in an intellectual vacuum but in the aftermath of a major political realignment within the state. That fact neither invalidates nor validates the arguments advanced. It does, however, remind us that historiography, like politics, is often shaped by the questions the present chooses to ask of the past. Historians should therefore examine not only the new interpretations being proposed but also the intellectual and political moment that has made these particular reinterpretations appear especially urgent.

The challenge, then, is not simply to rethink Bengal’s history. It is equally to remain attentive to the contexts in which history itself is being rethought. Only by doing so can historiography remain both intellectually rigorous and historically self-aware.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

For a long time, the history of medieval and early modern India has been written largely from the perspective of kings and emperors. Dynastic chronicles, imperial memoirs and colonial settlement reports have justly dominated the field, but they have also tended to crowd out a quieter, equally rich tradition of historical writing that flourished in provincial North India during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is the tradition of the Urdu local history, or tārīkh-i maqāmī. These works were not produced in royal courts but in small towns (qasbas) by scholars who were deeply embedded in their communities. They preserve a remarkable wealth of detail about genealogy, patterns of settlement, education, religious institutions and collective memory. Among them, Tārīkh-i Haswa by Maulvi Haji Sayyid Wāhid ‘Ali Sahib ‘Akhlaṣ‘ deserves special attention. Though it focuses on a single qasba in what is now Fatehpur district in Uttar Pradesh, its insights reach far beyond the boundaries of that one locality.

The qasba as a social and cultural formation has drawn renewed interest from historians in recent decades. The late Mushirul Hasan, in his influential study From Pluralism to Separatism: Qasbas in Colonial Awadh, described these settlements as historic ‘rurban’ spaces – smaller than cities but larger than villages – that were once vibrant centres of Sufism, Urdu literature, refined conversation (tehzib) and cross-cultural encounter. In the Awadh region, with its epicentre in Lucknow, these towns nurtured a remarkable composite culture, where Hindus and Muslims participated freely in each other’s festivals, contributed together to literary traditions, and shaped a shared social world. Haswa, lying within this cultural orbit, exemplifies precisely such a milieu. Its history, as recorded by Sayyid Wāhid ‘Ali, is not merely a local chronicle but a testament to the pluralistic and intellectually rich life of the Awadhi qasba that Hasan so eloquently evoked.

Published in Banaras in 1330 AH (1912–13 CE), the book runs to seventy-two pages and is introduced by a preface from Mufti Sayyid ‘Abd al-Qawi, the author of Rashīd al-Mu’allifīn. The title page tells us that Sayyid Wāhid ‘Ali was a retired tehsildar, and this detail is more significant than it might first appear. Unlike many local chroniclers who relied almost exclusively on oral tradition, he brought to his task both the sensibilities of a local scholar and the practical training of a revenue official. That dual perspective shows throughout the work, in his careful attention to genealogy, landholding patterns, institutional history and documentary exactness.

The volume belongs to a distinguished but understudied group of Urdu local histories, alongside works on Bilgram, Sandila, Kakori, Amroha and Dewa Sharif. Together, these texts form one of the richest archives we have for reconstructing the social history of provincial Muslim society in northern India. Yet they have received only sporadic scholarly attention, overshadowed by the better-known Persian chronicles of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire, or by the district gazetteers compiled by British officials. Tārīkh-i Haswa shows precisely why this neglect ought to be remedied.

Unlike the Persian chronicles of the Delhi Sultans or the Mughal emperors, Tārīkh-i Haswa does not seek to narrate the rise and fall of empires. Instead, it asks a different set of historical questions. Who first settled here? Which families established the town’s scholarly reputation? Which mosques and shrines shaped its religious life? How did successive generations preserve their lineage and identity? Who were the teachers, judges, physicians and poets who made Haswa an intellectual centre? These questions reflect a conception of history rooted not in kingship but in community. The author’s understanding of what constitutes history is fundamentally different from that of a court chronicler. Political events are given only a secondary place. Instead, the narrative centres on the origins of Haswa, the settlement of its Sayyid families, the founding of mosques and imambaras, the careers of local scholars and jurists, and the preservation of communal memory. History here is not the story of rulers succeeding one another but the story of a community enduring over time.

One of the striking features of the work is the author’s concern with place. The opening pages describe the physical setting of Haswa, its surrounding villages and the natural environment in which the settlement evolved. The qasba is presented as an organic part of the countryside rather than an isolated urban enclave. Agricultural prosperity, access to communications and proximity to neighbouring settlements all contributed to its emergence as a regional centre. Such observations correspond closely with what historians now understand about the growth of qasbas under the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals. These settlements typically developed where agrarian expansion created a surplus capable of supporting religious scholars, administrators and artisans.

The Sayyids and Scholars of Haswa

The genealogical tables reproduced in Tārīkh-i Haswa are among the most remarkable features of the work. They demonstrate the author’s determination to preserve precise relationships between successive generations rather than relying upon vague family traditions. The author carefully traces the descent of the main Sayyid families, recording relationships, migrations and family lore. Modern historians are rightly cautious about genealogical evidence, aware that lineage is often shaped as much by memory as by documentation. From the standpoint of historical methodology, such material deserves careful evaluation. Genealogies often preserve accurate information over remarkably long periods because inheritance, marriage and religious succession depended upon them. At the same time, they occasionally incorporate omissions, simplifications or retrospective adjustments intended to strengthen claims of prestige. The historian must therefore compare local genealogies with contemporary documents wherever possible.

Nevertheless, even when minor inaccuracies occur, genealogies remain invaluable historical evidence. They reveal patterns of migration, demographic growth, educational succession and the distribution of landed property. They also illuminate the remarkable stability of certain scholarly families whose influence extended across several centuries. The genealogical portions of Tārīkh-i Haswa deserve to be treated as primary historical evidence, not merely as curious relics of antiquarian interest.

The Sayyids of Haswa constituted what may appropriately be described as a scholarly aristocracy. Their authority rested upon learning rather than military power. Their prestige derived from scholarship as much as descent. They taught in madrasas, delivered legal opinions, supervised religious endowments, led prayers, composed literary works and trained successive generations of students. Their homes often functioned as informal academies where instruction continued outside the formal classroom. In doing so, they bore out Hasan’s observation that these towns were much more culturally refined than either large cities or ordinary villages, and that their residents often took immense pride in their heritage, comparing their homes to illustrious centres like Baghdad or Córdoba.

Mosques, Imambaras and Sacred Geography

Every historic qasba possesses two histories. One may be reconstructed through chronicles, administrative records and genealogies. The other is inscribed upon the landscape itself. Mosques, imambaras, shrines, cemeteries, madrasas and family residences collectively form what historians increasingly describe as a town’s sacred geography. These buildings are more than architectural monuments. They embody memory, patronage, scholarship and communal identity. In Tārīkh-i Haswa, Sayyid Wāhid ‘Ali devotes considerable attention to these institutions, recognising that they constituted the very heart of the town’s historical existence.

The emergence of sacred landscapes formed one of the defining characteristics of Muslim settlement in medieval India. Wherever scholars, Sayyids or Sufis established themselves permanently, they founded mosques, schools and cemeteries. These institutions gradually attracted students, pilgrims and patrons, creating a network of religious activity that transformed an ordinary settlement into a recognised centre of learning.

Haswa appears to have developed in precisely this manner. As successive generations of learned families settled there, each contributed to the religious topography of the town. New mosques were erected, educational circles expanded, imambaras were established for the observance of Muharram, while cemeteries became places where family memory and communal identity converged. The resulting landscape reflected centuries of continuous religious patronage rather than the vision of any single founder. These descriptions preserve information that may no longer be recoverable from surviving buildings or inscriptions. In this sense, the chronicle complements archaeological and epigraphic evidence by recording the social meanings that these institutions held for the local community.

The presence of imambaras within Tārīkh-i Haswa immediately indicates the importance of Shi’i devotional culture within the town. These buildings served as centres for the observance of Muharram, the recitation of marsiyas, majālis and the commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Husain. The prominence accorded to these institutions suggests that the culture of Azadāri had become firmly rooted within Haswa by the nineteenth century, contributing significantly to the town’s distinctive identity.

Echoes in Stone

Today, one of the most tangible remnants of Haswa’s historical character is not a grand palace or mosque, but a pond. The Rani ka Talab, a historic pond in Haswa, is famous for its artistic and unique architecture. It was built in 1871 by Rani Gomati Kunwar, a daughter of a local landlord named Lala Ram Ghulam. The pond stands as a reminder of a time when local patronage shaped the landscape and when a single monument could serve the entire community. It is a quiet, physical link to Haswa’s past, one that embodies the composite culture of which Hasan wrote – a Hindu queen’s gift that became an enduring landmark for the entire town, regardless of faith.

Scholarship and Intellectual Culture

Perhaps the most significant contribution of Tārīkh-i Haswa, however, lies in its biographical material. The author commemorates scholars, jurists, teachers and other notable inhabitants whose names rarely appear in larger historical narratives. Together, these biographies illuminate the intellectual culture of the North Indian qasba. They remind us that the vitality of Indo-Muslim learning did not depend only on celebrated centres such as Delhi, Lucknow or Jaunpur, but also on smaller provincial towns that sustained traditions of scholarship across generations.

Linguistically, the work is an excellent example of mature Urdu historical prose. Though deeply indebted to Persian historiographical conventions in both style and vocabulary, it reflects the gradual replacement of Persian by Urdu as the principal language of Muslim historical writing during the nineteenth century. This shift itself forms an important chapter in the intellectual history of colonial India, and Tārīkh-i Haswa occupies a significant place within that story.

From the perspective of modern historical scholarship, the work is not without its limitations. The author seldom distinguishes explicitly between documentary evidence and oral tradition, and miraculous narratives occasionally sit alongside historically verifiable information without any critical comment. Ordinary cultivators, artisans and women receive relatively little attention, and explicit references to documentary sources are sparse. But these characteristics are largely features of the genre itself rather than shortcomings unique to this particular work. To judge Tārīkh-i Haswa solely by the standards of contemporary academic history would be to misunderstand both its purpose and its historical context.

Indeed, the book’s greatest strength lies precisely in its preservation of material that official records neglect. Colonial gazetteers give us statistics but rarely convey the inner life of a community. Persian chronicles illuminate imperial politics but seldom notice provincial scholars or neighbourhood institutions. Local histories such as this fill that gap by documenting the lived texture of society. When read alongside Persian chronicles, Mughal administrative manuals, district gazetteers, inscriptions and archival records, they become indispensable sources for reconstructing the social and cultural history of the Gangetic plain.

In recent decades, historians have increasingly turned to microhistory as a way of exploring broader historical processes through the detailed study of particular communities. Although the term itself emerged in twentieth-century European historiography, works such as Tārīkh-i Haswa show that Indian scholars had long recognised the historical value of the local. By documenting a single qasba in extraordinary detail, Sayyid Wāhid ‘Ali reveals patterns of migration, education, religious patronage and communal identity that illuminate much wider developments in North Indian history. Yet one cannot help but feel, as Hasan poignantly remarked, that ‘a carefully swept imambara, a functional old kothi, periodic assemblage of aspiring local poets, even an occasional production of local lore, legends and histories are poor substitute for the lost world of the qasbas‘. Works like this one are invaluable precisely because they offer us a glimpse of that vanished world, even as they remind us of all that has been irretrievably lost.

One cannot conclude without expressing the hope that Tārīkh-i Haswa will one day receive the critical edition it deserves. A scholarly English translation, accompanied by a substantial introduction, explanatory notes, genealogical charts, maps, indices and a comparison with Persian and colonial sources, would greatly enhance its accessibility and historical value. Such an edition would constitute a major contribution not only to the history of Haswa but also to the broader historiography of Mughal and colonial India.

Despite its modest size, this is a work of considerable historical importance. It reminds us that the making of Indian history took place not only in imperial capitals but equally in provincial qasbas, where scholars taught, families preserved their genealogies, religious institutions shaped communal life, and local historians consciously recorded the memories of their communities for future generations. More than a century after its publication, Sayyid Wāhid ‘Ali’s work remains an indispensable source for anyone interested in the social, intellectual and cultural history of North India.

Note: A copy of the book was in the library of my father, but is now not traceable. I am thankful to my cousin Mr Masoodul Hasan, former Bureau Chief of Hindustan Times at Lucknow, for sending me a pdf of the same. I also thank my student Ms Shireen Khan in getting it printed and bound for me.

A detailed study of this work will be undertaken later, hopefully.