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Stone statu monument to commemorate Mahatma Gandhi's Dandi March in New Delhi

Jinnah raised Vande Mataram controversy for political reasons

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, First Home Minister of India

Was Sardar Patel biased against Muslims?

President Dr Rajendra prasad administering oath of office and secrecy to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

Sardar Patel was against the ghettoisation of Muslims

Saquib-Salim

Election commission's evolution shows the strength of Indian democracy

Saquib Salim On 26 January 1950, when India became a Republic, the world hardly believed that such a large population with a low literacy rate could pull off a successful election to the legislature. But the Election Commission of India (ECI) has successfully conducted elections since 1952, making India the largest democracy. The ECI was constituted on 25 January 1950, and Sukumar Sen, an ICS officer, became the first Chief Election Co...

Flydubai Flight Attack: How averted air disaster could reignite Islamophobia

Saquib Salim On September 30, a nightmare scenario unfolded in the skies over Jordan in West Asia. Aboard Flydubai Flight 1073, en route from Dubai to Tel Aviv, an Omani co-pilot allegedly attacked the captain, Smit Machchhar, sending the Boeing 737 MAX 8 into a terrifying, rapid descent. Within minutes, the aircraft plunged thousands of feet before the passengers sensed trouble and entered the cockpit left open by the badly injured pi...

Lal Bahadur Shastri: The PM who carried his simplicity to the top

Saquib Salim Lal Bahadur Shastri, whose birthday fall on Octoiber 2, rose from poverty to become Prime Minister without compromising his principles. Power did not change him. He often repeated Mahatma Gandhi’s maxim: “In office always sit light, never tight.” Shastri’s father, a teacher, died when he was barely a year and a half old. His mother called him Nanhe, and he grew up in his maternal grandfather’s...

Jatin Das' death after 63-day fast shook the British empire

Saquib Salim On the afternoon of 13 September, 1929, inside the Borstal Jail at Lahore, a twenty-four-year-old Indian revolutionary named Jatindra Nath Das died of starving himself for 63 days. His death forced the Imperial Legislative Assembly of British India to debate whether an empire had the right to starve a man for holding an opinion. Das had been jailed three times before he turned eighteen -- once for picketing shops selling f...

Why Maulana Maududi's political Islam is not relevant in twenty-first-century India

Saquib Salim “Certainly. I should have no objection even if the Muslims of India are treated in that form of Government as shudras and malishes and Manu’s laws are applied to them, depriving them of all share in the Government and the rights of a citizen.” This statement by Maulana Syed Abul A'la Maududi recorded in the Justice Munir Commission report in 1953 was the first instance when I was curious about Maudud...

Islam in the pursuit of science is beyond myth of conflict

Saquib Salim Popular discourse has often attempted to push Islam and reason into opposing camps. Yet, when we examine the intellectual heritage of Islam, we see that Islam and modern science have never been natural opponents. Across historical accounts, theological inquiries, and contemporary studies, we find that science was not seen as a secular intruder threatening religious dogma, but as a direct extension of spiritual devotion. ...

M Visveshvaraya who made his British bosses eat their words

Saquib Salim "The Assistant Engineer is beginning his career badly as regards energy and obedience to orders." This is what the Executive Engineer for Irrigation, Khandesh and Nasik District, wrote in a departmental memorandum in 1884 about a 22-year-old subordinate who had asked permission to suspend a flood-hit pipe-laying job rather than waste government money. Today India celebrates the birthday of this Assistant Engineer, wh...

Sir Syed Fazl Ali marked boundaries of Indian states

Saquib Salim It is a commonly held notion that the states of India are natural units, each a homeland of a particular language and culture that existed long before 1947. The formal recognition of these states after India became a Republic was nothing but natural. A Slice Of History History shows that the political boundaries most Indians live inside today were drawn by a three-member commission that submitted its report on 30 Septe...

What is in a name? --History says a lot when it's about politics

Saquib Salim The records of the First War of Indian National Independence in 1857 show names of Muslims and Hindus that are no longer in use. For example, when the revolution started in Meerut after the English East India Company sentenced 85 Indian sepoys to jail terms on 9 May 1857, its leader was Havildar Mata-Deen. In the 19th century, this name was given to children in both religious communities. We have Matadeen Mir and also Mata...

What is in a name - History says a lot when it's about politics

Saquib Salim The records of the First War of Indian National Independence in 1857 show names of Muslims and Hindus that are no longer in use. For example, when the revolution started in Meerut after the English East India Company sentenced 85 Indian sepoys to jail terms on 9 May 1857, its leader was Havildar Mata-Deen. In the 19th century, this name was given to children in both religious communities. We have Matadeen Mir and also Mata...

Pakistan's search for a past beyond Hinduism

Saquib Salim The Indian media, in the last few weeks, is discussing Pakistan’s claims on Harappan, or Indus Valley Civilisation. Contrary to popular notion, this flirtation with pre-Islamic history is part of its perennial confusion with history since its formation 79 years ago. At times Pakistanis own their pre-Islamic past while on other occasions they claim Muhammad Bin Qasim was the first Pakistani. However, whatever they be...

'It's not responsibility of Madrasas to produce doctors, engineers'

New Delhi Dars Nizami, the multi-layer curriculum used in Islamic seminaries (madrasas) to train students to become scholars, imams, and muftis, has been a topic of debate for a long time. The question is whether the same curriculum is being taught in madrasas today that was compiled two or three centuries ago. Has there been no change in it despite the changing times? To find answers to these important questions, Saquib Salim of...

Waris Mazhari points out myths on Madrasa syllabus

New Delhi Dars Nizami, the multi-layer curriculum used in Islamic seminaries (madrasas) to train students to become scholars, imams, and Muftis has been a topic of debate for a long time. The question is whether the same curriculum is being taught in madrasas today that was compiled two or three centuries ago. Has there been no change in it despite the changing times? To find answers, Saquib Salim of Awaz-the Voice, spoke in detail to...

Censorship law was brought to silence Bengali play Nil Darpan

Saquib Salim "Scandalous, defamatory, seditious, obscene or otherwise prejudicial to the public interest". This is how Viceroy Lord Northbrook described the kind of theatre the British government wanted to censor in India through an ordinance issued on 29 February 1876. A Slice Of History It was never explained what constituted sedition. Police could stop any play and arrest actors. The act was a result of somethin...

Tipu Sultan’s sons and fakirs led the Vellore Mutiny

Saquib Salim The First War of National Independence in 1857 is celebrated as a first major uprising against British colonial rule, but its blueprint had been drawn half a century prior at Vellore (now in Tamil Nadu) in 1806. On July 10, 1806, this mutiny by the Indian sepoys of the English East India Company was surely a dress rehearsal for the great revolt of 1857. A Slice Of History Colonial narratives often minimise the mutiny a...

Lord Mayo's assassin Sher Ali was a nationalist with a Patna connection

Saquib Salim "This Wahabiism must be stamped out." Robert Henry Elliot wrote these words in 1872 in his book Concerning John's Indian Affairs, within months of Sher Ali Afridi assassinating Viceroy Lord Mayo at the penal settlement of Port Blair. The British described Sher Ali as a lone fanatic with no political affiliation. Elliot's own account of the affair, written by a man who wanted the culprits hanged and their fami...

Marathas' sacred association with Muharram

Saquib Salim "The Maharaj himself even gives in to this ridiculous custom, and is a Fuqeer during the whole of the Muharram." Thomas Duer Broughton, an English officer stationed at the court of Maharaj Daulat Rao Sindhia, wrote these words in a letter to his brother in 1809. The word that demands attention is "ridiculous." That a British officer found it absurd for one of the most powerful Hindu Maratha rulers of th...

A Muslim officer's role in the First War of Indian Independence

Saquib Salim "My master, Sreemunt Maharajah Peshwa Bahadoor has, for the purpose of defending the religion both of the Hindoos and Mahomedans, prepared himself to slaughter the followers of Christ." A Slice Of History These words were not written by the Peshwa’s Hindu Maratha Commander but by his aide-de-camp, a Muslim Syed from Bithoor named Mohammad Ishaq, on 2 January 1858. The letter was addre...

Why was Islamophobia seen as a phenomenon that must be countered

Saquib Salim In 2022, the United Nations proclaimed 15 March the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. The term Islamophobia came into common use with the publication of a report by a UK think tank, Runnymede, in 1997. In the aftermath of the USSR’s fall, publication of The Clash of Civilisations and the Gulf War, the West witnessed a surge in anti-Muslim hate. In a post 9/11 world, this hate increased, and so did the effort...

What did Maulana Azad think of conversion & Muslim minority

Saquib Salim/ New Delhi “The greatest mistake of the Muslims is to involve themselves in the minority or majority of numbers. They seek to add to their numbers, not strengthen their hearts. But Islam does not attach importance to numbers.” This is what Maulana Abul Kalam Azad wrote in 1912 while discussing the question of the religious conversion drive by the Arya Samaj and Muslims opposing it. After more than a century, In...

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