The argumentative, humanist Muslim

A more than five decades old book has become a modern classic on Muslim politics in India, and its relevance today more vital than ever

Muslim Politics in India

Author: Hamid Dalwai (translator: Dilip Chitre)

Publisher: Vintage Penguin Random House

Pages: 144

Price: Rs 499

This is an extraordinary book by an equally extraordinary author. Hamid Umar Dalwai was primarily an activist, who was born in Maharashtra in 1932. He joined the Socialist Party in the 1960s. As a committed secular-modernist Dalwai devoted himself to initiating radical social reforms among Muslims. He was deeply critical of postcolonial Muslim leadership, including the so-called nationalist Muslims associated with the Congress. Dalwai campaigned against the practice of triple talaq and polygamy and even demanded a common civil law for all citizens of the country.

To provide an organisational set up for this radical social reform agenda, Dalwai established the Muslim Satyashodhak Mandal in 1970. Unfortunately, Dalwai could not get enough time to strengthen this organisation. He died in 1977. Dalwai’s untimely death might be one of the reasons his most powerful work, Muslim Politics in India, and, for that matter, Dalwai himself as a radical Muslim thinker, did not receive sufficient intellectual-political attention.

The book was first published in 1968 by Indian Secular Forum (Nachiketa Publications, Bombay). It was not a conventional academic study of Muslim politics. Instead, an attempt was made to produce a radical secular-modernist critique of Muslim orthodox thinking and social backwardness. Hamid Dalwai’s seven Marathi articles were compiled and translated in English by Dilip Chitre. These articles were given a specific sequence to provide a coherent book-like structure. Chitre also conducted an extensive interview of Dalwai, which was included in the book as the concluding chapter.

The book had a very specific purpose. In the Foreword to the first edition, A B Shah (who was the President of Indian Secular Forum) argued that the reformist ideas of Hamid Dalwai should be translated in English for the wider dissemination of progressive values, especially among educated Muslims. For that reason, the Indian Secular Forum decided to publish English, Hindi, and Urdu translations of Dalwai’s writings. We do not know what happened to Hindi or Urdu versions of this book. However, the second edition of the English translation was published in 1972 with a Preface by V K Sinha. This version has been republished by Penguin India with a short explanatory note and a few relevant references.

The book’s interesting story introduces us to the making, remaking and even unmaking of this remarkable political document. The book itself has become a modern classic on Muslim politics. It has also established Dalwai as one of the most progressive Muslim thinkers in postcolonial India. That is one of the reasons historian Ramachandra Guha describes Dalwai as the “last modernist” in his book Makers of Modern India  (Penguin, 2010). In fact, abridged versions of three articles published in Muslim Politics in India are included in Dr Guha’s compilation.

The book is more than five decades old. Even though it represents Dalwai’s original thinking and commitment for secular-modern values, one must read this book carefully, contextually, and critically. For this purpose, it is sensible to focus on one of the central intellectual concerns of Dalwai’s writing and activism — the idea of “Muslim Satyashodhak”. It is worth noting that he did not deal with this concept in this book. Yet, one finds a deeper quest for a secular truth in each chapter. More specifically, I wish to highlight two identifiable expressions of “Satyashodhak” in Dalwai’s writings, which makes this book relevant in our context.

The term “Satyashodhak” may refer to the ever-evolving quest for truth and righteousness. For Dalwai, truth is an ever-evolving phenomenon; and for this reason, there is a need to be vigilant always. This implies that we must acknowledge the context-specific nature of truth and should not abandon its endurance and continuity. Dalwai’s essay “Humanistic Modernism, the Only Solution” is relevant to elaborate this point. He writes: “Those Hindus who want to counter Muslim communalism unfortunately try to strengthen Hindu revivalism. And those Hindus who want to lead the Hindus and ultimately the whole of this nation on the way of modernity are unfortunately supporting Muslim communalists. This has to change. I am on the side of all Hindus who oppose Muslim communalism; but when the same Hindus help Hindu revivalism, I am opposed to them.”               

Dalwai opposes Muslim communalism; yet is fully aware of the possibilities of Hindu rightist politics. The historicisation of the given meaning of truth is the second important facet of the concept of “Satyashodhak”. Dalwai, it seems, is inspired by Jyotirao Phule’s famous book Gulamgiri.  Like Phule, he takes the historical context very seriously in assessing the nature of contemporary problems, prejudices, and communal stereotypes.

In the first chapter of the book, he writes: “History, which has bred prejudices and animosities, is a hindrance to all of us. All of us have to come out of the grip of our prejudices, which originate in the past…today’s Muslim is not responsible for the oppression to which Mahmud Ghaznavi or Aurangzeb subjected the Hindus. There has to emerge a class of Muslims, which would accept the sin of Aurangzeb and, to undo damage, would therefore embrace the concept of secular citizenship….And therefore, my appeal to communal Hindus is that they should free themselves of historical prejudices before they examine the views expressed by me.”   

Dalwai evokes these two meanings of “Satyashodhak” —argumentative openness and a strong belief in universal humanism—to reimagine a secular-modernist imagination of Indian Muslim identity. In this sense, Muslim Politics in India makes a remarkable comeback—not merely as a creatively written text but also as a political manifesto of liberation.  

The reviewer is associate professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi