National

Remembering Mushirul Hasan: Historian, Patron, Patriot

During his tenure as Jamia VC, several scholars from across the world, who visited Delhi, loved to have a stop at Jamia and often agreed to hold a talk only if Professor Hasan would chair it.

Remembering Mushirul Hasan: Historian, Patron, Patriot
info_icon

Professor바카라 웹사이트Mushirul Hasan, without doubt, is the most distinguished historian of바카라 웹사이트 Modern India. Given the vast breadth of his work, it will be appropriate to call him a historian of historians. His works on Modern India stood out compared to other historians because of his extensive access to Urdu sources. On Monday, after a prolonged illness, he died at a hospital in Delhi.

Professor Hasan met with a road accident on his way to Mewat in November 2014, and was under care at his home.바카라 웹사이트He studied at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and was a prominent student activist during his college years. He earned his doctorate at the University of Cambridge, UK. After teaching at Delhi University라이브 바카라 Ramjas College for some time, he joined the Department of History and Culture at Jamia Millia Islamia as one of its youngest professors and rose to become its Vice-Chancellor, a position he served from 2004 -2009.바카라 웹사이트

He also served in many prominent departments in several countries as a visiting scholar during his long and distinguished career as a historian. Towards the end of his tenure as the Vice-Chancellor, there were reports that he was being considered as a candidate for the post of India라이브 바카라 Vice President. Subsequently, he also served as the Director of National Archive, New Delhi. He was elected as the President of Indian History Congress in 2002. His father, Mohibbul Hasan, was also a historian at Jamia and the current Department of History is in the building named after his father. His brother was a journalist who died in an accident while covering a war. Professor Hasan dedicated one of his books to his brother.

바카라 웹사이트Subsequently, he joined Nehru Memorial as a fellow and during this time he wrote one of his most prominent books titled,바카라 웹사이트Legacy of a Divided Nation: Indian Muslims Since Independence. His other works include India라이브 바카라 Partition: Process, Strategy and Mobilization; Nationalist Conscience: M A Ansari, The Congress and Raj; Islam in the Subcontinent: Muslims in a Plural Society; From Pluralism to Separatism : Qasbas in Colonial Awadh; A Moral Reckoning: Muslim Intellectuals in 19th바카라 웹사이트Century Delhi; The Nehrus: The Personal Histories; Moderate or Militants: Images of Indian Muslims바카라 웹사이트; Faith and Freedom: Gandhi in History and many others.

Hasan라이브 바카라 other works such as Wit and Wisdom: Pickings from Parsee Punch show how he applied innovative ways to look at Indian history. He also co-authored a book titled Partners in Freedom: Jamia Millia Islamia with Rakshanda Jalil. This sample should give one an evidence of a vast range of scholarship on Indian history he researched and wrote, and some of his works have a바카라 웹사이트direct bearing on contemporary political developments. He often invited emerging scholars and mentored them by giving them space in his edited volumes. Unlike other Left-leaning historians, he created a platform for healthy intellectual debate바카라 웹사이트and invited scholars from non- Left traditions as well. For instance, Pratap Mehta is a contributor to one of his volumes.

As a Vice Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, he transformed the University in a significant way by opening new centres of research and teaching. Perhaps, no other University in modern India has expanded as rapidly as Jamia did during Hasan라이브 바카라 tenure as the Vice Chancellor. He outsmarted the UGC by opening new centres because he realised a dramatic expansion cannot take place by following conventional UGC rules. He established India라이브 바카라 first teaching and research Centre on North- Eastern Studies바카라 웹사이트and invited Sanjoy Hazarika to head it. He also set up separate centres on Indo- Arab Culture, West Asia etc. Likewise, he promoted Nelson Mandela Centre that was headed by Radha Kumar. What helped him perhaps is his close friendship with then HRD minister late Arjun Singh.

One of Professor Hasan라이브 바카라 unfulfilled dreams was to set up a partition museum in the Jamia premises, for which he even held an inaugural event towards the end of his tenure. In addition, he set up an art gallery and named it after MF Hussain. He also named a building called Chomsky바카라 웹사이트Building, named after noted바카라 웹사이트American dissenting intellectual and also a café called Castro Café for students. He changed the DNA of Jamia and the University became a hub for scholars of various disciplines. During his tenure, several scholars from across the world, who visited Delhi, loved to have a stop at Jamia and often agreed to hold a talk only if Professor Hasan would chair it. I remember such a request was made to me by noted French scholar Christophe Jaffrelot.

At a time when Ayodhya controversy is raging again, it is worth remembering that Hasan wrote a very influential essay on this question in a volume by Sarvepelli Gopal titled Anatomy of A Confrontation: Ayodhya and the Rise of Communal Politics in India. Similarly, it would be worth바카라 웹사이트recalling his work titled 'Will Secular India Survive?' at a time when secularism is seen to be the most discredited and unwarranted ideology.

Hasan was a warm, friendly person with a great sense of humour. While working hard to transform Jamia, he also published four books. During the Batla House encounter, he argued forcefully to바카라 웹사이트not malign the University and took a stand to provide legal support to the accused students.바카라 웹사이트 With his passing away, almost an era is over.

바카라 웹사이트(Shaikh Mujibur Rehman is the editor of Communalism in Post Colonial India: Changing Contours ( Routledge 2018). He also teaches at Jamia Millia Central University, New Delhi.)

CLOSE