Certainly, the heartbeats of the reader Aligs will start to sync as they follow. Isn’t Shehr e Tarab the music in our deaf lives? Doesn’t the blossoming nostalgia give a script to our wordless souls? Isn’t our blind subconscious painted with its old-world pastels? Shall our psyche ever stop circumventing the holy roads of our timeless classic? Aligarh keeps on triggering the emotional point of reference; we keep immersing ourselves in the compendium of our academic Kaaba.
Aligarh and saadgee is a match made-in-heaven- distinctive and discernible. It is that one character in our lives which sets us free, yet chains us. It is that boastful simpleton whose culture can never be lived enough.
Holding an archaic ambience, home to historic movements, breathing poetic brilliance-the university town breaks the clichés of how one perceives history. Know it as an Alig, you feel majesty running through your veins.
Eid Mubarak to my global siblings who have been nourished by the ‘Aligarh soil’. Yes, we celebrate the Youm e Wilaadat of our founding father- Sir Syed. We, the bulbuls of his chaman are drunk deep in his reverence. His birth anniversary is nothing but a festival for us. His passion put the ordinary Aligarh on the world map.
Every Alig wears his badge with pride. Science-shayri tension or Oxford-tehzeeb dichotomy- the union of contradictions transpire in his place. Our man wasn’t what we read him as today. He transformed; like ice to water; abandoned rigidity and adopted flexibility. Had he not been open to change, AMU would have been a theological school today or wouldn’t have been there possibly.
The not-so-rosy side of the story came to me from the doyen of Indian history, an emeritus professor of history in AMU himself. Thank you Sir Irfan Habib.
In the Occident
In 1795, Thomas Paine, the revolutionary who participated in the American War of Independence and the French Revolution wrote the book The Age Of Reason, 22 years before Sir Syed was born. Throughout the 18th century, Europe witnessed the Age of Enlightenment. When in 1789, the French Revolution broke out, the revolutionaries proclaimed that a Regime of Reason will be established. In next four years, men-women were at par in civil law. An incident first of its kind, this is what Thomas Paine was celebrating.
In England, which had been governing India then, the atmosphere wasn’t still either. Adam Smith had created Modern Economics which subsided religion. Gibbon wrote The History of the Decline and fall of the Roman Empire in which two Abrahamic religions were treated equal.
In the Orient
In India, a section of locals was drawing inspiration from the European happenings. As an example, Ram Mohan Roy was deeply influenced by the liberating ideals of the French happening. This influence couldn’t claw its way outside Bengal for a long time. Against this backdrop, Sir Syed was born in Dilli, which was conventionalism-struck. As expected, his education was on traditional lines. In orthodox learning, reason was in retreat. The time of Ibn Sina and Alberuni had passed. The days of Abdur Rehman’s greek temper had gone by. Rationality was at decline; theology was ascendant. He grew up like the ordinary ABCs of his time- questionably religious.
His break with orthodoxy came slowly. This began with his service with the colonial government. He was acquainted with English methods of historiography. The Rebellion of 1857 was an important event in his life. While suppressing the mutiny, one of the greatest slaughters was operationalized by the British. Sir Syed, of course on the wrong side, responded with a book named Asbab e Bagawat e Hind; he opposed British tendency to offer modern education. An opponent of reason while applying rational analysis to the causes of rebellion- an important chronicler of the bagawat. It was from such beginnings that he took a turn; started inclining towards an increasingly rational position. What disappeared bore fruits. Not surprisingly, he became conscious of the ‘Muslim position’, went to England, returned to establish the ‘Ghazipur school’, organized the ‘translation society’ and the rest is the ‘rosy’ history for which he is commemorated.
Tailpiece
This column celebrates Sir Syed with his limitations. If overlooked, that would be unfair and unacademic. By the way, does reason find minds or do minds find reason?