The British Raj 9 – The Role of Aligarh University

Then came the mutiny. And after the mutiny was crushed in 1857, the British had realized that they have to change their ways. They can't rule India just the way they were, you know, being racist, being discriminatory, and you know, is putting down Indians not giving them any positions. So they started to change the width, but Muslims were still marginalized. And I'm not just making this up. I'm not being biased here. I'm not saying I'm not just from you know, thinking thinking the Muslim song here right, okay. This is historically established after the Indian Mutiny of 1857 Muslim community faced the wrath of the colonial establishment of India.

And this is very clearly confirmed by one of the British authors himself, who wrote a book in 1871. Titled, now listen to the title of the book are Indian muscle models, are you listening? The title of the book is the Indian muscle man's are they bound by conscience to rebel against the queen, I repeat the title of the book, Google it, you will see it was authored by W. W. Hunter, the author was basically again a colonial administrator, who wrote this book to make this very point that the Muslims somehow are bound by the conscience to rebel against the Queen and there are reasons there are causes for that and he documents the causes. He first First of all, he puts down some history of

Muslim you know, in your Muslim intrigues and Muslim resistance against the British rule. And he talks about the the mountains of Abbottabad and northwestern province of India, where the Muslims had gathered in some towns in some places and they were actually actively attacking the British forces nonstop, right? So he first documents all of that, he goes, Look, these guys are doing this because they are influenced by an ideology, and he called it the Wahhabi, the Wahhabi ideology. This is actually the British who coined the term Wahhabi, those people who use the term today, the term Wahhabi, know that you are using a term coined by the British colonial establishment they use this

term to label the rebels, those who would not accept the British rule in India, they will Wahabis

Okay, so this is you can find this in this book titled The Indian musulmans are they bound by conscience to rebel against the queen? He wrote a book in 1871. Another edition was published in 1876. Now, what is he trying to say? The Muslims are marginalized, the Muslims are a problem. And then he gives causes as well and then he gives some remedies as well, that we need to accept Muslims into the fold as well, you know, because it's going to cause it's going to marginalize them further, it's going to cause more problems for us or do something about it. Right. So this book was written. Then, in response to this book, another book was written by a man called Sayed Ashman Han. He was an

intellectual from Delhi, a Muslim intellectual, and he could see what was happening for the Muslims are blamed entirely for the Rebellion in 1857, or the War of Independence, even though the Hindus were in majority in that particular war. Hindus, they were the majority, but the brunt

of the wrath.

Okay. Basically all the burden was put on the Muslims, it was even called the Mohammed and rebellion. Amazingly, it was given the name the Mohammedan rebellion. So now what happens now Muslim intellectuals, they start to see the signs of decay within the Muslim community, the Muslims are being systematically deprived of higher positions in the government, they are not being educated, they are not given any privileges, they are being deprived systematically deprived as a policy of the government and Hindus are being given higher positions. And this is documented historically, okay. Some intellectual see signs of decay within the Muslim community. Now, Muslims may know

Persian, they may know Arabic, they may know or do but because they don't know the English language, and they don't know how to deal with the British rulers, they will always be the miskeen and the Hindus, they are becoming engineers, lawyers, doctors, administrators, they are being given higher positions, they will you know, always become the ruling class if Muslims do not rise to the task. So this is why I say that Khan got together with some intellectual and they decided that they should establish a university for Muslims. So they established a school called Alagar or anglong.

Muslim college was called in the city of Aligarh Anglo Muslim College, which became the Aligarh University later on, which is a very, very important institution in India to this day. Okay. So this institution was specifically established to educate the Muslims. So Muslims started to educate, they went to the university, they started to learn, they learn the history, they learn the English language, they learned other important sciences and arts, right. They became more and more aware. And the result was basically a group of Muslim intellectuals that came from the university. You were theologically educated. They were very aware of the theology at the same time. Shibley domani

Maulana Giblin Omani is an example, who studied at the school. Okay, even Iqbal. The point was a product of this school not directly, but his teacher, Professor Thomas Arnold was teaching at Aligarh University. Right. So pretty much a lot of what happened later on, all the Muslim

intellectuals were somehow linked to the Gallagher University. And this was a great deed done by say Adama Khan, who later on became a controversial figure himself, he started to, unfortunately, write things that were not appreciated by most orthodox scholars of Islam. And they started to disown his views. And his theology, theologically, he became controversial. He was actually you know, some scholars even declared the fear on him because of some of his theological views. But he did a lot of good work for Muslims. He tried to raise the Muslim spirit by educating them. So the result was a Muslim movement for independence. So in 1880s,

the Congress Party was initiated by a collection of Hindu Muslim Jains and

courses, they came together the Indians, they realized that the British are not giving us our do, we need to have proper representation. So Congress Party was launched, but there was nothing specifically for Muslims. But slowly and steadily Muslim intellectuals realize that this is basically a front for the Hindus, secular Hindus, most importantly, and maybe some theological Hindus role, right? This is a front for them. This particular bunch does not necessarily represent Muslim interests. And if the British left behind a democracy, okay, then the Muslim because they are a minority, they will be ruled by

secular or a Hindu majority, let's say. So they could see see this this coming. So say that makan or say that makan was the first person to see this. So he came up with this two nation theory okay, it is called doe calm in the year two nation theory. He said, India basically consists of mainly two nations, Hindus and Muslims. So both of them, they need the separate homelands. They are two different nations. They're not one nation, okay. They may be one geographically, they belong to the same territory. But as a people, they are distinct. They have distinct culture, distinct religion, distinct identities, therefore, they are not the same people. The Congress Party, on the other hand,

was arguing No, we are the same people from the same land. So we are one. So those Muslim leaders were very realistic, who had studied the history of India very carefully, they knew that if they are left under a rule, which is not Muslim, predominantly, or does not have proper Muslim representation, they will be marginalized and they will be brutalized. exactly what's happening in India today. Today, what's happening in India proves Jinnah ik bong and say you them a con and all other Muslim intellectuals. Absolutely right. And those people who have been arguing for the last 78 years, that partition was a bad idea. It shouldn't have happened. Muslims would have been better off

in a united India, you have no idea what you're talking about. You don't have a clue. You don't have a clue. You don't believe me? Look at India today right now. So if you look at India today,

it is ruled by an extremist Hindu ideology. Okay, called the Hindutva. And this ideology

does not by its words, does not hide its intentions. They want to create a Hindu empire in India and they want to create a greater India they call it a condom part. A con Barak means greater India, which basically includes includes Burma, Bangladesh, parts of Nepal, Pakistan, even a van iStan

Okay, even understand. So we say to them welcome

okay, go to a once and take make your counterpart yeah okay go to Omar Hassan and get your account banned okay so we tell these people these fools get real okay you won't even cross Pakistan let alone Afghanistan yeah