Between nation and community. The political role of Muslim universities in postcolonial India

Speaker:  Laurence Gautier, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies 

Chair and discussant:: Christophe Jaffrelot  (CERI-Sciences PO/CNRS) 

This presentation explores the manifold debates on Muslims' location in post-partition India through the lens of two prominent Muslim universities, Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia. It shows that these educational institutions played a pivotal role in the wider discussions on national integration, secularism, minority rights and Muslim backwardness. After independence, these universities found themselves at a critical juncture between central state authorities and India's Muslim population. As public and Muslim institutions, they were to participate in nation-building as much as in the development of the Muslim 'community'. By closely looking at the relation between these institutions and state authorities, this presentation will tease out the ambiguities of the Indian state's policy vis-à-vis Muslim citizens. It will also examine, in turn, how these universities became crucibles for competing conceptions of Muslim identity and citizenship, involving students, teachers, as well as religious organizations and political parties.

Laurence Gautier is an Early Career Fellow at the Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies (University of Freiburg, Germany). Her research focuses on social and political dynamics among South Asian Muslims, minority rights, secularism and the politics of education in postcolonial India.  Her first monograph, Between Nation and ‘Community’. Muslim Universities and Indian Politics after Partition (Cambridge University Press, 2024), examines the political role of Muslim universities in post-independence India. She also co-edited Historicizing Sayyid-ness: Social Status and Muslim Identity in South Asia (JRAS, 2020) with Julien Levesque