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The idea of the individual in Muslim thought has often been obscured in historical scholarship by an all too easy elision of religious difference with an essentialized Indian Muslim community. This book explores and interprets the historical processes through which the relationship between the Muslim individual and the community of Islam was reconfigured in colonial South Asia. By unravelling the myriad threads and twists in the Muslim sense of identity, their ideas of sovereignty and the ways in which they adjusted to the concept of citizenship in the modern nation-state, it radically reconceptualizes the formation of religiously informed identities.

The historical spotlight of this work is on Muslim conceptions of khudi or self, and the related concept of self-determination or khudikhtiyari, in collective assertions of sovereignty But it is not exclusively focused on the Muslims.  It contributes as much to an understanding of Hindu and Sikh discourses on identity, nationalism and citizenship rights, not to mention the welter of regional and sub-regional identities in the subcontinent.

The study begins with a historically and culturally nuanced exploration of the interplay between the individual and the community in the period before the great mutiny-revolt and formal loss of sovereignty in 1857. The substantive chapters offer a historical investigation of Muslim identity and politics from c.1857 to 1947 in both the majority and minority provinces of colonial India with special reference to the Punjab as the locus of historical initiative in moulding communitarian discourse and politics shifts to that region in the 1920s. The epilogue offers an analysis of the implications of the post-colonial transition for Muslims scattered across separate sovereign states. By historicizing the twin issues of Muslim cultural differences and Muslim politics, the book forms the basis to completely rethink and renegotiate the problem of difference and identity in the South Asian context.

Self and Sovereignty charts a new path in South Asian historiography while contributing to the wider literature on identity formation, contested sovereignties, competing nationalisms and the normative issue of balancing communitarian and individual citizenship rights.  Using a wide array of rare primary sources, the book offers a dazzling reinterpretation of religion, language, culture and politics in colonial South Asia. An important historical study of the Muslims of the subcontinent, it will transform understandings of the Muslim individual and the community of Islam the world over.

 
Available at:

www.routledge.com

www.sang-e-meel.com

www.amazon.com