Sir Sayed Ahmad Khan Political Ideology
Sir Sayed Ahmad Khan Political Ideology
Sir Sayed Ahmad Khan Political Ideology
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please;
they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under
circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.
– Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
(New York: Die Revolution, 1852)
Sir Sayyid considered both Hindus and Muslims as one qaum (nation) –
arguing that qaum should be used to describe the inhabitants of India even
if they have individual characteristics.1 Explaining further, he wrote, ‘By the
word qaum I mean both Hindus and Muslims. That is the way in which I
define the word nation (nation).’2 This is in contrast to his opinion on the
Hindi–Urdu debate and the participation of Muslims in the programmes
of the Indian National Congress (INC). To understand the rationale
underlying the positions of Sir Sayyid, situating his ideas in the context of
the developments of his times is essential.
This chapter aims to understand Sir Sayyid’s political thought by
examining how Sir Sayyid responded to the political concerns of his times
and contributed to a broader conversation about society, democracy, and
political participation. The attempt is to investigate his ideas on two
important issues: his response to the Hindi–Urdu controversy and his
position regarding the INC.
The first part of this chapter discusses the Hindi–Urdu controversy.
Through the Hindi movement, we discover an important facet of the growth
of Hindu nationalism in north India and see how the Hindi movement was
1 Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, ‘Ta’limaur Ittifaq’ Maqalat-e Sir Sayyid: Taqriri
Maqalat (Lahore: Majlis-e Taraqqi-e Adab, 1963), cited in Hafeez Malik, Sir
Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Muslim Modernization in India and Pakistan (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1980), p. 244.
2 Sayyid Iqbal Ali, Sayyid Ahmad Khan ka Safarnamah-e Punjab (Lahore: Majlis-e
Taraqqi-e Adab, 1991), pp. 154–86.
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176 Mirza Asmer Beg
Hindi–Urdu Controversy
Since the foundation of the Delhi Sultanate in the thirteenth century until
the establishment of British supremacy in the late eighteenth century,
Persian was the official language in north India. In 1837, it was replaced
by Urdu, which drew its inspiration from Persian. During much of the
nineteenth century, many north Indian Muslims and Hindus were familiar
with both Urdu and Persian.
The Hindu kayastha community was particularly proficient in Urdu. Its
members held government positions in large numbers. Along with Kashmiri
Brahmins and Khatris, they held a virtual monopoly at public service, which
remained largely unchallenged until the final decades of the nineteenth
century. A majority of Hindus were at a disadvantage because of the brisk
extension of the government educational system and its division into two
vernaculars, Hindi and Urdu – with Urdu having the preferential position in
administration. Hence, the competition for government service inevitably
became linguistically and communally articulated.
Hindi and Urdu share common grammar, based on Khari Boli, the
regional Hindi dialect of the western North-Western Provinces (NWP) and
Oudh. Only a few insignificant differences, such as the use of Arabic plurals
in formal Urdu or the use of Sanskrit suffixes in Hindi, separate the two
verbally. However, the greatest and most conflicting difference between
the two manifests in their scripts. No writing system may be as diverse as
these two. Moreover, each script is associated with the sacred language of
each religion: Nagari (Hindi script) is adapted from Sanskrit, the language
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Understanding Sir Sayyid’s Political Thought 177
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178 Mirza Asmer Beg
the former Mughal rule in India and its legacy, Urdu. He even implored
the Hindu members of Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s Scientific Society to replace
Urdu with Hindi as the language of business in the society. Thus, these
Hindu members began demanding the publication of the society’s journal
in Hindi rather than Urdu.4 For the Hindi movement leaders, language had
become a symbol of cultural and religious distinctiveness. They mobilized
numerous people. Even a lawyer in the high court of the NWP maintained
that the people regarded the recognition of Urdu as the court language as a
pure and simple survival of the old Mughal tyranny in India.5
Sir Sayyid considered Urdu a mixed language and was not opposed to the
recognition of the Nagari script. However, those on the other side, like Saroda
Prasad Sandel, argued that Hindi and Urdu were not the same and that Urdu
should make room for the more popular Hindi, just as Persian had made room
for Bengali and Urdu.6 In 1868, Babu Shiva Prasad wrote a memorandum
favouring Hindi and submitted it to the provincial government. This was
followed by other memoranda in 1869, 1872, and 1873. Although these
did not lead to changes in the government’s language policy, it created
apprehension in the minds of people like Sir Sayyid. Even if the memoranda
did not ask for a change in the court language or elimination of the Urdu
script, it requested that ‘the written character of the immense majority of
the people (that is, the Nagari script) should be used in the courts, and all
summonses, decisions and decrees should be issued in that character’.7
During 1867–1890, many Hindus of the NWP agitated through meetings
and distributed leaflets; this led to groups of representatives approaching the
government, requesting the substitution of Urdu in the Persian script with
Hindi in the Nagari script as the official court language. Similar arguments
were presented before the common masses mainly through poetry and drama
in vernacular literature. In 1882, The Calcutta Review carried an article by
Babu Shyamacharan Ganguli, who exhorted Muslims to accept that ‘Urdu
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Understanding Sir Sayyid’s Political Thought 179
is Hindi in its basis, just as they themselves are largely Hindu by race’.8
During this period, the political conflict between Hindus and Muslims
began in NWP. At this time, the leading Muslims of the province organized
themselves into a political association to oppose the Hindu demands. Sir
Sayyid’s Muhammadan Educational Conference, founded in 1886, began
defending Urdu in its meetings. Overall, the most crucial issue in NWP
during this time was not the spread of English education, but whether Hindi
or Urdu should gain prominence as the medium of primary education.9
A main concern of the Hindi camp was that because of the continued
official importance given to Urdu in the provinces, a large number of Hindus
were being assimilated in the cultural language and script of the Muslims in
the late nineteenth century. In 1896, all vernacular elementary schools in
the NWP and Oudh combined had 50,316 boys studying Urdu and 100,404
studying Hindi. The leaders of the Hindi movement were opposing this
process of assimilation in the late nineteenth century, whereas the Muslims
in the Aligarh school wanted to continue it.10 Hindustani or Urdu was said
to be a symbol of the ‘syncretic culture’, but when the social equilibrium
on which this culture rested was threatened, Urdu became a symbol of a
distinct communal identity.11
Regardless of the true motive of the Hindi movement supporters, the
fact remained that no issue had previously mobilized Hindus in such large
numbers. This was indeed a cause for alarm. For those supporting Urdu,
like Sir Sayyid, communal animosity was the basis of all the agitation for
Hindi and the Nagari script. Without thinking of the public interest, the
Hindus were expressing their religious bigotry. Considering the increasing
competition for government service, the Hindi movement made efforts
to differentiate Hindi from Urdu, denying any assimilation to cultural
traditions associated with the Mughal rule. It glorified a Hindu past,
implicitly giving expression to Hindu communalism. For the Hindus, Hindi
and the Nagari script looked to different religious and historical traditions
than did Urdu and the Urdu script.
8 ‘Hindi, Hindustani and the Behar Dialects’, The Calcutta Review LXXV (1882),
p. 36.
9 Paul R. Brass, ‘Muslim Separatism in United Provinces: Social Context and
Political Strategy Before Partition’, Economic and Political Weekly 5, nos 3/5,
(January 1970): 167–9, 171–3, 175, 177–9, 181, 183–6.
10 Ibid.
11 Alok Rai, Hindi Nationalism (Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2001), p. 61.
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180 Mirza Asmer Beg
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Understanding Sir Sayyid’s Political Thought 181
very government positions (for which they had gone to school), where
the knowledge of Urdu was privileged. This glaring inconsistency found
no parallel outside the United Provinces, but significantly increased the
differentiation between the two forms of Khari Boli.14
Sir Sayyid feared that the stance of the Hindi movement leaders and the
official language policy was causing a deep rift between the Hindus and the
Muslims, but no Hindu leaders paid attention to Sir Sayyid’s objections.
In addition, when the INC was established in 1885, in the name of the
Indian ‘nation’, it took no position on these divisive official measures or the
disquieting Hindi movement. Several delegates to the INC sessions were
in the forefront of the movement. During the 1890s, the meetings of the
Hindi Sahitya Sammelan were held in the INC pandal after the closing of
the INC sessions.15 The way INC leaders associated with the demands for
Hindi can be gauged from Lala Lajpat Rai’s 1882 confession that he did not
know the language (Hindi) at the time but was actively promoting its cause
in Punjab and was going to continue supporting the Hindi movement.16
Rai was an admirer of the British rule and maintained that the British were
the liberators from the atrocities and mischiefs of the Muslims. Another
prominent INC leader, Madan Mohan Malviya was a member of the Nagari
Pracharini Sabha since 1894. He acted as its representative on the delegation
supporting Hindi to Sir MacDonnell in 1898. Hindi supporters’ sentiments
resonate in Malviya’s 1897 book Court Character and Primary Education
in NWP and Oudh.
Apparently, scripts and languages were merely a pretext of the struggle
for jobs and access to power. Because these main reasons were not exposed,
the arguments paraded in the support of Hindi carried little weight. A
major argument of the Hindi movement leaders that Nagari was the script
of the masses was not supported by facts – because 97 per cent of them
were illiterate at the time.17 In fact, compared with the Nagari script, the
Kaithi script was more widely used then, and thus, democratic arguments
favouring the Nagari script carried little weight. The reason that the Kaithi
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182 Mirza Asmer Beg
script was not considered by the Hindi movement leaders was that this script
was somewhat associated with Hindustani, rather than Sanskrit, and was
known to both the Hindus and Muslims – which made it not ‘pure’ enough
to create a basis of differentiation. Therefore, the reason underlying the
Hindi movement and its consequences was the contest between two elite
groups: the entrenched Urdu-wielding Avadh elites (including both Muslims
and Hindus) and the emergent and aspirant savarna Nagari–Hindi elites.
As the Hindi movement intensified, the situation became so polarized
that ignoring their economic interest associated with Urdu, kayasthas
passed a resolution in the first Kayastha Conference in 1988. The resolution
favoured the introduction of the Nagari script in government courts and
offices. At its conclusion, a memorandum was sent to the Lieutenant
Governor.18
As time passed, there grew a deep-rooted hatred of the Urdu script. Raja
Shiva Prasad bared his heart out stating that the arguments were specifically
directed against the use of the Persian script, not Persianized Urdu – which he
himself used with considerable ability. In an 1868 memorandum, he wrote,
‘… the official script thrusts a semitic element into the bosoms of Hindus
and alienates them from their Aryan speech … to read Persian is to become
Persianised, all our ideas become corrupt and our nationality is lost.’19
However, in this conflict, both sides demonstrated competitive fidelity
by being cautious not to antagonize the British. When Raja Shiva Prasad
petitioned the government on behalf of the Nagari script in 1868, he said,
‘Never will it be safe to leave any district without a fair-complexioned
head. It is not the excess but the dearth of the fair-complexioned that we
have to complain of.’20 The opponents of the Hindi movement were equally
prompt in pointing towards the connections among the Hindi movement,
the cow protection movement, and the emergent INC. On 18 June 1900,
the Urdu periodical Al Bashir warned, ‘The Hindi–Urdu controversy, the
cow protection societies and the system of competitive examinations …
though they apparently seem to be directed against the Muslims, are really
appendages of the INC, and indirectly breathe a spirit into the country which
cannot possibly be beneficial to the British government.’
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Understanding Sir Sayyid’s Political Thought 183
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184 Mirza Asmer Beg
ideas for the political participation of the Muslims were well thought and
based on a sound understanding of the situation. A main demand of the
INC was that members of the Viceroy’s Council should be chosen through
election: This was the emphasis in the INC meeting at Madras, presided
by Budruddin Tyabji. Expressing his apprehension on this issue, Sir Sayyid
argued, ‘… the power of legislation over the whole country will be in the
hands of Bengalis or of Hindus of the Bengali type and the Mahomedans
will fall into a condition of utmost degradation.’22
Sir Sayyid was aware of the numerical inferiority of the Muslims.
Moreover, he was apprehensive of the first-past-the-post system. Long
before the system was introduced in India, he could foresee that it would
be to the great disadvantage of the Muslims. He explained it in quite clear
terms: ‘And first suppose that all Mahomedan electors vote for a Mahomedan
member, and all Hindu electors for a Hindu member; It is certain the Hindu
members will have four times as many, because their population is four
times as numerous.’23 Sir Sayyid’s views on the inherent weakness of the
first-past-the-post system were much ahead of his time. After studying
John Stuart Mill’s writings, he was convinced that where the majority vote
is a decisive factor in a political system, the electors need to rise above
the narrow considerations of race, religion, language, region, and caste.
Otherwise, the minorities and marginalized groups would have very little
voice and their legitimate concerns and aspirations would be at the mercy
of the majority. Appreciating the diverse nature of the Indian society and
the communal divide, he anticipated that with the kind of dispensation the
INC desired to create in India, the Muslims would be increasingly side-lined.
Unfortunately, his fear became reality in 1936, when in popular elections
for the Legislative Assembly in UP, the INC won the majority, with most
of those elected being Hindus who then became ministers. Held after the
enactment of the Government of India Act, 1935, this election gave voting
rights to only about 14 per cent of the Indian population. Nevertheless,
this was an improvement compared with the Government of India Act,
22 Sir Sayyid’s reply to Mr. Badruddin Tayabji’s letter published in The Pioneer in
1888, quoted in Writings and Speeches of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, comp. and ed.
Shan Muhammad (Bombay: Nichiketa Publications Limited, 1972), pp. 240–3.
23 Sir Sayyid’s speech at Lucknow, 28 September 1887, in Sir Syed Ahmad on the
Present State of Indian Politics, Consisting of Speeches and Letters Reprinted
from the ‘Pioneer’ (Allahabad: The Pioneer Press, 1888), pp. 1–24, a modern
facsimile version (Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 1982).
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Understanding Sir Sayyid’s Political Thought 185
1919, which gave only 3 per cent of the adult population the voting rights.
Eventually, the first-past-the-post system, with universal adult franchise,
was operationalized after India’s independence.
In April 1890, a petition signed by approximately 40,000 Muslims from
nearly 70 cities and towns of India was presented to the House of Commons,
through Sir Richard Temple. The petitioners prayed, ‘… your Honourable
House will not introduce the principle of election into the Constitution
of the Indian Councils as requested by the Indian National Congress.’24
This move elicited some support from the British press as well. The Times
denounced the INC’s scheme as a clever devise created by a ‘little organized
clique of baboos to gain power for itself’.25 Consequently, the Indian Councils
Act, 1890, did not introduce any form of elective government. Sir Sayyid’s
views on this subject did not change until the very end. In December 1896,
on his directions, a scheme dealing with the Muslim representation in the
Legislative Council and the Municipalities was drafted. This scheme, crafted
by Theodore Beck and Sayyid Mahmud, was presented to the government
by the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental Defense Association.
Sir Sayyid also did not appreciate the intricacies of democracy, mainly
because democracy then had not evolved to its present liberal maturity
anywhere in the world and was largely a preserve of the rich and propertied
class of men. Sir Sayyid based his opposition to participatory democracy in
India on a sociological argument. He argued that the English society is made
up of free-acting individuals, unrestrained by ‘community’ allegiance. In
India, however, individuals are trapped within institutional communities.
In the political arena, they do not act as free individuals. Because the society
demands, they support candidates of their own community. A Muslim has
to vote for a fellow Muslim, and a Hindu for a fellow Hindu. Sir Sayyid said
that this was a fact of the Indian culture. Therefore, until the society and
culture individualized, democracy would remain unsuitable for India. He
identified that the problem still plagues the Indian polity. He concluded
that for the time being, having the British as impartial referees was useful.26
The increasing numbers of educated middle class individuals from Bengal
in the government jobs posed a challenge to the entrenched Avadh elite.
Consequently, they protested against the INC, which they felt was created
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186 Mirza Asmer Beg
by the Bengalis to further their own ends. Because Sir Sayyid also belonged
to this group of elites, he opposed the INC and founded the United Indian
Patriotic Association in 1888. Raja Saheb of Banaras, Raja Bhinga, and Babu
Shiva Prasad, all of whom were in the forefront of the Hindi movement, as
well as Munshi Naval Kishore, who was earlier with the INC, came together
to oppose the INC.
Considering that the British Government had mainly blamed the
Muslims for the events of 1857, Sir Sayyid thought that it would be better
if the Muslims did not commit any such folly and again become suspects
in the eyes of the British, who according to him were going to rule over
India for a long time. He argued, ‘Leaving this aside, it is not expedient that
Mahomedans should take part in proceedings like that of the congress, which
holds meetings in various places in which people accuse government before
crowds of common men of withholding their rights from her subjects.’27 He
wanted to redeem the Muslim community from the stigma of disloyalty,
and through education, prepare it to avail the benefits of British rule. He
argued that although the Muslims and Hindus had together risen against the
British in 1857, after the rebellion was brought under control, the Muslims
were primarily held responsible for daring to rise against the British and thus
faced the wrath of the imperialists first. This made Sir Sayyid ask Muslims
to stay away from the INC.
As the INC embraced the cause of Hindi, people like Sir Sayyid began
weaning away from the INC, because they distrusted the increasingly
divisive Hindi movement. Sensing that the cause of Hindi commanded a
clear democratic advantage, the emergent INC had taken hold of the Hindi
movement. Unsurprisingly, Sir Sayyid, along with many others, opposed
the INC for this step. An Urdu daily newspaper reported that a large anti-
INC meeting was held in Lucknow on 3 December 1899. Attended by
approximately 5,000 gentry, it condemned the INC’s support for Hindi.28
In December 1887, while the INC held its meeting in Madras, Sir Sayyid
addressed the Muhammadan Educational Congress in Lucknow. Here,
he denounced the INC as an attempt by Bengalis to take over India. The
INC had always accused the British for their ‘divide and rule’ policy, but
this attempt to divide Indians on the issue of language failed to draw the
attention of the INC.
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Understanding Sir Sayyid’s Political Thought 187
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188 Mirza Asmer Beg
Notably, not only Sir Sayyid and a handful of Muslims (who did not
agree with the INC and its style of functioning) but also several prominent
Hindus did not agree with the INC. These people included most Muslim
and Hindu taluqdars of Oudh. Sir Sayyid wanted the British Government
to appreciate this fact. Furthermore, while he believed that the movement
started by the INC was not a national movement, Sir Sayyid was cautious
to ensure that no exclusivist message was conveyed by his opposition to the
INC. Hence, suggesting that Sir Sayyid wanted to keep the Muslims away
from the INC while all other people supported the INC is quite misleading.
Sir Sayyid’s harshest critics were also Muslim. Thus, apprehensive that the
aforementioned perception might gain ground, he argued,
In India all people-the officials and the public-are well aware of the
opposition that has been raised by Hindus and the Muhammedans
to the INC. But the supporters of the INC are trying by wrong
means to create a false impression on England that the whole of
the people of India, Hindus and Muhammedans, are in its favour.
Hence it is necessary for us to inform the people of England that
the Muhammedans and many influential and powerful Hindus are
opposed to it.31
31 Sir Sayyid’s letter to the editor of The Pioneer in opposition to the Indian
National Congress after the formation of the United Indian Patriotic
Association, 8 August 1888.
32 Sayyid Iftekhar Alam, Muhammadan College History (Agra: Matba Mufid-e
Aam, 1901), pp. 135–6.
33 Khaliq A. Nizami, Sir Syed on Education, Society and Economy (Delhi: Idarah-e
Adabiyat, 2009), p. 87.
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Understanding Sir Sayyid’s Political Thought 189
34 Sir Sayyid’s speech at Meerut, 16 March 1888, in Sir Syed Ahmad on the
Present State of Indian Politics, Consisting of Speeches and Letters Reprinted
from the ‘Pioneer’ (Allahabad: The Pioneer Press, 1888), pp. 29–53, a modern
facsimile version (Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 1982).
35 Sir Sayyid’s speech at Lucknow, 28 September 1887.
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190 Mirza Asmer Beg
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Understanding Sir Sayyid’s Political Thought 191
had to survive in the Indian situation and not turn to a foreign power for
their moral or religious survival. ‘His emphasis on ijtihad or independent
reasoning and disapproval of taqlid or adherence to the four authoritative
schools of Islamic jurisprudence set him apart from the ulama that saw in his
modernist intellectual stance a barely disguised attack on their preeminent
status in Muslim society.’38
In the final decades of the nineteenth century, an Indian nation did not
exist. Sir A. O. Hume talked of a congeries of communities.39 Because the
idea of an Indian nation was yet to develop in India, no one then accused Sir
Sayyid of dividing the nation – a myth created by some twentieth-century
writers.
Sir Sayyid, a person who despite his differences with the INC worked for
communal harmony and inclusivity has been condemned as an exclusivist
and proponent of the two-nation theory. The predicament of Sir Sayyid
is the same as that Indian Muslims are in today. When they talk of their
legitimate concerns and rights, their patriotism is suspected. When they
protest if pushed against the wall, they are branded as anti-national.
Conclusion
In some of the Indian writings, Sir Sayyid’s role has been largely
misrepresented because of his opposition against the Hindi movement and
the INC. He deserves to be judged more objectively. None of the Hindi
movement protagonists is loathed currently. Instead, all venom is spewed
on Sir Sayyid for advocating the cause of Urdu. Hamza Alavi argues that
although Bankim Chandra Chatterjee has been highly acclaimed by some
scholars as the pioneer of Indian nationalism, his violent hostility towards
the Muslims and his declaration that British were not our enemies are often
ignored. Bankim advocated English education and accepted the British rule
just as Sir Sayyid did, but Bankim is honoured, whereas Sir Sayyid is hated
– for holding the same views.40 As late as 1894, even Aurobindo Ghosh had
this to say about the INC: ‘The congress is dying of consumption; annually
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192 Mirza Asmer Beg
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