In memoriam

Mushirul Hasan 1949-2018

WE lost Professor Mushirul Hasan in December last year. He battled the consequences of an unfortunate accident for four years. Even the decision to go ahead with his last commitment to visit a college, despite health issues, speaks immensely for his dedication to education and scholarship. He was one of those rare scholars who was not only prolific in output but also insightful and refreshing in exploring contentious historical issues.

Besides being a remarkable scholar, Hasan was an extremely polished and civilized human being who aptly represented the composite culture, often called the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb. He lived that culture all his life. As he was a true ambassador of Awadhi eclectic ethos, the rising tide of hatred and bigotry in Uttar Pradesh would have shocked him no end. He would have surely combated that in his own gentle and polished manner, expressing his anguish in one of his favourite Urdu couplets.

One of the most remarkable aspects of his life, besides his academic contributions, was his commitment to Jamia Millia Islamia. Despite several unpleasant episodes, including a murderous attack in 1993, he refused to leave the university. He had a profile which could have taken him anywhere in the world, and he was actually offered positions, including a diplomatic assignment. He refused them all to stay back as a fearless academic, committed to liberalism, intellectual and cultural freedom and of course academic excellence.

Hasan took over Jamia as its Vice Chancellor in 2004 and he literally transformed it into a vibrant campus, buzzing with cultural and intellectual activities. He mobilized resources, both financial and otherwise from India and abroad, refurbished the infrastructure, adding new departments and centres. There was a perceptible demographic change in the quality of faculty as well as students. He invited all manner of academics, intellectuals and policy figures into taking up permanent and temporary responsibilities in Jamia and made it a genuinely metropolitan university, says Mukul Kesavan. His cosmopolitan vision was visible in the choice of names for anything he set up, including a café. One could find names here from Nelson Mandela, Yasser Arafat, Edward Said, Fidel Castro, Noam Chomsky, and Mir Taqi Mir to Munshi Premchand and many more.

After leaving Jamia he headed the National Archives of India in 2010. Many rightly felt that the archives needed Mushir’s magic touch. He transformed the institution in a short time, making it accessible to researchers from India and abroad, changing it from being a bureaucracy ridden government department to an intellectually vibrant place. He took personal care to get many files transferred from the many ministries to the archives, thus significantly enhancing its collections and enriching future research.

As a historian of modern Indian history, Hasan changed the perception about Muslims in Indian history, particularly during the freedom struggle and partition. He brought salience to their political profile in the anti-colonial struggle. He did that through his diverse scholarship, particularly his detailed studies on Dr M.A. Ansari, the Ali brothers, communalism and nationalism, and of course writing about the most traumatic partition history. His work also helped to deconstruct the notion of a monolithic Muslim community, chronicling it in all its heterogeneities. In a 1997 book called the Legacy of a Divided Nation: India’s Muslims from Independence to Ayodhya, he recalled the role of Muslims in the freedom struggle, the beginnings of separatist politics and the plight of the community since independence.

After taking over the National Archives he published a collection of letters, written by our most well known poet patriot Sarojini Naidu, till then hidden from public gaze in the archives. The book, aptly titled Sarojini Naidu: Her Way with Words, came out in 2012 and in the editorial note Mushir called the effort ‘a historian’s tribute to her generosity; her mental and moral integrity; her untiring efforts to preserve India’s pluralism.’ These values also remained embedded in his scholarship all his life.

Before leaving us, Mushir published two important books in 2016, both of them were part of his research as a Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow (2013-2015). They are, Roads to Freedom: Prisoners in Colonial India and the companion volume, When Stone Walls Cry: The Nehrus in Prison. Both the volumes unravel the pain and sacrifice of all those who were incarcerated by the British. In the introduction to the first book, he stressed the uniqueness of the work when he said that the creative writings of many political prisoners have not been discussed in any work before.

While doing the companion volume, Mushir was conscious of the growing number of Nehru baiters and wrote in the introduction that ‘there is sufficient cause to shield Jawaharlal Nehru’s memory from the calumny of his detractors. As a result of new research in the field, we are better placed to pass on his truly heroic and tragic image to the readers, his largeness of vision, emotion, pathos, and tolerance. He dedicated his immense energies and intellectual powers to bring joy and freedom to his people, to build a "modern" India, and to strengthen its democratic and secular foundations.’ And the book sufficiently serves the purpose.

One more distinguishing feature of his scholarship was the use of fiction and Urdu poetry in his lucid prose. His proficiency in Urdu and his access to innumerable rich resources in the language, set him apart from most historians of modern India.

Mushir left us at a time when he was needed the most. A sane voice in these divisive times, who always read the past in its context. He has left behind a rich intellectual legacy, a huge corpus of writings which will always keep him alive, at least among those who care to read.

S. Irfan Habib