Indian Muslim Minorities and the 1857 Rebellion
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Muslim acceptance of the British government relied solely on whether
the British could “maintain their status (Amań) sufficiently intact to
enable them to discharge the duties of their religion. ”129 Hunter warned
his audience – fellow countrymen, officers, administrators, policymakers,
and scholars alike – that it was incumbent upon them to maintain a
ruling status in which Muslim subjects felt capable of performing their
religious duties – or suffer the consequences, i.e., jihad. Hunter thus
suggested that it was only through meticulous, wise governance – despite
missteps and close calls – that the British were able to govern without a
major, religiously inflected rebellion. Maintaining this delicate peace in
spite of an unruly, disloyal, and volatile population only further
demonstrated British prowess and righteousness.
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INDIAN MUSLIM MINORITIES AND THE 1857 REBELLION
In the wake of the Great Rebellion, Hunter articulated a Muslim
minority bent toward rebellion and war. In describing Muslims as
jihadis, in conflating Wahhabi or more literalistic Muslims as all
Muslims, and in making central extreme legal interpretations, Hunter
did not describe Muslims in India, but he played a large role in defining
what Britons saw as authentic and normative Islam in India. Hunter
crafted an Indian Muslim, meant to be consumed in London by Britons,
for the purposes of proper, ongoing, and effective imperial rule. And,
this writing was well after what many observers agreed was the total
demise of the Mughal Empire, Britons still had to establish and cultivate
proper imperial rule in the shadow of the great Muslim rulers; they had
to wrest power and authority from Muslims in order to control them.
Britons needed Muslims to become fully minoritized.
Conclusions
Hunter expressed a true fear with respect to the obligations of a religious
community whose religion was, according to him, singularly consumed
with obligation, submission, and obedience. Hunter’s claims to be a
“demi-official” are misleading.130 Although he asserted his lack of a role
within the British official apparatus – and even the historical accuracy of
that assertion when Indian Musalmans was published – it would be
imprudent to place his work outside the pale of imperial data, opinion,
or knowledge production. He served as a magistrate and a collector in
Bengal, he was trained in Indic languages, and he wrote analyses
commissioned by and for British use. Indian Musalmans itself was
written at the behest of the Viceroy Lord Mayo. It is precisely because
Hunter had status within elite British circles that his works, including
but certainly not limited to Indian Musalmans, were treated as serious
and accurate assessments of India. When Hunter drew the above-
mentioned conclusions about holy war, holy war was accepted by his
readers as a logical, factual conclusion, reflecting the utmost danger to
and anxiety about ruling colonies and natives from afar.
Indian Musalmans offered solutions to the vexing and still-looming
problem of a seditious Muslim milieu. Hunter called specifically for the
education of Muslims – especially Muslim elites, those who had
previously belonged to the ruling class but now, under British
sovereignty, had lost both status and access. He quipped, rather
SUSPECT SUBJECTS
83
pointedly, that the “former conquerors of the East are excluded from our
Oriental journals and libraries, as well as from the more active careers in
life.”131 Hunter suggested that education was the way to solve a lack of
purpose among this former ruling elite; he called for the establishment
of schools, so that Muslims might gain “sober and genial knowledge of
the West.”132 But he cautioned that while schools should be amenable to
Muslims, the subtle purpose of their education should always be a
dramatic decrease in the effect of religion on Muslims:
Without interfering in any way with their religion, and in the very
process of enabling them to learn religious duties, we should
render that religion perhaps less sincere, but certainly less
fanatical. The rising generation of Muhammadans would tread the
steps which have conducted the Hindus, not long ago the most
bigoted nation on earth, into their present state of easy tolerance.
Such a tolerance impress a less earnest belief than their fathers had;
but it has freed them, as it would liberate the Musalmans, from the
cruelties which they inflicted, the crimes which they perpetrated,
and the miseries which they endured, in the name of mistaken
religion. 133
Hunter bluntly and eloquently argued for education as the solution to
fanaticism, for the outside reform of Islam by the virtue and values of the
West. He suggested that Muslims ought to be made tolerant by being
liberated from their own hostility, misery, and histories of mistaken
religion. As embodiments of the West, Britons were both poised and
uniquely able to foster the development of reform in Islam.
Beyond imperial laws that formally structure inclusion and exclusion,
the reign of information on its own contributes to minoritization.
Hunter’s ultimate inability to see Muslims beyond the mold of rebel, or
to see Islam without its dire need for reform by the West, represents the
process of minoritization – and its result, as well. In Indian Musalmans,
Hunter’s ultimate claim was that Muslims were bound by religion to
rebel against a non-Muslim ruler if that ruler did not meet her
obligations. He acknowledged that Muslims were “bound by their
own law to live peaceably under our Rule.”134 However, he also
dismissed the rulings of the Mahomedan Literary Society and concluded
that the nature of India – be it a region of peace or war, dar-ul-islam or
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INDIAN MUSLIM MINORITIES AND THE 1857 REBELLION
dar-ul-harb – mattered little for Britons, as either case could, and almost
certainly would, bring about jihad.
Hunter’s claims about Muslims and his proposed solutions
demonstrated not only epistemic violence135 born of racialized
colonial and imperial projects, but also the ways in which official,
demi-official, and unofficial imaginations of Muslims came to bear real
legal, social, and minoritizing fruit. Hunter effectively rendered
Muslims subject not only to the Crown, but also to the Crown’s
interpretations of and alterations to Islam, because of Muslims’
distinctive (and problematic) characterization. The process of making
Muslims – and especially those elite Muslims who had recently
enjoyed the perks of being rulers – into a minority, whose agency in
public and private spheres was policed and reimagined is both a visible
feature and consequence of Indian Musalmans.
Hunter placed himself in the role of arbiter and interpreter of Muslim
law, and when Muslims themselves offered a legal opinion, he disregarded
it by following (his interpretation of) their legal system. By rendering
Muslims – and particularly the
accounts of the Mahomedan Literary
Society and Maulvi Karamat Ali – inept, Hunter ascribed to Muslims a
position of inferiority even within their own system. Further, Hunter
declared that no matter the system, Muslims would be bound to rebel. His
conclusions were clear: Muslims were a problem that demanded a
solution, and his solution included educating Muslims so that they would
become, in effect, less Muslim.
Indian Musalmans stands as a powerful example of the minoritization
of Indian Muslims in light of the 1857 Rebellion. In it, Hunter set forth
a clear and well-researched argument that judged Muslim subjects to be
inherently deficient by virtue of their religion. He insisted that Muslim
subjects might be placated should their ability to practice Islam be
maintained, but placed emphasis on the placation: on their own,
Muslims would not – in fact, could not – assent to British authority or
rule. Indeed, on their own, Muslims were a dangerous lot, required by
religious texts and law to rebel against any non-Muslim government, in
any situation. Muslim voices were maligned and rendered ineffectual
because even those legal rulings that suggested that loyalty to British
rule was appropriate were themselves suspected, as Hunter claimed, of
saying one thing but implying another. When Britain quashed the
Rebellion and took control of India, finally, “the Muslims” emerged,
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85
having been produced as a definable and unified group. As a whole, “the
Muslims” came to be understood, as Hunter epitomized, as incapable of
living peaceably as subjects of the Queen unless great lengths were taken
to ensure a delicate balance of power, authority, and religious praxis.
The Great Rebellion produced “the Muslims” in India – one unified,
cogent group, and as Peter Hardy astutely states, for most Britons in
1857, “a Muslim meant a rebel.”136 While Britons may have produced
and promulgated “the Muslims,” Indian Muslims – especially elites –
took it upon themselves to voice dissent and trouble this unified image
after the Rebellion. Famously, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (d. 1898) offered a
review of Hunter’s Indian Musalmans, and in it, Khan challenged
Hunter’s findings, in scope, depth, and interpretation of sources. He did
not take kindly to Hunter’s implications, conclusions, or accusations, as
will be discussed in the following chapter.
CHAPTER 3
“GOD SAVE ME FROM MY
FRIENDS!”:SYED AHMAD
KHAN'S REVIEW ON
DR HUNTER
Friend to the Mahomedans, as Dr. Hunter no doubt is, his
friendship, as represented by his last work, has worked us great
harm. “God save me from my friends!” was the exclamation which
rose to my lips as I perused the author’s pages.
– Sir Syed Ahmad Khan1
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s (d. 1898) efforts to challenge, criticize, and
clarify an “authentic” Islam are evident in many of his writings,
including his response to Hunter’s Indian Musalmans. In Review on
Dr Hunter’s Indian Musalmans: Are They Bound in Conscience to Rebel
Against the Queen? (1872), Khan offered a timely rejoinder to Hunter’s
text. He questioned Hunter’s assumptions about Muslims, readings of
key fatwas and other interpretations of Islamic law, and estimations of
Muslim loyalties. That he stridently disagreed with Hunter may not
surprise, but Khan’s writing is all the more fascinating in light of
Hunter’s argument that people like Khan – that is, Muslims both
loyalist and modern – might not exist. (Or, according to Hunter, if they
existed, they merely inhabited a minority class of Muslims morally and
financially above their majoritarian, rebellious counterparts, and were
therefore politically inconsequential.) Moreover, Hunter expressly
“GOD SAVE ME FROM MY FRIENDS!”
87
denied the veracity of the very proof-texts Khan relied upon. Their
“debate” may well be seen as a one-sided argument, in which Hunter set
the parameters and Khan merely participated within those boundaries.
Sir Syed’s reply, however, echoed in certain communities, English and
Indian, Christian and Muslim. Khan did more than participate in a
discourse central to the questions of Muslims, identity, loyalty, and the
Crown – he helped shape it.
In Review on Dr Hunter’s Indian Musalmans, Sir Syed spoke directly to
Hunter, replicating Hunter’s claims while refuting them. In this essay,
as in others on the Rebellion and elsewhere, he delineated an Islam that
was modern, scientific, and compatible with British rule. These lines of
argument often validated his loyalty or his religion, but dismissing
Khan as self-interested or as espousing a self-preservationist set of
ideologies overlooks the effect of his freestanding writings and direct
responses to others in discursive change. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s
contributions to the literature about Muslim identity, loyalty, and
belonging more than merit our specific attention. His response to
Hunter’s impactful monograph stands with statements by other Muslim
thinkers as a challenge to depictions of jihad as solely representing their
identity, as persons of faith, racially-identified subjects, and as members
of a local (increasingly political) milieu.
Khan is most often remembered for his role as a modernist and
modernizer in South Asia during the British Raj. Sir Syed, as he is fondly
known across South Asia, exemplifies the ways in which the formal
transition to British rule affected institutions, religious modernism, and
the formation of community identities. He wrote widely on issues of
society, religion, and politics. He also wrote about and expressed a
deep conviction of the merits of adopting and adapting successful
Western educational models; the most tangible example of this
dedication to blending Western education, science, and Islamic values is
Aligarh Muslim University, the residential college he founded in 1875
as Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College. Sir Syed’s willingness to
utilize British practices earned criticism from other Muslims – orthodox
and modernist – as well as from political elites, both Muslim and
non-Muslim. He was not opposed to British rule, and he had an
established pattern of loyalty to the throne.2 The British formally
knighted him in 1888, but Sir Syed’s royal title was not a convention or
an honorific – nor is it irrelevant: he was knighted for acts of heroism
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INDIAN MUSLIM MINORITIES AND THE 1857 REBELLION
and loyalty, having assisted and rescued agents of the East India
Company and British Empire during the 1857 Great Rebellion.
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan is important not only because of his direct
engagement with Sir William Wilson Hunter but also precisely because
of his support for British rule in India. He managed to both support
British rule and critique its methods, its assumptions, and what he
perceived to be its ignoble elements. He managed to speak directly
against pronouncem
ents like Hunter’s that labeled Muslims as
inherently violent or treasonous, while simultaneously decrying the
effect of British rule upon Muslim identity, practice, and especially
education. In fact, much of his work, including the founding of what
would become Aligarh Muslim University, centered on religious and
cultural practices, ideas, and books, but also attempted to apply
scientific assessment to these realms.3 He was a loyalist, to be sure, but
throughout his prodigious writings and speeches he maintained that
Islamic learning, Muslim cultural and religious practices, and British
rule were compatible. In fact, it could be reasonably suggested that Sir
Syed’s reply to Hunter served to solidify his argument for an educated
elite cohort of Muslims while simultaneously situating himself further
from the ruling British elite than he may have been factually.
Positioning himself as more distant from British power than he
may have been is, in some ways, an irrelevant observation, however.
Sir Syed embraced an imperially defined version of modernity, one that
prioritized “small-p protestant”4 civilizational values, but he did
not forego his religious identity, choosing instead to make central
this identity – at least in his own estimation.5 Further, his writing,
especially in Review, does rhetorical work that transcends his historical
context. Khan challenges our assumptions because he refused to fit
British definitions of an “authentic” Muslim: he asserted Islamic values
and took drastic measures to ensure that they were maintained, while
simultaneously asserting and taking drastic measures to demonstrate his
support for the Raj. This confounds a conceptualization of Muslims as
either “legitimate” – religiously oriented and thus rebellious – or as
betraying the ethno-religious community in order to be “legitimate”
subjects of the Crown. Sir Syed is thus an interesting study in identity
and identification politics, knowledge construction, and rhetorics
around minoritization and belonging – he demands and demonstrates
Muslim agency while supporting British rule.
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89
Despite remaining a loyal supporter of British rule in India
throughout his lifetime, Khan did not indiscriminately support British