Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam Since 1850 Paperback – Special Edition, 14 June 2022

Ayesha Jalal heavily relies on Urdu press and poetry to analyze the Muslim and Hindu sentiments from 1850s to just before the partition of India. What gives these resources balance vis-a-vis Muslim and Hindu opinion is that both Hindus and Muslims wrote in Urdu. Hindus increasingly less so over time. Majority of Hindu newspapers in Punjab were written in Urdu. The label of the book is slightly misleading, the book is about Muslims, but it’s focus is North Indian Muslims and especially Punjab. The author exclusively relies on resources from Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and to a lesser extent from Bengal. There is absence of South, Central, and Western Indian Muslims.It is a fascinating read when it comes to languages, the part they played in the conflict between Hindus and Muslim. When it comes to Punjab, for administrative reasons, British scrapped Persian and made Urdu official language of the province. The author in detail describe the impact it had on literacy to relation between Hindu, Muslims, and Sikhs in the province. The comparison with Bengalis is an interesting one. On the one hand Punjabi elite was readily willing to give up Punjabi in the favor of Urdu, Bengali Muslims refused to do do. Already, decades before the partition, and later Bangladeshi independence from Pakistan, there was this stark difference when it comes to United Provinces (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar etc) and Punjab on the one hand and Bengal on the other. Punjabi and North Indian Muslims adopted Urdu as an identity language of Muslims, while Bengali Muslims refused.Another major theme of the book is the downfall of Turkish Caliphate and what role it played on the psyche of Indian Muslims and why they were obsessed with the fall of the Caliphate.It is a well researched book on the status of North Indian Muslims prior to the partition and possible motives behind the partition of India.