ontested Identities and the Muslim Qaum in Northern India, 1860-1900: An Exploratory Essay

Abstract

On the afternoon of the 28th of December 1887, at exactly the same time when the third annual session of the recently founded Indian National Congress was being held in Madras under the presidentship of Badruddin Tyabji, a Sulaimani Bohra Muslim from Bombay, the soon to be knighted, the Honourable, Syed Ahmad Khan Bahadur, KCSI, began to give a lecture in Lucknow. Syed Ahmad Khan, who had held numerous titles and positions in his life, at that time was the Secretary of the Mohomedan Educational Congress, which was holding its session in Lucknow on the 27th and 28th of December. This lecture by him, because of its nature and theme, was not part of the proceedings of the Mohomedan Educational Congress. Syed Ahmad Khan had already become ‘probably the most prominent public man in northern India’, had been a public figure for more than four decades of his life, and was to live yet another decade very publicly. The title of the subsequently published and widely disseminated lecture was: ‘Syed Ahmad Khan’s Lecture on the Indian National Congress Madras: What action should our qaum take with regard to the political affairs of the state?