Oxford University Press launches ‘Poetry of Belonging’: Muslim Imaginings of India 1850–1950

Oxford University Press, the world’s largest university press, launched ‘Poetry of Belonging – Muslim Imaginings of India 1850-1950’ by Ali Khan Mahmudabad on Wednesday. The book engages with the question of Muslim rootedness in India.

The book launch took place in the presence of the author Ali Khan Mahmudabad, Ali Khan Mahmudabad is an academic, columnist, and public speaker. This was followed by a panel discussion and remarks on the books with eminent panellists.

The Poetry of Belonging is an exploration of north-Indian Muslim identity through poetry at a time when the Indian nation-state did not exist. Between 1850 and 1950, when pre-colonial forms of cultural traditions, such as the mushairas, were undergoing massive transformations to remain relevant, certain Muslim ‘voices’ configured, negotiated, and articulated their imaginings of what it meant to be Muslim. Using poetry as an archive, the book traces the history of the mushairas, the site of poetic performance, as a way of understanding public spaces through the changing economic, social, political, and technological contexts of the time.

The book seeks to locate the changing ideas of ‘watan’ (homeland) and hubb-e watanī (patriotism) in order to offer new perspectives on how Muslim intellectuals, poets, political leaders, and journalists conceived of and expressed their relationship to India and to the transnational Muslim community.

The volume aims to spark a renegotiation of identity and belonging, especially at a time when Muslim loyalty to India has yet again emerged as a politically polarizing question.

The Author is currently an assistant professor of history and political science at Ashoka University, Sonipat.