An Intellectual History of Osmania University
Usha Sanyal
THE LANGUAGE OF SECULAR ISLAM: URDU NATIONALISM AND COLONIAL INDIA by Kavita Saraswathi Datla Orient Blackswan, New Delhi, 2013, 234 pp., 695
October 2013, volume 37, No 10

This book makes a major contribution to the literature on Indian nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s. By focusing on the history of Osmania University, Hyderabad, and its adoption of Urdu as the language of instruction during this period, Kavita Datla critiques the historical construction of Hindu-Muslim relations in 19th and 20th-century British India as a ‘seamless’ narrative of separatism that began with Sayyid Ahmad Khan. She argues that this narrative neglects the equally important, though ultimately failed, effort of some Muslims in India to refuse to be ‘minoritized’, Muslims who imagined a future India in which they would be full partners with other Indians in a secular and national state. The steps they took to realize this future are laid out in this history of Osmania University, Urdu language reform, and secularization.

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