C. M. Naim

Linguistic survey of India

LINGUISTIC SURVEY OF INDIA. Vol. I, Part I. 14 x 101, pp. xviii + 517 + 48. Edited by Sir GEORGE GRIERSON, O.M. Calcutta. (For abbreviations see footnote.) With Part I of this volume Sir George Grierson must feel that his work on the Survey is at an end, for Part II, a list of words, is in the Press, and Part III is to be by another hand. If it is the highest satisfaction to know that one has given pleasure to many people, Sir George Grierson and Professor Sten Konow must feel it in full as they contemplate the large volumes of this series, which are not only a mine of information, much of it not available elsewhere, but are so VOL-. V. PART I. 13 193

Syed Ahmad and His Two Books Called ‘Asar-al-Sanadid’

The earliest writings of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817–1898), the famous Muslim social reformer and educationist, were in the field of History, including two books on the monuments and history of Delhi that bear the same title, Asar-al-Sanadid . This paper compares the first book, published in 1847, with the second, published in 1854, to discover the authors ambitions for each. How do the two books differ from some of the earlier books of relatively similar nature in Persian and Urdu? How radically different are the two books from each other, and why? How and why were they written, and what particular audiences could the author have had in mind in each instance? How were the two books actually received by the public? And, finally, what changes do the two books reflect in the authors thinking? These are the chief questions that this paper seeks to explore.

Tracking ‘Same–Sex Love’ from Antiquity to the Present in South Asia

This essay focuses on the anthology Same–Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History (2000), edited by Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai. Unlike many other recently published, celebratory ‘gay anthologies’, this book contributes to ongoing scholarly work on specific same–sex erotic practices and relations in historical and cultural context. We examine issues relevant to this anthology and other such projects: the use of ‘love’ and ‘same–sex’ as (stable) signifiers over centuries; the validity of interpreting social reality through literary texts from the period; the difficulties of locating ‘love’ in severely hierarchical, even slave–owning, societies; and the implications of using such anthologies in the classroom.

Individualism within conformity

Islamicate societies produced an abundance of texts laying down Adab or rules for correct/ideal behaviour in professional and personal life. That literature, avidly read and invoked in South Asia too, gives one an impression that conformity must have been the rule. One must then ask: were there any efforts to not conform, and be more individualistic? And if there were, how did the society at large respond? This article traces a brief history of one form of acceptable individualism called waz’dari, which was for a while in the nineteenth century a notable feature of the Islamicate elite society at Delhi and Lucknow, and is still considered a cherished value by many. From it we learn that minor breaches in the observance of normative protocols were not only considered acceptable but were in fact admired if they were committed with elaborate consistency, instead of randomly or at whim. In other words, ‘consistency in non-conformity’ was also a cherished value for the civilised men of Delhi and Lucknow, though it may not have been an ideal for all. In fact, for some, it was seen as an obstacle in the path of the same elite’s progress.

Book Reviews : CHRISTOPHER SHACKLE and JAVED MAJEED, Hali's Musaddas: The Flow and Ebb of Islam, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1997, 262 pp, Rs. 395

As the title of the book and the summary of its contents given above indicate, this is a highly technical work. A reader who is uninitiated into the intricacies of ancient Indian calendrical systems will no doubt find herein some material of general interest, but it is the specialist scholar who will be able to fully appreciate its contents. As a work that uses epigraphic evidence as a basis of an analysis of the calendrical systems prevalent in a particular part of the subcontinent, this book form an significant contribution to an important area of historical scholarship.