Ummah, Qaum and Watan
The title is a research paper by Tanwer Fazal published in the formal website of “The Centre for the Study of Social Systems (CSSS)”, Jawaherlal Nehro University. The following is an excerpt from its abstract.[1]
Country and Islamic Ummah
The tension between the 'territoriality' of watan (country) or qaum (nation), and the 'universality' of Islamic ummah (Muslim brotherhood) has remained intense and alive among theorists and practitioners of Islam in India. A search for the theological validation for Muslim presence in India, required reconciliation between territorial affiliations of Indian Muslims on the one hand, and their assumed propensity towards pan-Islamism on the other.
Before and after India independence
In the period prior to Independence, the unsettled debate had variegated manifestations: a. Muslim nationalism leading to Partition; b. territorial nationalism that argued for Hindu-Muslim entente and; c. a refutation of both, the pan-Islamic trend. Going by broad historical sweeps, one identifies three distinct phases in the trajectory of Muslim politics. The initial phase of 'minorityism' with claims over cultural and political safeguards; the second phase in the decade preceding Independence when the theory of a distinct 'Muslim nation' gained salience among sections of Muslims of north India; and the post-independent phase in which Muslims again as a 'minority' have emphasized on multicultural co-existence with cultural rights. In recent years, the Muslim identity is disaggregated further with powerful voices of 'minorities within minority' construed around caste and gender receiving political attention and articulation. The tension between Ummah, qaum and watan has in an altered situation called for new innovations in thought and Muslim intellectual exercise responded by dissociating the two as operational in different contexts without committing to any hierarchisation of identity and thereof, of loyalty.
Objective of the article
This paper attempts to analytically separate various threads in Muslim political thought, without missing the context in which they emerged and gained predominance. It looks into various turns and twists, theoretical shifts, accommodations and innovations that the Muslim elite, irrespective of their ideological location, have made to come to terms with the idea of Indian nationhood.