Enlightenment in the Colony: The Jewish Question and the Crisis of Postcolonial Culture

344 Pages·2007·1.79 MB·English

by  Aamir R. Mufti

Enlightenment in the Colony
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Enlightenment in the Colony
The Jewish Question and the
Crisis of Postcolonial Culture
Aamir R. Mufti
p rinceton univers ity press
princeton and oxford
Copyright#2007byPrincetonUniversityPress
PublishedbyPrincetonUniversityPress,41WilliamStreet,Princeton,NewJersey08540
IntheUnitedKingdom:PrincetonUniversityPress,3MarketPlace,Woodstock,
OxfordshireOX201SY
AllRightsReserved
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Mufti,Aamir.
Enlightenmentinthecolony:theJewishquestionandthecrisisofpostcolonial
culture/AamirR.Mufti.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN-13:978-0-691-05731-6(alk.paper)
ISBN-10:0-691-05731-1(alk.paper)
ISBN-13:978-0-691-05732-3(pbk.:alk.paper)
ISBN-10:0-691-05732-X(pbk.:alk.paper)
1. Secularism—India—History. 2. Nationalism—India—History. 3. India—
Colonialinfluence. 4. Muslimsinliterature. 5. Jewsinliterature. 6. Jews—
Europe—Identity—History. 7. Liberalism—Europe—History. I. Title.
DS428.2.M82 2007
211'.60954—dc22 2006050393
BritishLibraryCataloging-in-PublicationDataisavailable
ThisbookhasbeencomposedinTimesTenLTStd
Printedonacid-freepaper.?
pup.princeton.edu
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memoryof myparents,
FakhrunnisaMuftiand MuftiRashiduddinAhmad,
inbelated recognition ofthe journeythey made
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Contents
A Note on Translation and Transliteration ix
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations xv
Prologue
Towardsa Genealogyof Postcolonial Secularism 1
Part I Emergence: Europe and Its Others
Chapter One
Jewishnessas Minority
Emergenceof aEuropean Problematic 37
Chapter Two
Inscriptions of Minorityin British LateImperial Culture
From DanielDeronda toA Passage toIndia 91
Part II Displacements: On the Verge of India
Chapter Three
JawaharlalNehru and Abul Kalam Azad
Discovering India 129
Chapter Four
SaadatHasan Manto
AGreaterStory Writer Than God 177
Chapter Five
Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Towards a Lyric History of India 210
Epilogue
In My Beginning IsMy End
JewishExile and the Languageof English India 244
Notes 263
WorksCited 295
Index 315
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A Note on Translation and Transliteration
For all texts originally in a language other than English, I provide
standard English translations where these are available but alter these
translations as I see fit. Citations for the original are also provided
wherever necessary,but extracts of thetext arereproduced inthe orig-
inalonlywhereIengagecloselywithatextandfeelitnecessaryforthe
purpose of the analysis. Translations from the Urdu-Hindi, and the oc-
casional one from the French, unless otherwise indicated, are my own.
For translations from the German, I am deeply grateful for the help of
Willi Goetschel, who has been my ready reference source over long
distances and formany years.
InmattersoftransliterationfromtheUrdu-Hindi,Ifollowtherevised
schemeproposedbytheAnnualofUrduStudies(2005),withafewsmall
changesofmyown:chinsteadofcˇ,khinsteadofkh,andgg_hinsteadofgg_,
_
with the last two changes meant to facilitate reading by exclusively
Devanagari readers. For all personal, place and organizational names I
usethestandardEnglishversions,withoutdiacritics.Theonlyexception
tothisismadeinthenamesofpublishersinthenotesandbibliography.
Inthecaseofsomeofthese,eithernotwellknowninEnglishorbasedon
anArabicorPersianmorphologicalformorboth(especiallythe˘ida¯fa/
_
iza¯fat),Igivethetransliterationwithfulldiacriticsinparenthesesonlyat
_
thefirstappearanceofthename.WordsofEnglishoriginusedinUrdu-
Hindi—for instance, in organization names—are reproduced with their
English spellings: hence Bureau, rather than Biyu¯ro¯. Also, words and
phrasestransliteratedherefromtheUrdu-Hindithathaveastrongand
continuedbasisinArabic—asIslamicterms,forinstance—arerendered
as if from the written Arabic: hence wahdat al-wuju¯d, instead of vahdat
_ _
ul-vuju¯d. Otherwise, Arabic-origin words are rendered as they are in-
scribed in Urdu script but with attention to how they are meant to be
pronouncedinUrdu-Hindi:hencevatan,notwatan.AllIndicwordsare
¨ ¨
transcribed as written in the Urdu script, not Devanagari. In giving
the Urdu names of organizations, English rules of capitalization are
followed, but not inthe case of titles of works inUrdu.