June 9, 2002

Dr K.M. Ashraf had carved out a niche for himself in the ranks of serious historians of mediaeval India with the appearance of his very first work, a doctoral dissertation, The life and conditions of the people of Hindustan. That was in pre- Partition days. The path-breaking work had rebelled against traditional historiography marred by its limited chronological and topical scope. Dr Ashraf had put the spotlight of historical inquiry on the people, their social conditions, beliefs, values, customs and institutions.

As a committed Marxist, he applied the historical laws of social evolution to the conditions of mediaeval India and interpreted these along the mode of production of the time. The thesis, despite a few unanswered questions, was well received. Much could be built upon this solid edifice and a number of historians have in fact done so in the last five or six decades. But Dr Ashraf himself could not concentrate on serious history- writing given his involvement with the politics of the working classes which was his central concern.

However, he did manage to produce three or four more books on political issues dominating the Indian political scene and society particularly the question of the Indian Muslims. In 1947, he came to Pakistan, but soon went into exile in England, from where he returned to India in 1954. Towards the end of the 1950s he finally addressed his long-pending projects. This was aborted by his untimely death.

Tarikh aur moarrikh is a collection of some of his articles and a series of six lectures delivered in Srinagar University. The lectures constitute the major section of the book, and cover, in a critical manner, a wide spectrum of themes of Indian history and historiography. One wonders why the sequence of the lectures has been altered in the book, distorting their logical coherence and integrated form. The last two articles of the book are, in fact, the first two chapters of Dr Ashraf’s posthumous book, Hindustani Muslim siayasasat par aik nazar. This has not been mentioned. The first chapter is an autobiographical account of the author’s eventful life in which he narrates his experiences as a student and political activist in Aligarh.

The author begins by giving a brief account of the path history had to traverse while transforming itself from an art to a science. He holds that a sketch of social life of India could not be constructed without determining the general principles of history. He laments that in India the tradition of historical critique has generally been underdeveloped. The writing of social history has not been attempted in India. The historians have the responsibility of shunning prejudices and using a comparative analytical approach which could have helped them in focusing issues in proper perspective. With the onset of British rule, our historiography fell victim to either colonial considerations or national romanticism.

Given the different schools of historiography — descriptive history, logography, pragmatic history, etc. — one wonders why Muslim historians, who had imbibed so much from Greek philosophy, medicine and physics, did not learn much from Greek history- writing. Dr Ashraf holds Ibne Khaldun as an exception as one who described the principles of social evolution. He claims that Marxists are the heirs of Ibne Khaldun, the ‘founder of modern science of history’.

The idealistic historiography, based on idealistic dialectical logic, accepted the permanence of the process of change but found its causes in the evolution of ideas. Hegelian dialectics was overturned by Marx to whom social structures, ideas and consciousness owe a great deal to the material conditions of a society. Marx held that man asks the questions which can be answered. Commenting on Marx’s four phases of social production — Asian, slavery, feudalism, and capitalism — the author finds the explanation of the Asian mode of production and Asian despotism or ‘oriental despotism’, as is generally categorized by sociologists, deficient and wanting.

About Muslim rule in mediaeval India, Dr Ashraf points out that our historiography of the period is generally governed by misconceptions which lead us to believe that it was merely a period of bloody wars, corrupt and debauched rulers, and aggressive religiosity. It appears that the period was devoid of any concept of government, any tradition of governance and elements of culture. The author attributes this distortion to the colonial policy, which deliberately painted a barbaric picture of India in order to present itself as a harbinger of civilization.

The national movement took another extreme position by presenting India as the embodiment of all virtues (Beni Prasad), and making the various warlords national heroes. The painting of society with emotive and sentimental colours, or studying its parts without facilitating a view of totality ridicules the purpose of history.

A stimulating formulation of the author is with reference to the mediaeval Indian state, which he characterises as a ‘martial monarchy’, wherein the monarch’s power rested on the coercive organ of military. There had existed an active segment of people — the peasants, artisans et al., but they had no role to play in statecraft. However the author’s conclusion that the king dealt directly with the people without employing any intermediate classes, seems contentious, as much has by now been written about the role of the mansabdars and other functionaries who interacted with the subjects on behalf of the sovereign.

About the role of the sufis, the author very rightly holds that while some of them resented the authoritarian practices of kings, others compromised and acted as collaborators. The latter, once co-opted by the state, earned favours, and received grants and other privileges. On the pattern of monarchy, the sufis of this category, constructed their own hierarchy and a system of familial succession. As for the role of the mediaeval state towards religion, it patronized religion only for political reasons. The mediaeval revivalist movement was aimed at indirectly strengthening the monarchy and the existing system of power as these movements apprehended that Muslim rulers’ policies of integration and the expansion of the state bureaucracy to include the non-Muslims would affect the morals and mores of the ruling classes.

The limitation of their competence, their being bereft of democratic programmes, and their failure to realize the importance of modern science and technology were responsible for the Muslim rulers’ eventual failure in 1857. To the author, Tipu Sultan was an exception who on the one hand reinvigorated the integrative impulses of the martial and centralized statehood and on the other adjusted it to science and technology. A form of state capitalism, according to the author, had emerged under Tipu’s rule who has been designated by the author as the greatest thinker in the twilight age of India.

The book under review with its original theme, along with its critical approach and lucid style, should be useful reading for teachers and students of history.

Tarikh aur moarrikh: Dr K.M. Ashraf ki tehrirain
Compiled and introduced by Dr Mubarak Ali
Fiction House 18-Mazang Road, Lahore,
Tel. 042-7249218, 7237430
168 pp. Rs.100

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