In 1869, 104 Indian students qualified to become doctors and only one was Muslim. Before the foundation of Aligarh University, amongst 240 barristers of Indian origin, only one was Muslim while all others were Hindus. Civil servant and famous Urdu writer Mukhtar Masood adds credence to this with some poignant figures. W W Hunter, author of The Indian Musalmans, could not have summed up it more accurately: in the year 1871, the highest job which a Muslim could get in the government offices of Calcutta was either that of a coolie or a bearer. The claim does not appear exaggerated when one looks at the condition of Indian Muslims post-1857. Maulana Altaf Hussain HaIi, in his biography of Sir Syed titled Hayat-e-Jawed, has no reservations in declaring that if it were not for Sir Syed, Indian Muslims could have met the same fate as Australian aboriginal people or Native Americans. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan is widely credited with preventing complete intellectual and political stagnation of the Muslims of the Indian Subcontinent He singlehandedly reshaped education, politics, literature, journalism, and above all, religion. And that, too, in addition to pulling millions out of illiteracy and imbuing them with a certain nationalism. His reforms were actions followed by words and his reform agenda was not limited to purging religion or overthrowing the political order. But what he did was by no means less in value or impact. Syed Ahmad Khan did not affix 95 Theses on the main gate of Jamia Masjid Delhi, nor did he overthrow the British Raj and unleash a revolution. It was as if only Sir Syed the educationist was alive and Sir Syed the religious reformer passed away long agoĬloser to home, this October passed quietly without much attention being paid to a phenomenal person born 200 years ago, on the 17th of October 1817. Martin Luther has been credited with not only changing Christianity specifically but also Western civilisation in general. Five hundred years ago, on the 31st of October 1517, a German monk nailed 95 objections to a Wittenberg church door about the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church and its misuse of religion, unleashing a chain of events called the Reformation. The second anniversary was of an equally phenomenal event. Technically the exact date falls on the 7th of November but this does not diminish the rhetorical value of October. This year was the first centenary of the October revolution or The Great Socialist October Revolution, according to Leftists all over the world. Two of these are well known and the third – one most related to us – not so much. This October was special: a reminder of at least three epoch-making events in history.
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