Abstract
Azra Razzack and M. Atyab Siddiqui, The School at Ajmeri Gate: Delhi’s Educational Legacy, Oxford University Press, 2022, 501 pp., ₹2295, ISBN 978- 81-948316-2-4 (Hardcover).
Imaginaries of an Islamic school are painted with pictures of children memorising religious texts. Creation of dominant political and media discourses specifically in the post-9/11 world, Islamic educational institutions are projected as outposts of a backward-looking medievalism. This homogeneous, limiting representation of schools run and managed by the Muslims has posited both the community and its institutions as alien to modernity in a globalised world. In contrast to these sharp views stands the Anglo Arabic Senior Secondary School at Ajmeri Gate in Delhi—the focus of this book—that carries within itself the vicissitudes of at least 300 years—of an illustrious past and a systematic reduction to a vulnerable institution of the present. Between this past and the present of a school are stories of aspirations, power and class struggles, rivalries, bureaucracy, the un-making of a country and making of another, the history of a city and its people, and a religious minority in a democracy that form The School at Ajmeri Gate: Delhi’s Educational Legacy.
Based on rich and extensive archival research, the first two chapters trace the foundation of the school. It has origins in the eighteenth century Madrasa Ghaziuddin that was converted to the famed Delhi College in 1824 by the British. A site of modern education and aspirations for opportunities, the Delhi College contributed to the literary landscape of the walled city. The destruction of Delhi (and this institution) caused by the 1857 Revolt and the subsequent decline of Urdu, which was the foundation of the cultural and literary tradition of the city, preceded the shift of the Anglo Arabic School to this campus in 1889. Despite cracks of caste and class, aristocrats laying claim over the space and the school and other political and bureaucratic hurdles, the school served both Muslim and non-Muslim students (from 1930 onwards) and had a pass percentage of over 90 per cent from 1940 onwards. Many branches of the school were opened before 1947, including one for girls and a night school for the marginalised, indicating the role this institution played in fulfilling the literary pursuits of boys and girls.
The damages of the partition are perceptible from the fate of this school (Chapters 2 & 3). What was experienced by a generation of people who fought together for the independence of the country and ended up seeing it split—both actions played out widely on this school’s campus—can be gauged from the obscurity it suffered (pp. 169–171). Its reorientation under the national-secular discourse and as a ‘minority educational institution’ caused more losses than gains. The years following the partition, the 1965 war, communalism, the opening of the education sector to private players after the 1980s, the school’s existence today in a segmented educational market, and the discrimination suffered by the Muslim community, in general, contributed to the decline of this institution. Despite these grave crises, for the community this school was ‘an institution to call their own after partition’ and provided education to ‘a generation of people who might have been lost’ had it not been there (pp. 278–279).
The narratives of the chapters that deal with the contemporary issues of the school from Chapter 4 onwards appear descriptive. The complexities that arise out of many interest groups that manage the school (pp. 175–193) and the social and cultural value it holds for the community underline the discussion of the chapters that explore the school post-partition. The school’s social context, that is, its existence in the walled city that is now stereotyped as a ghettoised space, cultural forces that tug between liberalisation and enforcement of Islamic ideals, and the political ambitions that prevent the administration to take on an enabling role only goes on to show manifold issues at play within educational institutions. While the authors’ association with the school in different capacities tends to inform the following chapters, it is evident and unfortunate that the school’s many adversaries came from within, mirroring the many divisions within the Muslim community. Challenges of class consciousness as reflected in the establishment of Anglo Arabic Model School on the same campus, the disintegration of the school’s strengths such as those in Persian and Urdu, and soccer, and the overarching loyalty and disloyalty of those closely associated with the institution, who even chose to encroach the school space, have further compounded its vulnerabilities. In the following chapters, the authors explicate the multiple social, cultural, and political forces within the school that hold back its development as an educational institution. They do not make any comment on how the rise of the Hindu right and its attack on religious freedom and identity has had any impact on the school, if at all, but it is quite apparent in the increased challenges of its administration.
The book is based on ethnographic details and insights from a government-aided private Muslim-managed school (pp. 17–21), a rarity in sociological and educational research. Ethnography, which involves a range of methods, is beyond the recording of mere empirical information and demands detachment from the field for the sake of analysis. The authors’ personal association with the school tends to inform the discussion from Chapter 4 onwards even though it could have been used to contribute to the reader's understanding of the everyday social and political aspects of the institution. Perhaps this association was necessary to provide an insider’s view of the institution, but in manifold ways, it holds the authors from providing a critical insight into the diverse aspects of life in this school. Withholding this leads to some missing pieces of analysis. For instance, one wonders how the school, being a minority institution, negotiates the tension between aspiration to preserve Islamic values, transact ideas of citizenship and modernity, and combat the wider challenges of stereotyping and marginalisation of the community. The voices and perspectives of parents and students, especially girls for whom the school started admission in 2012, in articulating their strategies for educational empowerment and mobility could have greatly enriched the book.
In the end, this book is about aspirations—social, political, and educational. Much like the community, the school itself is negotiating its place in a secular but deeply divided Indian society. Its challenges are manifold, both from within and outside. If studied in isolation or an independent institution, the school presents a stark contrast between its past and a disenfranchised present. But since it is part of the larger social system, it raises questions that need serious deliberation. The 2020 National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) data showed Muslims sliding on educational marginalisation, while the 2011 Census registered 42.7 per cent of Muslims as non-literate. What holds back the largest religious minority of the country where its educational development is concerned? Is it the religious prejudice, the politics of minority educational institutions, lack of informed policies on their development or is it the community’s own conflicts within, the tug-of-war between past and present or between the few influential and the many others, that prevent it from making informed decisions about the educational future of its children? There are no straight answers. But the book opens possibilities for research into a range of complex issues it covers. It is unique for its rare insights into a minority educational institution and for giving the community the agency to actively participate in building its future.