The post-independence era in South Asia has witnessed an increasing sectarian and communal divide. It is important to think of a time in our collective history when there were possibilities of co-living and co-existence based on respect for religious difference along with shared values of equality and human dignity. The life and times of Dr. Kunwar Muhammad Ashraf who belonged to a Rajput Muslim family from the Alwar region are worth looking into. Some of his relatives were practicing Hindus and those who were Muslims respected older traditions of Chathris, and so his community was called “adh–barya”, half Muslim and half Hindu. It is this syncretic and co-lived experience, a part of Ashraf’s family heritage, that may have culturally influenced his political model of co-existence between different religious communities in British India. In this two-part series, Ashraf’s biography, writings and politics give us a glimpse into his struggle for Hindu-Muslim unity – one which he adhered to till the end of his life. His is an example that needs to be remembered and emulated in these divisive and troubled times.§Apart from the hardening positions in the 1940s of the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Muslim League (ML) on the creation of a new state for Muslims of India, there were other groups and parties that envisioned different resolutions for the “Muslim question”. Among these voices was that of the Communist Party of India (CPI), which was aligned with the INC in the late 1930s, yet slowly diverged from it in the 1940s. During this period, a major figure who articulated the CPI’s perspective on Muslim politics was, Kunwar Mohammad Ashraf. Ashraf’s own life history, intellectual biography and scholarly contribution is co-terminus with South Asia’s history of anti-colonial struggle in the early part of the 20th century. It has, however, remained somewhat marginal in the received history of the freedom struggle. Where names of Muslim leaders who were not sympathetic to ML’s politics, like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (INC), Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madni (Jamaa’t Ulema-i-Hind), Inayatullah Khan al- Mashraqi (Khaksar Tehreek), Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Khuda’i Khitmatgar) or Abul Ala Maududi (Jamaat e Islami) are well known, there Ashraf’s contribution to the anti-colonial movement and his writings are mostly forgotten.What is distinctive about Ashraf is that his own lineage is not from the elite North Indian Muslim ashrafia (which even most Muslim communist leaders in British India belonged to). Rather, he was from Rajput stock of the Mewat region. Coming from a lower middle-class family that had settled in Uttar Pradesh in the 19th century, Ashraf, through his intelligence, political convictions, scholarly acumen and solidarity with the marginalised rose to be one of the most important voices on the Muslim question in British India of the 1940s.Extending from Punjab (Gurgaon in today’s Haryana) to Rajasthan in the South and to United Provinces (close to Mathura, UP), the Mewat region’s majority population in colonial India claimed to be Muslims (called Meo), and Chattriya (Rajput). The Meos, an agriculturalist and cattle raising (Gujjar) community, before the partition of British India were traditionally grouped in 12 qabilas (tribes) called pals that were further sub-divided into 52 small lineages, called Gol. The leadership of each pal was maintained by Chowdhries, who wielded considerable political power and arbitrated disputes within the group and with other pals. Historically a distinctive feature of the Meo community was that those Hindus who lived in the area and abided by the rules of the pals, were incorporated into the group; loyalty to the group in cases of intra-pal dispute overshadowed religious belonging. Hindus and Muslims of one pal would stand together in fights against Muslims and Hindus of a different pal. Studies of the Mewat area from early 20th century have shown how in matters of birth, death and marriages, the pals would follow rituals and ceremonies of both religious communities. Especially, marriage rites for Muslim Meos, apart from the nikah ceremony, was like a Hindu Chathri or Rajput wedding from the area. Ashraf’s ancestral village was Tasi in Alwar state in the Mewat region from where his grandfather Hakeem Kunwar Muin (Thakur Muin Singh) had migrated to UP in search of livelihood during the years following 1857. He settled in the town of Daryapur near Hathras in Aligarh district. A hakeem by profession, Kunwar Muin would travel to villages and provide medications and health advice in the area. As mentioned above, the family, being from Mewat had followed the tradition of intermarrying with Hindus and keeping Hindu names. Hence Ashraf’s father was named Murlidhar Singh at birth. He received basic education in Persian and other skills and at a young age passed the entrance examination for Railway service as a guard. At this time he changed his name to Murad Ali Khan. Ashraf’s mother, Anchchi, was from the Mathura area of the Mewat region. Ashraf was born in 1903 in Daryapur where he spent his early childhood before he moved to Moradabad for schooling. While studying at the Hewett Muslim School at Moradabad, Ashraf came under the influence of his Arabic teacher Maulana Rahmatullah who was also a staunch nationalist and inculcated a resistive anti-colonial politics amongst his pupils. He was then introduced to Istafa Karim, another teacher, a charismatic figure who introduced his students to the works by Hasrat Mohani and Iqbal’s poetry. Istafa Karim was a disciple of Obaidullah Sindhi and instilled in his students a spirit of jihad against the British. In due time, Ashraf along with his fellow students under Maulana Istafa Karim’s influence, joined Obaidullah Sindhi’s group, Hazb Allah, and took an oath to fight the colonisers. It was at this time that Ashraf desired to meet Hasrat Mohani and Begum Hasrat (as their lives and deeds were examples of revolutionary living for the young minds in the group). Maulana Mohani was still in prison, but Begum Hasrat, who lived in a servant’s quarter of a house and ran a small shop of Swadeshi clothes, became a caring and affectionate mentor to the young Ashraf and also inculcated in him the practice of praying regularly. This relationship with the Maulana and Begum Hasrat continued throughout Ashraf’s lifetime; he admired the simple lifestyle, courage and political conviction of the two elders. After World War I ended, youth like Ashraf who had been radicalised, were prepared to leave the country as the hijrat movement to Afghanistan and then to Soviet Union had started recruiting cadres. Ashraf registered for the journey, but before he could leave, his father returned from the War (he had served in the British army in Africa) and his plans were curtailed. Soon after, Ashraf who had registered at the MAO College in Aligarh (in 1918) passed his intermediate exams and re-entered for his BA degree in 1920. This was the peak days of the Khilafat Movement led by Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar which was joined by Mohandas Gandhi; with his call for boycotting English goods, ahimsa (non-violence) and Satyagraha (non-cooperation). Ashraf joined the non-cooperation movement and along with his friends agitated for MAO College to not take aid from the British government. These students also invited respected leaders of the Khilafat movement and the Congress like Gandhi, Maulana Mohammad Ali, Maulana Azad, Hasrat Mohani, Ansari, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Azad Subhani, Satya Der and others, to campus. This invoked a retaliation from the administration and soon the group of students preaching non-cooperation were expelled from the college. This expulsion led to the founding of Jamia Milia Islamia (October 1920) as a nationalist alternative to MAO College; the establishment of a new national muslim university which would not be pro-British. Among the founding members were Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Ansari, Gandhi, and Maulana Azad. The university’s mission was to impart knowledge, but it continued to be a primary site for the non-cooperation movement, with makeshift teaching arrangements (in tents with little furniture). The students came from all parts of India to participate in this experiment in nationalist education and politics. This was also an intense period of learning for Ashraf; students would discuss the changing international situation which included how Mustafa Kamal was recruiting common villagers in Ottoman Turkey to fight the British and Soviet Union’s recognition of Kamal’s government. Maulana Mohammad Ali’s arrest at this juncture also made Ashraf aware that despite the loss of leaders, political movements may create their own momentum and move forward. Also read: At Centenary, Jamia Millia Islamia Stands as a Symbol of Inclusive, Secular EducationHowever, Gandhi’s withdrawing from Satyagraha due to the Chauri Chaura incident and the abolishing of the Caliphate by Mustafa Kamal, two events in 1922 brought a sputtering of the non-cooperation/Khilafat movement. This sudden curtailment developed into a period of introspection and disillusionment for many of the movement’s cadres. Ashraf in the 1930s wrote a short story depicting this feeling of depression among the politicised youth. The subsequent period saw the rise of Hindu and Muslim revivalist movements like Shuddhi and Tableeghi Jamaat and there were instances of spontaneous Hindu-Muslim riots in different parts of India. Some activists like Ashraf started drifting toward the newly returned mohajirs like Shaukat Usmani, who had been trained in the Soviet Union to spread communism in India, while also being introduced to writings by M.N. Roy on the Soviet revolution. As the independence movement lost some steam, Ashraf returned to MAO College in 1923 (he had already received a BA from Jamia). There was some hostility toward the return of the Jamia students, but nationalist faculty members like Mohammad Habib (father of the historian Irfan Habib) supported their re-entry. Ashraf passed his BA honours in 1925. He read Muslim Theology, Islamic Philosophy and History. He passed and his MA in 1926. He then topped his class in the LLB examination in 1927.During the same year the College’s jubilee celebrations were held and many distinguished national level personalities were invited to campus, including Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Mian Mohammad Shafi. One of the guests was Maharaja Jain Singh of Alwar state. Ashraf, as the vice president of the student union, in his welcome address to the Raja reminded everyone of Aligarh’s secular tradition and how the first graduate of the MAO College was a Hindu. He also spoke about how his own ancestors were from Alwar. The Maharaja was very impressed by this outstanding young person and invited him to Alwar and offered him an administrative position in his state. Ashraf spent the summer of 1926 with the Maharaja and found in him a person who believed in Hindu-Muslim unity, was a practitioner of Vendanta and Tasawwuf and was somewhat sympathetic toward the demand for independence. Moreover, he was committed to financially supporting Maulana Mohammad Ali for his treatment in Britain. In response to the job offer, Ashraf said that he first would like to travel to UK for further studies. The Maharaja of Alwar arranged for a scholarship for Ashraf for his studies. In London, Ashraf joined the Lincoln’s Inn for his Bar-at-Law and also enrolled as a PhD candidate in Medieval History at the School of Oriental and African Studies under the supervision of Sir Thomas Wolseley Haig (1965-1938) who had been appointed a Lecturer of Persian at SOAS after completing a distinguished administrative career in India and in Persia. During this first trip to Britain, Ashraf lived with Maulana Mohammad Ali, as both had ample support provided by the Maharaja. Ashraf in his biographical writings discusses how the Maulana was a generous host and continuously invited young Indian students for dinner and treated them like his own children. While sharing quarters with the Maulana, Ashraf also invited his two friends, Shaukat Omar and Z.A. Ahmad (later senior member of CPI) to stay with him when they arrived for their own studies. Through the Maulana, Ashraf was introduced to a range of people, including Shahpurji Saklatvala (1874-1936), the member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who was elected to the British parliament. The Maulana, according to Ashraf, had started becoming disillusioned with the Indian National Congress, especially after the Nehru Report (1927) and its position on separate electorates, but had kept in close contact with most nationalist and radical leaders like Saklatvala. Despite his illness, the Maulana remained politically engaged and continued to prepare for the first-round table conference in 1930. Also read: Hajrah Begum Was a Communist Like no OtherHowever, in 1928, the Maharaja of Alwar (who himself would later attend the first-round table meeting in London) invited Ashraf and Maulana Mohammad Ali back to Alwar for the Maharaja’s jubilee celebration. After the jubilee celebrations on which colossal amount of funds was spent, Ashraf was offered the position of personal advisor to the Maharaja. By then, Ashraf had decided to leave the service. In 1929, Ashraf secured a scholarship from a foundation headed by Seth Ahmad ullah-Din of Hyderabad state – of six pounds per month – and with some support from his father, travelled again to the UK to complete his PhD. This time around he lived a more economically difficult life but was connected to a range of young radicals who were studying in Britain and were his close friends and comrades. Among his close associates were Z.A. Ahmad, Shaukat Omar in London, and Sajjad Zaheer, later secretary general of the Communist Party of Pakistan, and Mahmuduzzafar, later a CPI member, from Oxford. The group slowly grew to include Neharendu Dutt Majumdar, later a major progressive figure in West Bengal politics,, Nirmal Sen, later a communist leader in Bangladesh, Promode Dasgupta who would be a founding member of the CPI (M), Hajra Begum, an eventual CPI member and the only woman in the group, and Imtiaz Ali Khan, the first cousin of Liaquat Ali Khan, future Prime Minister of Pakistan. This group, along with a few others, under Shahpurji Saklatwala’s initial guidance, started to work closely with the Communist Party of Great Britain in organising Indian students on nationalist grounds. Maulana Mohammad Ali at the center, Shahpurji Saklatvala, standing at the centre, and KM Ashraf standing second from left in London 1930. Photo: ZMO Archives and Library Berlin.While involved in these activities, Ashraf defended his PhD thesis at the University of London in the early 1930s. The thesis, Life and Conditions of the People of Hindostan (1200-1550 CE) captured the village life, the economic organisation of agricultural production along with the extraction of surplus by rulers for their extravagant personal projects in medieval India. It traced the encounter and subsequent impact of Muslim rule on the preceding Hindu order. This cultural transformation was a key element of the thesis, and it postulates that its long-lasting effects resonated until the British colonial rule and the coming of the modern industrial age. As examples, Ashraf used writings by Amir Khusro and those by Hindu and Muslim mystics. His sources further included compendiums of law and ethics, books on practical arts, travellers’ accounts, letters and correspondence. The sheer breadth of the source material informs us of Ashraf’s mastery over multiple languages, including Persian and Arabic. The thesis was initially published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1935) and subsequently published in book form in post-independence India (1959). The book remains a major text for medieval South Asian history in Indian universities. §After submitting his dissertation, due to his affiliation with CPGP, Ashraf returned as a committed Marxist to India in 1932-33. He arrived at the time when the Meerut Conspiracy Case was ongoing, and the Communist Party was banned. However, the underground party directed its cadres to work in the labor unions and among the peasantry. Ashraf attended the labor conference in Kanpur in 1932 and then closely worked with the peasant movement in Mathura and Alwar while also organizing the low-caste groups (Chamars) in the area. In 1933-34, at the request of Syed Mutalabi Faridabadi (person of letters and political activist in India and later in Pakistan) and Chowdhury Mohammad Yasin, Ashraf became involved in the movement for religious rights for Muslims in the Alwar area (the right to visit shrines uninterrupted by violence), which became a catalyst for a larger movement of the entire Meo community against the Maharaja’s increased taxation policies and the excesses rendered by his officers. The disturbances also led to some communal riots, which created tension in the region. Ashraf, whose family was from the area, and who knew the Maharaja from before as a benefactor, nevertheless stood with the Meo community in its struggle. By organising the peasants, craftsmen and the weavers and by publicizing the charter of their demands in national newspapers, Ashraf created pressure for the Maharaja’s abdication. Finally, responding to the excessive violence perpetrated by the ruler on the peasants, the British Indian government took over the affairs of the state and banished the Maharaja from the country for two years. There was subsequent reduction of taxes and levies including guarantees for religious and social liberties, like the abolishment of forced labor. This was regarded as a major victory for the Meo people. Following this participation in the movement, in 1934-1935 Ashraf joined Aligarh Muslim University as a lecturer in the history department. This was also the time that the Seventh International Congress of the Communist International in the Soviet Union (1935) had decided that the anti-colonial policy for communist parties and movements was to work with national anti-imperial forces against the rising threat of imperialism and fascism. Within the Indian context, the Indian National Congress was considered a bourgeois and nationalist party, the directive to Indian communists was to work in a broad front; a unity of all progressive forces in which the communist would collaborate and work with all who were anti-imperialist while retaining their distinct identity and work among workers and peasants. Most of Ashraf’s friends from the student group had by 1935 also returned to India after completing their studies. A few months after reaching India, Sajjad Zaheer called a meeting of the “London Group”, and each one was asked about how they would like to proceed in their anti-imperialist politics. On her return, Hajrah Begum had taken a job in Karamat Hussain Girls College’s junior section in Lucknow. According to Z.A. Ahmad’s memoir, Sajjad Zaheer had started to practice law in Lucknow and was committed to the still underground communist party, K.M. Ashraf had (as mentioned above) started teaching, but was committed to the party’s directive, Mahmuduzzafar was teaching at Islamia College in Amritsar, and he opted to be a party whole timer. Z.A. Ahmad left his job as the principal of a college in Hyderabad (Sindh) and decided to work for the party. Other members like Shaukat Omar, who was working for the Saigol Tea Company, for personal reasons did not want to leave his position but was willing to contribute to the party fund and provide other support.When the group meeting was organised, Ashraf was already working with the Communist Party of India (CPI) under the direction of the secretary general, P.C. Joshi. He introduced Z.A. Ahmad to Joshi, and both were given directives in keeping with the political line that members of the communist party (underground as it was) should work with anti-colonial forces. The CPI since its inception in the 1920s had regarded the dominant leadership of the Indian National Congress as consisting of non-revolutionary landlords and bourgeois. It was also critical of Congress’s creed of non-violence, arguing that impeded the growth of mass revolutionary struggle that was essential to threaten the very existence of feudal elements and capitalists who led the national party. Yet, under the new direction, from the mid-1930s the CPI aligned itself with the progressive section within Congress that consisted of people like Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945) and Jayprakash Narayan (1902–1979) who, according to the CPI, were trying to lead Congress in a potentially revolutionary direction. The CPI, which till then was an illegal organisation decided to collaborate with the Congress by helping it reach out to trade unions and peasant organisations, while itself benefiting from Congress’s popularity, as the premier nationalist party, to get access to the Indian masses. To this end, using a united front from below tactic, CPI members sought representation within Congress committees from the grassroots to the all-India level. Within this context, the Communist Party, like the Indian National Congress, treated India as a single nation that was collectively engaged in the struggle for independence. The Muslim League, and its emerging demand to divide India into two nations (Hindu and Muslim), was condemned as a reactionary communal organisation of elite Muslims.When Jawaharlal Nehru was elected the President of All-India Congress Committee (1936), Ashraf along with Z.A. Ahmad and Rammanohar Lohia (he was not a member of the Communist Party) accepted positions in his office in Allahabad. Ashraf was made the secretary of the political bureau, working under Nehru’s supervision. Z.A. Ahmad was given the economic affairs portfolio and Lohia became in-charge of the office of international contact with anti-colonial and nationalist parties. Ashraf at this juncture also took responsibility of the Muslim Contact Cell for INC. His work with the Nehru coincided with the outcome of the Simon Commission in the form of the Government of India Act (1935) which called for elections at the provincial level. The AIC in its Lucknow annual session (1936) agreed to contest the elections despite its reservation on the separate electorate provision (“Communal Award”). These elections were held in1937 resulting in Congress Governments to be formed in seven provinces. However, neither the Congress (six percent) nor the Muslim League (25 percent) secured Muslim majority seats. Communist Party members (who were officially also members of the Congress Socialist Party and had seats on Congress Committees) primarily supported the progressive wing of INC and agreed with the position taken in the Fundamental Rights declaration (Karachi 1931) which spoke about the rights for peasantry, women, minorities and labor in an independent India. Their position was that although Congress would contest elections, they should not focus on forming ministries, but rather the election victory could be used as a conduit to intensify the struggle toward India’s independence and to recruit more people into the national movement. Within this milieu Ashraf worked very hard to bring the Muslim vote to the nationalist position, he himself stood for a Muslim seat in the Mathura-Agra area but lost with a small margin (275 votes). In his writings, Ashraf discusses how in his opinion Muslims were being led by the rising Muslim mercantile class and feudal elements. However, he understood how the Muslim league in the post-election period (once Congress made ministries) could play on the historically simmering resentment among Muslim masses due to the halting of the non-cooperation movement in 1922 when they had actively supported the struggle for independence (swaraj) being led by the Khilafat Movement in alliance with the Congress. In subsequent years, the Nehru Report (1927) and its non-endorsement of separate electorates for Muslims along with the generally rising communal tensions helped Muslim League paint Congress as a pro-Hindu party. Further, in places like UP, Congress decided not to form a coalition provincial government with the Muslim League (putting forward stringent demands), this along with cultural issues like imposition of Hindi in schools, the use of Congress’ tricolor flag, and the singing of Bande Matram in public events, created ample space for Muslim League to launch a major campaign against Congress Ministries. In a letter to a friend in 1938 (and in other writings from the period), Ashraf forcefully defends his Muslim Contact work for INC, despite understanding the major reservations that a large portion of the Muslim population held against INC’s politics. Yet he maintained that only a combined national struggle of people of all religions, ethnicities and classes would lead to a powerful anti-colonial movement. At this stage, he primarily portrayed the Muslim League as a communal organisation (as leaders of the Congress did) and implored the Muslim masses (in his writings and speeches) to join the national struggle. He further emphasised that his invitation was for Muslims to join the progressive forces within Congress, as he clearly understood that there were many right-wing forces operating within the Party. This was the crux of his argument, as a communist he argued that politics was organised essentially around class interests. Such class differentiation, led to the exploitation of the poor and the marginal populations (labor, peasantry, women, lower castes). However, in a nuanced position on Muslim politics, in the above-mentioned letter, he suggests that his friend need not join INC and should continue to work with the Muslim League (despite Ashraf’s reservations) if he could steer the League toward holding democratic elections within the primary bodies of the Party, increase its membership and organize it at the local level. For Ashraf this should lead for the Muslim community to stand up against British Imperialism and not be subordinate to its dictates. This anti-imperialist line is also clear from Ashraf’s speeches and his writings from the period which show his enthusiasm for working with Nehru started to dim once the Congress made ministries and became bogged down in issues of consolidating their negotiating position vis a vis the Colonial government, rather than use the opportunity to expand mass contact (the idea of taking charge of the Muslim Contact Cell was part of this effort) among workers, peasantry, women and students to intensify anti-British struggle. He laments in his biographical writing that the communist party was not strong enough at this stage to attract the masses to its platform, Hindus and Muslims alike, yet he and his comrades continued to work to expand the anti-colonial base against the British. This work did not always sit well with the more right-wing oriented leaders within INC and in one of Nehru’s travel aboard, the Muslim Contact Cell was disbanded by Acharya Kriplani, the secretary ceneral of INC and Ashraf’s direct superior. Eventually the Congress ministries resigned in October-November of 1939 as they opposed the British government’s action of declaring India as a party in Second World War without consulting the Indian elected representatives.Kamran Asdar Ali teaches anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin.The essay is based on Ashraf’s publications in Urdu and English, the Horst Kruger Archives at ZMO, Berlin and the AICC papers at the Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya (Prime Ministers’ Museum), New Delhi.The author wants to thank Alisher Karabeav (ZMO Library, Berlin), Dr. Razak Khan (Freie University, Berlin) and Ananya Iyengar (St. Stephens College, Delhi).