I concluded by arguing how AMU’s act to ban Maududi’s books was “baffling, if not cowardly.” That is, AMU succumbed to “the unjust, divisive demand for a ban”, rather than starting a debate on academic autonomy and intellectual freedom. This double critique rested on the premise that the demand to ban should have been directed to the University Grants Commission, not to the Prime Minister. Those sources, I showed, were bogus and part of the power-knowledge matrix set up by the post-9/11 global industrial-media-scholarly complex. Second, I critiqued the so-called academic sources used to justify the ban. And by questioning the monist notion of democracy developed by majoritarian supremacists in the West and readily embraced by their counterparts in the subcontinent, Maududi indeed inaugurated (of course, not solely) a decolonial frame. He radicalised the theory of democracy by making it responsive to cultural-religious diversity. To this end and in sharp contrast to the letter’s (il)logic, I had given an alternative portrait of Maududi.Ĭontra his depiction by Orientalists, both Western and domestic, I had shown how Maududi was a critical friend of democracy. Notably, Maududi had recognised the shape of this project already in the 1930s, when he had described Congress rule as a “Hindu raj”. The demand, I further argued, was integral to intensifying Hindutva’s project of making India into an aggressive Hindu state.

I showed how the demand was flawed and the argument mobilised for it pure sophistry.

First, it critiqued a letter signed by 25 “academics.” Taking India as a substitute exclusively for Hindus and describing writings of Maududi as “jihadi,” the letter demanded a ban on his teachings. Before I present my response to Bharati’s rejoinder, it is important to begin with a terse summary of my original essay. Last month, Ibn Khaldun Bharati wrote a rejoinder to my essay “Shun the Hate Letter Singed by 25 ‘Academics,’ Not Books by Maududi”.

Bombay Islam by Nile Green