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Book Review: David Halberstam, The Children. New York: Random House, 1998, pp.783

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi Few books capture the moral energy, intellectual seriousness and emotional texture of a social movement as compellingly as David Halberstam’s The Children. Although widely recognised as one of America’s greatest journalists, Halberstam was also a historian of remarkable sensitivity. In this monumental work he reconstructs, with extraordinary narrative power and meticulous…

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The Kids Aren't Backing Down: How India's Students Shook the System

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi Let’s be honest about what just happened. Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation as Education Minister wasn’t some gracious political gesture. It was a surrender. A government that had spent years brushing aside student grievances finally found itself cornered by the very people it had ignored. And that is what makes this moment historic. Not the fall of one minister, but the…

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Review: Remembering the Imams and the Formation of Shiʿi Identity

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi Matthew Pierce, Twelve Infallible Men: The Imams and the Making of Shiʿism. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 2016. ix + 257 pp. ISBN 978-0-674-73707-5. Matthew Pierce’s Twelve Infallible Men is an ambitious and methodologically innovative study of the collective biographies of the Twelve Imams. Rather than reconstructing their historical…

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The Great Unmaking: How the NEP Is Hollowing Out Indian Education

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi Today’s edition of The Hindu carries an excellent lead editorial column written by Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, titled “An Education System’s Collapse, Young India’s Trauma.” In the piece, she delivers a blistering critique of the government’s handling of the ongoing student protests, accusing it of responding to young people’s demands for…

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The Call of Destiny V: The Apprenticeship of a Historian

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi Looking back over the many twists and turns of my life, I often feel that I have made remarkably few important decisions myself. Most of them seem to have been taken for me by circumstances, by chance encounters, or by people who somehow knew what was best for me long before I did. The earlier chapters of this memoir recounted how I drifted almost accidentally from the…

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History, Historians and the Politics of Public Memory: Reflections on the Vikram Sampath Phenomenon

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi History stands among the most misunderstood of all academic disciplines. Because everyone possesses a past, many assume that anyone who reads widely, collects anecdotes and narrates events can legitimately claim the title of historian. Few assumptions are more misleading. History is not the mere narration of what happened; it is the disciplined investigation of what can be…

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The Spectacle of Demolition: Knowledge, Power and the Politics of Erasure

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi History retains what power seeks to erase. Across centuries, we have mourned the destruction of Nalanda and Vikramashila, not as architectural losses but as civilisation’s self-inflicted wounds. Their names have become synonymous with knowledge consumed by conquest, with learning reduced to rubble by those who feared what books might teach. We condemn those responsible…

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The Many Faces of Gorakhnath: Pluralism, Power and the Politics of a Yogi

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi The historical Gorakhpanthi tradition presents a striking contrast to the political ideology now associated with its most prominent institutional representative, Yogi Adityanath. The contrast does not lie simply between religion and politics, for the Nath Yogis were never entirely removed from worldly power. They advised kings, received land grants, intervened in disputes…

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Beyond the Chronicle: Popular Narratives as Sources for Medieval Indian Society: Reflections on Simon Digby's Wonder-Tales of South Asia

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi The reconstruction of medieval Indian society has long rested upon chronicles, inscriptions, administrative documents, travellers’ accounts and archaeological evidence. Together, these sources have enabled historians to craft sophisticated narratives of political institutions, dynastic change, economic structures and religious movements. Yet they remain largely the…

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The Call of Destiny IV: Life Beyond the Classroom

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi After having so far dealt with how I chose the subject, what type of teachers I was privileged with and how I evolved in life, I will here deal with another type of training and education altogether. It is about the education that no curriculum prescribed, no examination tested and no degree formally recognised. Yet, in retrospect, it was perhaps the most important…

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Rethinking Bengal, or Reframing It? A Response to Rethinking History I & II

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi Professor Hitendra Patel’s two-part essay published in The Statesman on July 12 and July 13, 2026 is a thoughtful reminder that constitutional history deserves sustained attention in any account of late colonial Bengal. His emphasis on the Morley-Minto reforms, the Government of India Act of 1935, provincial autonomy, coalition politics, the Bengal Pact, and the…

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Book Review: Maulvi Haji Sayyid Wāhid 'Ali Sahib 'Akhlaṣ'. Tārīkh-i Haswa. With a preface by Mufti Sayyid 'Abd al-Qawi, author of Rashīd al-Mu'allifīn. Banaras: Matba' Kamāl al-Maṭābi', 1330 AH (1912–13 CE). 72 pp.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi For a long time, the history of medieval and early modern India has been written largely from the perspective of kings and emperors. Dynastic chronicles, imperial memoirs and colonial settlement reports have justly dominated the field, but they have also tended to crowd out a quieter, equally rich tradition of historical writing that flourished in provincial North India…

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The Scholar on the Mimbar: Remembering Professor Syed Badrul Hasan Abdi

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi Some scholars are measured by the volumes they produce or the positions they hold. Others leave their truest legacy in the hearts and minds of their students, friends, and all who were fortunate enough to share their company. Professor Syed Badrul Hasan Abdi (1924–2009) belonged unmistakably to the latter. To introduce him merely as Professor of Arabic and Persian at…

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Ayodhya and Its Muslim Connection: A Historical Perspective

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi The city of Ayodhya, revered in Hindu tradition as the birthplace of Lord Rama, possesses a rich and complex history that extends far beyond its religious significance. While contemporary discourse often frames Ayodhya exclusively through the lens of Hindu-Muslim tensions, historical evidence reveals a far more nuanced narrative of coexistence, cultural exchange, and…

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Historiographical Rejoinder: On Reviewing Munis Faruqui's Aurangzeb 'Alamgir and the Mughal Empire

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi The review of Munis D. Faruqui’s Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir and the Mughal Empire: A History Retold carried out sometime back by the Hindustan Times, Delhi edition, contains a number of factual inaccuracies and interpretative problems. Given the constraints of space, however, I shall confine myself to addressing only some of the most significant historiographical errors rather…

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When Diplomacy Spoke Through the Qur'an

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Why Iran Waited: Muharram, Temporary Burial, and the Sacred Politics of Ayatollah Khamenei's Funeral

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