Latest news with #IPTA
The Wire
19-07-2025
- Politics
- The Wire
The War on Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb
The following is an excerpt from Ghazala Wahab's book The Hindi Heartland: A Study, published by the Aleph Book Company. The truth about Ganga-Jamuni that my neighbours referred to, comes from two sources. One is pedantic and another political. And they feed on each other. Bestselling author and lawyer, J. Sai Deepak claims to have busted the myth of Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb in his books. Thereafter, he has given numerous interviews and talks on the subject. In one interview, he says, 'This composite creature called the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb is a relatively new construct in our public discourse, which can at best be traced to the period between 1916 and 1923. Not before, nor after.' In the same interview he says, 'Non-cooperation movement was launched to support the Khilafat, it was not for India's independence, that much is clear. Nobody can claim otherwise…this is a myth that needs to be busted and I have done that. Post-independence, the deification of this creature Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb must be laid at the door of distortion of history under Jawaharlal Nehru and the Marxist-Nehruvian coterie of historians that he put together. And then, to this particular cabal called IPTA (Indian People's Theatre Association), which had a lot of Marxist Muslims. And then Bollywood started to play a huge role in this. So, we are told that Mohammed Rafi sang bhajans and Naushad composed some of these bhajans. But I am not going to let a bhajan come in the way of my larger perspective of history.' 'The Hindi Heartland: A Study', Ghazala Wahab, Aleph Book Company, 2025. What seems like nit-picking on terminology is actually an attempt to discredit the notion of interdependent, mutually benign existence between Hindus and Muslims before the coming of the British in India. Hence, what starts as pedantic becomes political. In a recent talk, Sai Deepak says, 'Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb is not a product of a foreign religion's ability to coexist. It is a product of a convert Hindu's inability to give up his religion, his cultural roots, language. Nariyal phodna, diya jalana (breaking of coconut, lighting lamps) is not a sign of the accommodation of the outsider. It is the sign of passive resistance of the insider for a few generations, until it is completely scrubbed off his atman (soul).' Deepak is not the only one 'busting myths' about India's history of syncretism. Much before he emerged as a thought leader for a certain ideology, different analysts, commentators, and 'historians' have been busting this 'myth'. YouTube is full of videos on the subject. The insistence that Hindus and Muslims never lived in harmony is driven by the need to justify the present divisiveness by showing it as a historic continuum. In this, academics and writers pitch in with selective reading of history. For instance, Pavan K. Varma writes, 'Hindu civilization had never seen conquerors like the Islamic Turkic invaders, who were so blindly committed to the destruction of a culture, so fanatically driven by a belief in the superiority of their religion, so unrelenting in their hatred for those not belonging to it and so passionate about the need to convert the unbelievers.' Of course, Varma offers no historical evidence to support his sweeping statement. However, this emotional viewing of history is not new. In 1955, barely seven years after the brutal sundering of the nation, Hindi poet and essayist Ramdhari Singh Dinkar expressed somewhat similar emotions in his book Sanskriti ke Chaar Adhyay (Four Chapters of Culture), for which India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote the foreword. The book also won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1959. In the section on Hindu–Muslim coexistence in India, Dinkar rues the division between the two communities, writing that 'the mental problem of Hindus is that no matter how hard they try, they cannot forget the torture Islam inflicted upon them. And Muslims are caught in a bind thinking that they will now have to live as a minority in a country which they used to rule.' In the same chapter, he writes, though in the context of literature, and not religion, what is now echoed by people like Deepak. 'The truth is that in comparison with the interest and knowledge that Hindus acquired of Urdu literature, the Muslim knowledge of Hindi literature is miniscule.' Despite this one-sided nature of the relationship, Dinkar offers a way forward. He writes that both the majority and minority communities must learn to trust one another again. However, 'it is important that one must not put the history behind the curtains, nor exaggerate the stories about Hindus' influence on Islam or Muslims' influence on Hindutva simply to encourage Hindu-Muslim brotherhood. History must be presented the way it was.' Interestingly, Dinkar chose to use the term Hindutva in 1955 instead of Hinduism, despite the term having been appropriated by Savarkar in his book Essentials of Hindutva in 1922. And then, offering the model of 'good Muslim' as opposed to 'bad Muslim', he writes, 'Muslims must understand that a person's religious devotion cannot be in opposition to his devotion to the country. People like Amir Khusrau, (Malik Mohammad) Jayasi, Akbar, (Abdul) Rahim (Khankhana) and Dara Shukoh were devotees of Islam, as well as Bharat.' Dinkar was not a proponent of extremist Hindu thinking, as Savarkar or founders of the RSS were. A Gandhian, a freedom fighter, and recipient of multiple literary awards in India, Dinkar was thrice sent to the Rajya Sabha by the Congress party between 1952 and 1964. Clearly, his views were the mainstream perspective in India at that time. Not a historian, his views were based on what he had read. The primary, and the most accessible sources of history at that point were those written by British historiographers. Among the most popular versions were the thirteen volumes of The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians compiled by Henry Miers Elliot and John Dowson published between 1867 and 1877. Reprinted several times, the book chronicles the history of India from the time the Arab traders landed on the subcontinent in the ninth century until the eighteenth century, by translating and interpreting the records of Arab and Persian writers. Quoting from the book's preface, Amita Paliwal, historian of medieval history, says, "These bombastic Bengali babus are here and clamouring how ill we are governed under the British rule. Let us show you how badly you were governed under the Muslim rule'. So, the translation of the Arabic and Persian history was done with the intention of showing how bad the Muslim rule was. It was a selective reading of India's past, done with the intention of sowing the seeds of communalism.' According to her, this recasting of India's past to show the British in a positive light was conceived in the aftermath of 1857. 'They felt that if these two qaums (communities) came together again, it would be detrimental to their rule,' she says. Putting Dinkar's writings in a context, Swapna Liddle says that Dinkar's writings were part of the Hindi movement of the Nagari Prachirini Sabha (see the chapter on language), which was a political movement. Dinkar's writings, according to her, reflected that movement which justified itself as opposing the hegemony of the Muslims who had imposed their culture on the Hindus. 'It was very much a part of the politics of that period. This understanding of history was required to feed into the politics of that time at various levels. It didn't matter if it was correct or not,' she says. Historian Manan Ahmed Asif has written two books, A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia (2016) and The Loss of Hindustan, The Invention of India (2020) exploring the deliberate misrepresentation of India's past by British historians. In the latter he writes, 'In the colonial episteme it is the Muslim medieval that is demonised, elided, ignored and put up as the literal Dark Age between the Golden Age of ancient India and the modern liberal age of British rule.' British historiographers viewed Arab and Persian texts through two lenses. They accepted as truth the portions where the scribes lauded their emperors as 'Ghazi' (Islamic warriors), eulogizing their role as destroyers of idols. However, they dismissed their writings on administration and policies as superfluous or propaganda. To achieve this, Ahmed writes, 'The 'India' that colonial powers made was filled with cliched natives, invented temporalities, and religious antagonisms presumed to be factual and true. In contrast, 'Hindustan' was made to be figurative, a place of false harmonies, limited geographies, and forgotten languages. The philologists asserted the supremacy of texts such as the Manusmriti to contextualise 'custom' and law. Colonial historians sidelined Persian histories as demonstrative solely of Muslim despotism.' Curiously, Indian nationalists, including Nehru and Dinkar, accepted the colonial construct of Indian history, because as Professor Abhay Kumar Dubey says, giving the example of the South American continent, 'The colonial powers controlled the historical narratives of the lands they conquered to control the thinking of the natives.' Perhaps this explains why Nehru also looked at the reign of only Emperor Ashoka as India's 'Golden Age', which 'India' must aspire to reclaim. Ghazala Wahab is the editor of FORCE magazine. She has written Born A Muslim: Some Truths About Islam in India (winner of Book of the Year Award, non-fiction, at the Tata Literature Live and Atta Galatta), edited The Peacemakers, and Dragon On Our Doorstep: Managing China Through Military Power (with Pravin Sawhney). The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
Indian Express
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Iconic play Kaifi Aur Main travels to Pune with star-studded cast, including Shabana Azmi
'Kaifi aur Main is the love story of two individuals but it is not only that,' says poet-lyricist Javed Akhtar in the introduction to the iconic play he wrote that is set to be staged in Pune next month. 'It is also the story of the world in which these two people were born, the society in which they breathed. It was a society where there is oppression and injustice, and these two individuals unite to fight every breach of justice and tyranny. This is a story of a multitude, of every person who holds on to hope that, one day, the world will be free of oppression and there will be friendship and love,' he says about the play he wrote and, for many years, starred in. Kaifi aur Main premiered in Mumbai in 2006 and, as it approaches its 20th year, the star-studded cast of Shabana Azmi, Kanwaljit Singh and ghazal singer Jaswinder Singh, who performs live, will be will be staged at Marigold Banquet and Conventions on August 3 at 7 pm. The story arcs from Mijwan, a little-known village without a pincode in Uttar Pradesh, where the Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi was born, to his meeting with young Shaukat (mother of Shabana Azmi) to their 55-year romance that lasted till his death. 'The story is about love, the relationship of a husband and wife and how they support each other,' says Jaswinder Singh. Kaifi and Shaukat's relationship unfolds against the background of sociopolitical upheaval as a newly Independent India strives towards great ideals. Shabana, the daughter of Kaifi and Shaukat, plays her mother while Kanwaljit has taken over from Akhtar to essay the role of the renowned poet. The personal narrative intersperses with the world context in a way that the play becomes a documentation of an era in a powerful female voice. 'Kaifi sahab was the president of the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA), a progressive cultural organisation that played a vital part during the freedom struggle. The progressive writers and artistes were from IPTA, and they met, wrote plays and poetry and sent out meaningful messages. As a child, I used to meet Kaifi sahab and we have grown up listening to his poetry, so it is a very personal for us to be doing this performance. It is inspired by love for him, his poetry and his philosophy,' says Jaswinder, in a phone interview from Mumbai. Kaifi aur Main does not have the typical format of a play. Shabana and Kanwaljit sit and narrate on stage with Jaswinder and five musicians who perform timeless songs, such as Waqt Ne Kiya Kya Haseen Sitam, Tumhari Zulf Ke Saye Mein and Kar Chale Hum Fida – the multiple forms uniting to narrate the story. 'I think it is very important that we should do such kinds of plays and music programmes because, as a society, we are getting away from love. Kaifi sahab stood for his fellow being, the villagers and the poor, and the play gives the message where he says, 'Pyar ka jashan nai tarah manana hoga, Pyar ka jashan nai tarah manana hoga, gam kisi dil mein sahi, gam ko mitana hoga,' says Jaswinder. Dipanita Nath is interested in the climate crisis and sustainability. She has written extensively on social trends, heritage, theatre and startups. She has worked with major news organizations such as Hindustan Times, The Times of India and Mint. ... Read More
The Star
02-07-2025
- Business
- The Star
PTPTN allocates RM47.8mil in advance loans for July 2025 intake
KUALA LUMPUR: The National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) has allocated RM47.8mil in Loan Advance Payment (WPP) to 31,850 students pursuing diploma studies at public universities and polytechnics for the July 2025 intake. In a statement on Wednesday (July 2), PTPTN said each eligible student will receive RM1,500 to assist with initial preparation costs, ensuring their welfare is safeguarded as they begin their higher education. WPP is offered to Malaysian students who consented to receive the advance loan during their application to public higher education institutions (IPTA) via UPUOnline or the official admission portals, and whose parents or guardians are recipients of the government's Sumbangan Tunai Rahmah (STR) aid, subject to eligibility criteria. Since its introduction in 1999, WPP has benefited 990,638 students with total disbursements amounting to RM1.46bil as of May 31 this year. As an agency under the Higher Education Ministry (MOHE), PTPTN said it remains committed to supporting students in gaining access to tertiary education. Students can check their WPP offer through the myPTPTN app and redeem the funds at any Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd (BIMB) branch nationwide from today until Sept 1, by presenting their WPP offer letter and MyKad, although representatives are not allowed. PTPTN chairperson Datuk Seri Norliza Abdul Rahim led a delegation to personally visit WPP recipients in Bukit Gelugor, Penang, where a total of 1,419 students were offered assistance mounting to RM2.13mil. Norliza advised students to use the funds responsibly and encouraged them to apply for full PTPTN loans according to their institution's application timeline to ensure timely processing and approval. Applicants are also required to open a National Education Savings Scheme (Simpan SSPN) account via the app before submitting their PTPTN loan applications. - Bernama
The Sun
01-07-2025
- Business
- The Sun
Johor student laptop assistance applications open until July 30
JOHOR BAHRU: Applications for the Johor student laptop assistance are open from today until July 30 for new students from the state who are entering higher education institutions. State Education and Information Committee chairman Aznan Tamin said the initiative is part of the state government's ongoing efforts to support students pursuing full-time studies at public and private higher education institutions (IPTA and IPTS), particularly those in their first year (Semester 1). 'Eligibility criteria include being born in Johor or having resided in the state for at least five years, belonging to a B40 household, and being enrolled in a full-time Diploma or Bachelor's Degree programme at an IPTA or IPTS institution recognised by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA). 'Applications can only be submitted online by scanning the provided QR code. The selection and screening process will be carried out by the state assemblyman of the applicant's constituency, based on the set eligibility criteria,' he said in a Facebook post today. He said successful applicants would be contacted, and the laptops would be distributed through their respective assemblyman's office. 'Limited offer, don't miss this opportunity!' he said. For more information or to apply, the public can scan the QR code displayed on the official poster via Facebook or visit The Johor government has allocated RM2.5 million under the state Budget 2025 to provide laptops to 1,000 students from B40 families, as part of its efforts to empower the education of the younger generation.
The Star
25-06-2025
- General
- The Star
More than 150,000 SPM school leavers offered IPTA spots
A bright future: A file photo of students of Chung Ling High School queuing up to obtain their SPM result slip at the school in Ayer Itam, Penang. — KT GOH/The Star PUTRAJAYA: A total of 150,557 Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) 2024 school leavers have been offered places at public higher learning institutions (IPTA), according to the Higher Education Ministry. It said the number represents 67.33% of the total 223,624 applications received through the UPUOnline system. 'Of the total, 86,589 applicants were offered places at public universities, 42,058 at polytechnics, 20,427 at community colleges and 1,483 at institutions under the Mara Higher Education Division. 'A total of 17,693 applicants received offers under the special pathway comprising 16,189 from the B40 group, 590 persons with disabilities, 593 athletes and 321 Orang Asli,' the ministry said in a statement yesterday, Bernama reported. The ministry also said that 43 applicants from institutions under the Social Welfare Department were offered places at IPTA. 'Student admissions were based on the principle of meritocracy, with all qualified candidates ranked from the highest to the lowest merit score,' it added. A total of 349 academic programmes were offered this year comprising 41 certificate-level, 55 (foundation), 252 (diploma) and one bachelor's degree programme. Applicants who did not receive an offer may submit an appeal via UPUOnline until 5pm on June 25.
