Globalisation ultimately leads to a global village, often making the indigenous irrelevant, says Professor Saiyid Zaheer Husain Jafri of the University of Delhi. By Team Viva
Globalisation has inherent tendencies to ascendancy and homogeneity, says Saiyid Zaheer Husain Jafri of the University of Delhi. Presenting a paper ‘Mongols to Mughals Migration, Intellectual Discourses, Cultural Synthesis between Persianate Societies and Indian Subcontinent’, Jafri took his listeners through the painful and traumatic experience of migration, an inevitable phenomenon in all phases of history. The discourse was part of the seminar ‘Cultural Similarities between Iran and the Indian sub-continent and Indigenous Cultural Fragmentation in the Era of Globalisation’ at the India International Centre.
Migration of the individuals or groups from their places of origin to the newer regions pre-supposes extreme social constraints, political instability or the economic deprivations. “It can be quite painful as well traumatic experience for the migrants, when it’s undertaken as a result of mass massacres, totally putting the life and honor of the people upside and down. Such a saga of migration always remains as ‘permanent scar’ in the memory of the migrants. For them, it was the question of survival to remember their past affiliations,” observes Saiyid, who teaches history.
“Migrants never forget their geographical affiliation. Therefore we see geographical nomenclature suffices derived from their home towns such as Nishapuri, Isfahani, Kashani, Sabzawari and Yemeni, to name a few. It’s interesting to point out that later on, these groups were accommodated within the Mughal nobility under the broader category of Iranis and Turanis, but in reality they represented the family groups from the places of their origin, falling within the broad geographical units of Khurasan and Central Asia,”, he analyses.
The destruction of Nishapur, one of the most important cities of the area, thoroughly and systematically shows the magnitude of the devastation and havoc caused by the Mongol conquest. Similar was the fate of other famous towns of Khurasan and Central Asia under the command of the Mongol generals. “The city of Delhi became a natural place of asylum for the refugees, fleeing from the cities devastated by the Mongols, during the reign of Sultan- Shams ud-din Iltutmish.
“These people arriving from the various central Asian cities and towns have brought the elements of Islamic-Culture with them. Their presence in the city of Delhi and various parts of the Indian sub-continent led to the setting up of madrasas and maktab in these towns and centres to cater to the needs of emerging Muslim population. This has facilitated the establishment of mosques, madrasas and khanqahs all over the province where the teachers of all disciplines were busy in the dissemination of knowledge. The students trained at these institutions went to other parts of the country, established and strengthened this intellectual tradition further,” the paper says.
“Thus, the elite Muslim Culture and Islamic Scholarship found its way in the small townships and the remote regions of the realm. Thus, we see that during the time frame of thirteenth to eighteenth centuries, the lands covered by the present day Iran, Central Asia and Afghanistan on one hand and the Indian sub-continent saw the processes of hegemonisation and cultural fragmentation during the pre-colonial times, “Professor Saiyid concludes. The two- day seminar, inaugurated by Vice President Hamid Ansari, concluded recently.