Hybrid Bajra in the Land of Amul

December 27, 1969 interests that he talks of were not so common as to produce an identity which all Indians could recognise as their own. The term "correct" implies a value judgment. Chandra may pontificate as to what was correct and what was not; he should at least explain his criteria for passing the judgment. To take a concrete example, there was an objective reality that the nineteenth century India presented. It was the one in which both Syed Ahmad Khan and Badruddin Tyabji lived. But the two responded to it in different ways. The one eschewed politics, or at least said that he did so, and opposed the Indian National Congress, which, according to Chandra's analysis, should he viewed as the correct representation of the objective reality. The other presided over the third session of the Indian National Congress. Whose res ponse to reality would Chandra regard as correct? The question is relevant because Syed has often been denigrated as an arch communalist who became the intellectual progenitor of Pakistan, which again was the consummation of Muslim communalism, not the culmination of a different nationalism. It should be revealing to many if it could be shown conclusively that what is called Muslim communalism