PAVITHRA S. RANGAN interviews SHARIF HUSAIN QASMI
India’s noted Persian scholar speaks of the intense love and passion the Mughals nurtured for India and the cooperation they lent Hindu scholars.
With the current controversy over German being dropped in favour of Sanskrit in Kendriya Vidyalayas, India’s noted Persian scholar Professor Sharif Husain Qasmi laments successive governments abandoning attempts to integrate languages, encourage translations and build a better understanding between civilisations, cultures and religions. He was equally perturbed when the UPSC dropped Persian and Arabic from the civil services examination last year. How can English, barely two-and-a-half centuries old in the country, be promoted and not Persian and Arabic which flourished for over eight centuries, scholars like him asked.
Prof Qasmi, 72, has painstakingly compiled a list of 2,517 Persian manuscripts, all translations of Sanskrit works ranging from the Mahabharata and Ramayana to the Upanishads and Panchatantra in his ‘Descriptive Catalogue of Persian Translation of Indian Works’. He speaks of the intense love and passion the Mughals nurtured for India and the cooperation they lent Hindu scholars. In the same breath, he grieves the misconceptions followers of these two religions have, which is being cashed upon to incite communal violence for narrow political gains. He spoke to Pavithra S. Rangan. Excerpts:
Hailed as a seminal work, what is the significance of your Catalogue?
This 500-page descriptive catalogue is a culmination of a 10-year-long effort to showcase documentary proof of the deep, sincere understanding between Persian and Sanskrit scholars in India. Mughals, who conquered and ruled over India for over three centuries, were the first to bring the idea of secularism here. Although the one who wields the sword sets the rules, Muslims in India wanted to learn the ways of Hindus, forge bonds of friendship and live amicably rather than just rule over them. Learning Sanskrit was at the heart of this effort. Persian translations of Sanskrit works in almost every field reveal the respect and cooperation that existed between Hindu and Muslims for 650 years.
Those who incite or participate in communal violence today are disregarding this effort of our forefathers. Religious violence reflects ignorance about the remarkable camaraderie of the past.
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