Nationalism and Exile

The fact that the colonial project sought to create and demarcate categories of race within the sub-continent, or undivided India, can be argued upon. That for their own convenience of rulership, these categories were formed, can be seen from pamphlets that were given to English officers ordained or posted to India, not only listing the various types of 'races' that existed within India, but a description of them as well. It would be too simplistic to assume that these differences did not exist before the entrance of the British, yet they seem to a certain extent to be superimposed, and at any rate nationalistic feelings or identities were intensified. This is what forms the backdrop for Nazir Ahmed's novel 'Ibn-ul-Waqt'. 

The crisis of identity faced by the Muslims is quite obviously the major theme of this novel. However looking at it through the lens of Exile is interesting as well as revealing. For at this time the Indian National Congress, as an aftermath of the 1857 mutiny, was growing stronger. A Hindu nationalism was being strengthened, as being the natives of the area. The British idea of the origin of the Muslims was basically associated with that of empire, as being the rulers which were more associated with the Turkish empire or Arabia, than India. Both the above mentioned factors, thus meant that Muslims had to deal with a sense of Exile, a loss of identity, for if they could not identify with their land, and their identities and loyalties lay more with religion and hence Arabia, they were essentially displaced. 

Another explanation of course could be that as a reaction to the outside or the "Other", that is the British, the "Self", or purely Muslim identity had to be formed. Yet 'Ibn-ul-Waqt' taps into the time where Muslims were faced with Exile, and for their own benefit had to associate themselves with the British, yet as they felt, it was at risk of compromising their own identity, which still in the process of being cemented and understood, was essentially still vulnerable.