NEW YORK, November 2, 2016 — The veteran Indian journalist Saeed Naqvi discusses his latest book Being the Other: The Muslim in India with Philip K. Oldenburg, a research scholar at the South Asia Institute at Columbia University. (1 hr., 41 min.)

In this remarkable book, which is partly a memoir and partly an exploration of the various deliberate and inadvertent acts that have contributed to the othering of the 180 million Muslims in India, veteran Indian journalist, Saeed Naqvi looks at how the divisions between Muslims and Hindus began in the modern era. In conversation with Philip K. Oldenburg.

Followed by a book sale and signing.

Saeed Naqvi is a senior Indian journalist, television commentator and interviewer. He has interviewed world leaders and personalities in India and abroad, which appear in newspapers, magazines and on national television, remained editor of the World Report, a syndication service on foreign affairs, and has written for several publication, both global and Indian, including the BBC News, The Sunday Observer, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Washington Post, The Indian Express, The Citizen and Outlook magazine. At The Indian Express, he started in 1977 as a Special Correspondent and eventually becoming, editor, Indian Express, Madras, (1979–1984), and Foreign Editor, The Indian Express, Delhi in 1984, and continues to writes columns and features for the paper.

Philip K. Oldenburg is Research Scholar, South Asia Institute, Columbia University.

“‘The clouds are moving ecstatically from Kashi to Mathura and the sky will remain covered with dense clouds as long as there is Krishna in Braj.’

These lines were composed by Mohsin Kakovi, an Urdu poet, to celebrate not Lord Krishna’s birthday but that of the Prophet Muhammad. Awadh, the author’s birthplace was steeped in this exquisite confluence of cultures. Sadly, this glorious tradition has been systematically destroyed over the past century.

In many ways, Awadh stood for everything that independent India could have become, a land in which people of different faiths co-existed peacefully and created a culture that drew upon the best that each community had to offer. Instead, what we have today is a pale shadow of the harmony that once existed.” (from Being the Other, courtsey Aleph Book Company)
 

This program is part of Asia Society's ongoing initiative Creative Voices of Muslim Asia.

Presented in association with SAJA (South Asian Journalists Association).