Dr. Anand Vivek Taneja beautifully argues how the renewed interest of Hindustan is indicative of residents’ hope of India as the potential for Muslim belonging in a future India. Although contemporaneously associated as a Muslim North Indian practice, the historical use of Hindustan is a place that contains multitudes of faiths and polities. This is why Amir Aziz quoted her grandfather as saying “Hindustan is a dream.” Due to continuous lynching, political exclusion, and daily discrimination of Muslims in India, Muslim residents are actively working towards this dream. To buttress this argument, Dr. Taneja looks at poetry as both a symbol for hope of Hindustan but also as a form of discourse between community members with those on the outside.
Collecting data from January 2018 and March 2020, Urdu poetry stood out as an effective tool. First, he accounts the history of Urdu poetry which was once formerly excluded from Indian educational curriculums. Around 2013, when a website began to make Urdu poetry accessible, Urdu poetry begin to see a reawakening. Because it is free from constraint, Urdu poetry has been connected as a method of identifying belonging which is especially needed for the Muslim community who are often excluded and even require documentation to go to certain areas of the country. Urdu poetry has garnered popularity in Anti-CAA protests and even informal gatherings such as mushaira. In December of 2019, Urdu poetry was on center display as young men began chanting while walking down the street in response to a video put on social media. Although most contention surrounded the Muslim rhetoric portion, not as much was given to the part of what is our relationship. The author connects this question to intimacy between religions. He then uses poetry to buttress this claim
Dr. Taneja uses a mixture of interviews, participant observations, and historical mapping to develop his argument surrounding Hindustan and poetry. He does a beautiful job in respecting his participants and paining them in a light not often seen in the United States’s view of India and especially Muslim individuals. He also describes the political and cultural landscape very nicely as I myself did not have many problems following alone even though I am not fully knowledgable about India or Muslim practices and sects. Personally, I love the focus of poetry as data to describe the hopes and goals for Hindustan especially since poetry was at the center of two major Anti-CAA protests. At times, I was curious about how he was making his connections. For example, how did he know that “what is the relationship” was connected to intimacy between different regions? I am curious did he interview some of the protesters or was this a widely known concept for the community at the time. Furthermore, in Sharing a Room with Sparrows, Dr. Taneja is able to beautifully connect multiple concepts such as Azad’s letters and experience to time with the murder of George Floyd and why the eight minutes and forty-six seconds were so meaningful. All in all, this is one of my favorite ethnographies we have read in class. I can’t wait to meet the author.