Ottoman Turkey, Ataturk and South Asia: Studies in Perceptions and Responses

The book is based on nine articles that I contributed to various journals over the past several years or appeared in various conference proceedings. At least one of them was published as a chapter in an edited work. However, all of them are based on original archival material or contemporary published sources available in Pakistan, India, Turkey and Britain. The theme of these papers, as the title suggests, is the South Asian perceptions and responses regarding the political events that unfolded in the background of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Turkish republic by Mustafa Kemal. The book begins with an analysis of the literature on the nineteenth-century pan-Islam in South Asia and then gradually unfolds its practical expression in the politics of the South Asia while interacting with the Turks in the milieu of British and Allied policies. It also tries to explain as to why the South Asians switched their sympathies from the Ottomans to nationalists under Ataturk and how they looked at the process of modernization in Turkey in comparison with the Muslims of Afghanistan and Iran. Lastly, the book attempts to examine the enduring relevance of pan-Islam in the politics of Pakistan and ventures to measure its trajectory in the future. See more