Introduction – Dilemmas of Ideology: A Critical Social Psychological Study of Maududi’s Educational Thought in the Kashmir Context — by Waseem Malik

Introduction – Dilemmas of Ideology: A Critical Social Psychological Study of Maududi’s Educational Thought in the Kashmir Context — by Waseem Malik

Sep 1, 2024

Waseem Malik presents the introduction to his extensive MPhil dissertation titled Dilemmas of Ideology: A Critical Social Psychological Study of Maududi’s Educational Thought in the Kashmir Context. This introduction offers an overview and exploration of the complex relationship between ideology, education and social behavior within a Kashmiri context. The study presented critically examines the educational philosophy of Abul Alaa Maududi and its implementation by the Jamaat-i-Islami in Kashmir. By employing Michael Billig’s concept of ideological dilemmas and introducing the notion of “points of anchorage,” Malik investigates the inherent tensions and contradictions within Maududi’s ideological framework as it interacts with the realities of modern education. The dissertation provides a detailed analysis of how these ideological tensions manifest in the educational practices of the Jamaat-i-Islami Jammu & Kashmir (JIJK), exploring the ways educators and students navigate the ideological challenges posed by the intersection of Islamic thought and the secular, modern educational system.

Through this empirical study, Malik develops complex ideas to complicate the traditionally assumed linear relationship between ideology and subjectivity, offering insights into how ideologies are actively engaged with, interpreted, and lived by individuals within the socio-political context of Kashmir. Waseem Malik’s introduction published in the Academia section of Inverse Journal serves as an apt point of departure that synthesizes all too well the many complexities explored within his dissertation through the use of a wide array of theoretical and philosophical texts and research material relevant to his line of academic inquiry.

It is pertinent to recall that the state attempted to disband the educational apparatus of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Jammu & Kashmir(JIJK) by officially banning the movement in 2019, followed by a ban of its Falah-i-Aam (Welfare for All) Trust and affiliated schools within Kashmir in 2022.

2022: An Inverse Year in Review

2022: An Inverse Year in Review

With 2022 just behind us, we look back at all the pieces published during the past year in ascending chronological order on an animated timeline. Here are all the pieces published by our contributors and from Creative Commons sources that shaped Inverse Journal’s 2022. You can click on any piece that you may have missed or that you may want to revisit and it will open in a new browser tab. With this timeline, we say hello to a new year.

Hospital — An Excerpt from Freny Manecksha’s “Flaming Forest, Wounded Valley” (Speaking Tiger, 2022)

Hospital — An Excerpt from Freny Manecksha’s “Flaming Forest, Wounded Valley” (Speaking Tiger, 2022)

Freny Manecksha presents an excerpt from the sixth chapter of her latest book, Flaming Forest, Wounded Valley, published earlier this year by Speaking Tiger Books. As a major portion of the chapter aptly titled “Hospital”, this excerpt Manecksha provides a thorough insight into what transpired in Kashmir’s hospitals from the 90s all the way up to 2016. Traversing a harrowing timeline full of violence, killing, injury and loss, Freny is able to recount multiple stories from the perspective of the medical professionals, victims of war, volunteers, patients and the family members who she cites and whose version of the accounts she retrieves from a wide array of published (and verified) sources and archives.

Note: This excerpt is published with the exclusive permission of the book’s author, Freny Manecksha, and its publisher, Speaking Tiger Books.

The Season of Transience and Fugitive Emotions: A Tribute to the Kashmiri Autumn — by Mir Yasir Mukhtar

The Season of Transience and Fugitive Emotions: A Tribute to the Kashmiri Autumn — by Mir Yasir Mukhtar

Mir Yasir Mukhtar presents a tribute to autumn, the season that symbolizes transience and presages the renewal of life. Perhaps inadvertently, the young photographer captures the relationship and connection that the indigenous people of Kashmir have with their sites of heritage, which include famous Mughal gardens such as Nishat Bagh. Widely advertised and promoted to tourists and visitors from outside of Kashmir, this photo story quite contrarily and perhaps unintentionally depicts the ritualized bond that Kashmiris have developed with their sites of heritage, captured in this case through visuals showing the Kashmiri experience of the Nishat Gardens. Following the tradition of celebrating and rendering tribute to the fall season, Mir Yasir Mukhtar produces a concise but vastly creative text supported further by his photography to reflect on autumn in his native Kashmir.

Fluid Transgressions and Skeptical Dislocations of the Human/Animal Binary in Montaigne’s “Man is no better than the animals” — by Sakhi Thirani

Fluid Transgressions and Skeptical Dislocations of the Human/Animal Binary in Montaigne’s “Man is no better than the animals” — by Sakhi Thirani

Of late, within emerging environmentalist and ecological discourses, it has become a fundamental and necessary practice to question any anthropocentric views of the world that we inhabit. Such questions arise to facilitate the idea of a “multispecies world” that can be constituted by a “multispecies polity”, especially when one is reminded of Donna Haraway’s affirmation that it “matters which worlds world worlds and which stories tell stories” (Cosmopolitan Animals, vii). From this more contemporary standpoint, Sakhi Thirani’s essay acquires even greater relevance as she discusses and evaluates Michel de Montaigne’s “Man is no better than animals”— an excerpt from his “Apology for Raymond Sebond” (1580-92)—to elucidate how “Montaigne posits a fluid view of parity between humans and animals by disrupting, destabilising, and dislocating the supremacy of hegemonic human institutions of intelligence, reason as well as language via his skeptical engagement with antecedent texts.”

The fact that Montaigne presented such ideas in the 16th century is as interesting and relevant as Sakhi’s observations in her critical engagement with the French Renaissance philosopher’s writing as she relies on various theoretical and philosophical ideas and sources to give shape to ideas that transcend Montaigne’s own—and not only exist in the realm of contemporary discourses but are pertinent to discourses on “multispecies sustainability” found in First Nation and Indigenous practices. While relatively brief, Thirani’s essay maintains a complexity that can facilitate multiple conversations and invite greater inquiry into multiple subjects/topics, from “cosmopolitical ecologies”, Critical Animal Studies, and the posthumanities to the “emergence of multispecies ethnography”—with her study remaining consistently focused on Montaigne’s ““Man is no better than the animals”.

On the Women’s Uprising in Iran: An Interview with Inshah Malik — by Lia Dekanadze

On the Women’s Uprising in Iran: An Interview with Inshah Malik — by Lia Dekanadze

Lia Dekanadze (of the Social Justice Center in Georgia) interviews Kashmiri political theorist and gender researcher Inshah Malik about the ongoing women’s uprising in Iran that sprang into action with 22-year-old Mahsa Amin’s tragic death under police custody. Originally published on the official website of Social Justice Center, this English translation presents an extended version of the original interview in Georgian that can be accessed here. Prompted by Lia Dekanadze’s incisive questions, Inshah Malik offers multiple critical perspectives on key topics of relevance to what is currently unfolding in Iran.

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