Some Reflections on the Limits of Liberalism

It is an honour for me to give this lecture in memory of Asghar Ali Engineer, one of India’s most distinguished and courageous public intellectuals and activists. I didn’t really know him, though we had met on one occasion at a conference and snatched an afternoon to talk at some length, a conversation in which I was much instructed by him about the recurring communal riots in India: their common patterns, their regional divergences and their deeper underlying causes. The meeting had a personal effect on me. I remember that I came away from it with the impression that only someone like him – and not me – could write about Muslims and Muslim politics in India effectively. His rootedness in his community despite the notorious excommunication, his linguistic mastery of Arabi and Pharsi, his long study of the Quran, all made him an authoritative voice, however heterodox and dissenting his views were considered to be. It’s not that he made me feel like a deracine, which by comparison I certainly am, it’s just that I realised how important and privileged an utterance’s location is.