Ayesha Jalal
{{Short description|Pakistani historian (born 1956)}}
{{Use Pakistani English|date=August 2019}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Ayesha Jalal
| image = AyeshaJalal.jpg
| caption = Jalal at Lahore University in May 2010
| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1956}}
| birth_place = Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
| death_date =
| death_place =
| nationality = Pakistani
| field = History and Sociology
| work_institution = {{ubl|University of Wisconsin–Madison|Columbia University|Lahore University of Management Sciences|Tufts University|Harvard University}}
| alma_mater = {{ubl|Wellesley College |Trinity College, Cambridge}}
| known_for =
| prizes = {{ubl|MacArthur Fellows Program|Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence) Award by the President of Pakistan}}
| spouse = Sugata Bose
}}
Ayesha Jalal (Punjabi, {{langx|ur|{{Nastaliq|عائشہ جلال}}}}) is a Pakistani-American historian who serves as the Mary Richardson Professor of History at Tufts University, and was the recipient of the 1998 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.{{cite web |author=Zaidi |first=Hasan |date=2 July 2017 |title=Interview: "There Was Nothing 'Inevitable' About The July 1977 Coup" - Dr Ayesha Jalal |url=https://www.dawn.com/news/1342154 |access-date=9 August 2019 |newspaper=Dawn}} She is known for her work on the historical struggles and biography of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder and first Governor-General of Pakistan.
Family and early life
Jalal was born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1956, to Hamid Jalal, a senior Pakistani civil servant, and his wife Zakia Jalal. She is related in two ways to the Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto. Her paternal grandmother was the sister of Manto. Secondly, Manto's wife Safia was the sister of Ayesha's mother Zakia Jalal. In other words, the uncle-nephew pair of Manto and Hamid Jalal were married to the sisters Safia and Zakia.
Jalal is married to the distinguished Indian historian Sugata Bose, who is a professor of history at Harvard. He is a grand-nephew of the Indian Bengali freedom fighter Subhash Chandra Bose.
Education
Ayesha Jalal moved to New York City at the age of 14, when her father was posted at Pakistan's Mission to the United Nations. She obtained her BA in History and Political Science, from Wellesley College, USA, and her doctorate in history from Trinity College at University of Cambridge, where she wrote her Ph.D. dissertation: 'Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan'.
Ayesha Jalal studied at Wellesley College before moving to Trinity College, Cambridge, where she received her doctorate in 1983. She stayed at Cambridge until 1987, working as a fellow of Trinity College and later as a Leverhulme Fellow. She moved to Washington, D.C. in 1985, to work as a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and later as Academy Scholar at the Harvard University's Academy for International and Area Studies. She was hired by Columbia University as an associate professor in 1991 but her tenureship was declined after review in 1995.{{Cite web|title=Jalal v. Columbia University in City of New York, 4 F. Supp. 2d 224 (S.D.N.Y. 1998)|url=https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/4/224/2349910/|access-date=2021-08-24|website=Justia Law|language=en}} In 1999, she joined Tufts University as a tenured professor.{{Cite web|url=https://ase.tufts.edu/history/faculty/jalal.asp|title=Department of History - Tufts University|website=ase.tufts.edu website|access-date=8 August 2019}}{{Cite news|url=http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/experts/list/ayesha-jalal|title=Ayesha Jalal - Nonresident Senior Fellow, South Asia Center|newspaper=Atlantic Council website|access-date=9 August 2019|archive-date=22 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180122072053/http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/experts/list/ayesha-jalal|url-status=dead}}{{Cite news|url=http://www.dawn.com/news/1160651|title=COVER STORY: The Struggle for Pakistan by Ayesha Jalal|last=Chishty-Mujahid|first=Nadya|date=1 February 2015|newspaper=Dawn (newspaper)|access-date=9 August 2019}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/book-review-the-struggle-for-pakistan-by-ayesha-jalal-1419614523|title=Pakistan: The Land of the Pure|last=Chotiner|first=Isaac|date=26 December 2014|newspaper=Wall Street Journal|issn=0099-9660|access-date=9 August 2019}}
The bulk of her work deals with the creation of Muslim identities in modern South Asia.{{cite news |author=Book Review |date=18 October 2016 |title=Pakistan needs to breed more historians: Ayesha Jalal |newspaper=The Hindu |url=http://www.thehindu.com/books/Pakistan-needs-to-breed-more-historians-Ayesha-Jalal/article13377953.ece |access-date=8 August 2019}}
Career
Ayesha Jalal has been Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1980–1984), Leverhulme Fellow at the Center of South Asian Studies, Cambridge (1984–1987), Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC (1985–1986), Academy Scholar at Harvard University's Academy for International and Area Studies (1988–1990), associate professor at Columbia University's Department of History (1991–1995). She has taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Tufts University, Columbia University, Harvard University and Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Jalal sued Columbia University alleging bias after her tenure review for a professorship was declined in 1995.
Ayesha Jalal is among the most prominent American academics who write on the history of South Asia. In her book, The Sole Spokesman (Cambridge University Press, 1985 and 1994), Jalal gives her perspective of what happened in the years between the 1937 elections in British India and the Partition of the Indian subcontinent, identifying the factors which led to the creation of Pakistan and provides new insights into the nature of the British transfer of power in India. In particular, she focuses on the role of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of All-India Muslim League, and the main proponent of the Two Nation Theory on which the demand for Pakistan was based. Jinnah claimed to be the sole spokesman of all the Indian Muslims, not only in provinces where they were in a majority but also in the provinces where they were in a minority. Yet given the political geography of the subcontinent, it was clear that there would always be as many Muslims outside a specifically Muslim state as inside it. This book investigates how Jinnah proposed to resolve the contradiction between assertions of a "separate Muslim nation" and the need for a strategy which could safeguard the interests of all Indian Muslims. It does so by identifying Jinnah's real political aims, the reasons why he was reluctant to bring them into the open, and his success or failure in achieving them.
Awards
As a leading historian of Pakistan and South Asia, Ayesha Jalal has received numerous awards and recognitions:
- Trinity College, Cambridge Fellowship (1980–84)
- MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1998–2003){{Cite web|url=https://www.macfound.org/fellows/583/|title=Ayesha Jalal — MacArthur Foundation|website=MacArthur Foundation website|date=1 July 1998|access-date=9 August 2019}}
- Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Distinction) by the President of Pakistan in 2009.{{Cite news |author=Faiza Rahman |date=2014-04-20 |title=Ayesha Jalal: Borderline politics |language=en-US |newspaper=The Express Tribune |url=https://tribune.com.pk/story/696410/ayesha-jalal-borderline-politics/ |access-date=8 August 2019}}
Praise
The Hindu, a newspaper of record in India, calls her, "...one of Pakistan's most acclaimed historians..." The Express Tribune, a Pakistani newspaper states, "...Jalal is revered globally as a historian of meticulous methods."
On April 16, 2016, Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistani ambassador to the UN, said that she was “the greatest historian Pakistan has produced.”
= Books =
{{refbegin}}
- {{cite book | last = Jalal | first = Ayesha | title = The state of martial rule: the origins of Pakistan's political economy of defence | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge England New York | year = 1990 | isbn = 9780521051842 }}
- {{cite book | last = Jalal | first = Ayesha | title = The sole spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League, and the demand for Pakistan | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge Cambridgeshire New York | year = 1994 | isbn = 9780521458504 }} First published 1985.
- {{cite book | last = Jalal | first = Ayesha | title = Democracy and authoritarianism in South Asia: a comparative and historical perspective | publisher = Sang-e-Meel Publications | location = Lahore, Pakistan | year = 1995 | isbn = 9789693506297 }}
- {{cite book | last1 = Jalal | first1 = Ayesha | last2 = Bose | first2 = Sugata | author-link2 = Sugata Bose | title = Nationalism, democracy, and development: state and politics in India | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Delhi New York | year = 1997 | isbn = 9780195639445 }}
- {{cite book | last = Jalal | first = Ayesha | title = Self and sovereignty individual and community in South Asian Islam since 1850 | publisher = Routledge | location = New York | year = 2000 | isbn = 9780415220774 }}
- {{cite book | last = Jalal | first = Ayesha | title = Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia | url = https://archive.org/details/partisansofallah00ayes | url-access = registration | publisher = Harvard University Press | location = Cambridge, Massachusetts | year =2008| isbn = 9780674047365 }}
- {{cite book | last1 = Jalal | first1 = Ayesha | last2 = Bose | first2 = Sugata | author-link2 = Sugata Bose | title = Modern South Asia: history, culture, political economy | publisher = Routledge | location = London New York | year = 2011 | edition = 3rd | isbn = 9780415779432 }}
- {{cite book | last = Jalal | first = Ayesha | title =The pity of partition: Manto's life, times, and work across the India-Pakistan divide | publisher = Princeton University Press | location = Princeton | year = 2013 | isbn = 9780691153629 }}
- {{cite book | last = Jalal | first = Ayesha | title = The struggle for Pakistan: a Muslim homeland and global politics | publisher = The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press | location = Cambridge, Massachusetts | year = 2014 | isbn = 9780674052895}}
= Chapters in books =
- {{Citation | last = Jalal | first = Ayesha | contribution = Exploding Communalism : The Politics of Muslim Identity in South Asia | editor-last1 = Bose | editor-first1 = Sugata | editor-last2 = Jalal | editor-first2 = Ayesha | editor-link1= Sugata Bose | editor-link2 = Ayesha Jalal | title = Nationalism, Democracy and Development: State and Politics in India|chapter-url= http://emerald.tufts.edu/~ajalal01/Articles/communalism.pdf| access-date =15 April 2018 | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Delhi | year = 1997 | isbn = 9780195644425 | postscript = .}}
- {{Citation | last = Jalal | first = Ayesha | contribution = Freedom and equality: from Iqbal's philosophy to Sen's ethical concerns | editor-last1 = Kanbur | editor-first1 = Ravi | editor-last2 = Basu | editor-first2 = Kaushik | editor-link1= Ravi Kanbur | editor-link2 = Kaushik Basu | title = Arguments for a better world: essays in honor of Amartya Sen | Volume II: Society, institutions and development | pages = 452–469 | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford New York | year = 2009 | isbn = 9780199239979 | postscript = .}}
{{refend}}
See also
- Jaswant Singh, an Indian Army officer and politician, who expressed similar views on Jinnah as Jalal in his book 'Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence'.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.tufts.edu/~ajalal01 Ayesha Jalal profile on Tufts University website]
- {{cite web|url=http://www.mssu.edu/international/India/jalal.htm |title=Profile of Ayesha Jalal (Archived)|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050216065435/http://www.mssu.edu/international/India/jalal.htm |date=12 January 2004|url-status=dead|archive-date=16 February 2005|access-date=9 August 2019}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jalal, Ayesha}}
Category:Columbia University faculty
Category:Historians of South Asia
Category:Harvard University alumni
Category:Recipients of Sitara-i-Imtiaz
Category:Pakistani emigrants to the United States
Category:Historians of Pakistan
Category:Tufts University faculty
Category:Stuyvesant High School alumni
Category:Wellesley College alumni
Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Category:Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge
Category:Academic staff of Lahore University of Management Sciences
Category:American people of Punjabi descent
Category:American academics of Pakistani descent
Category:20th-century American historians