Navras Aafreedi

Presidency University · Department of History

The South Asian Muslim groups of Pathans, Kashmiris, Qidwais, and Bani Israil, in spite of being antagonistic towards Jews, Israel, and Zionism, claim Israelite descent, which is seen by some scholars as an attempt on their part to distance themselves from their pre-Islamic polytheistic past by fabricating fake genealogies ascending to the founders...

During the Muslim rule in India (1206 – 1857 CE) a number of Pashtuns/Pakhtuns/Pathans found government employment there and made India their home. Pashtuns are divided into sixty tribes and further subdivided into four hundred clans. They live in eastern and southern Afghanistan and north-western Afghanistan and form the largest conglomeration of...

South Asia (Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan) has produced some of the greatest Islamic thinkers, such as Shah Wali Allah (sometimes also spelled Waliullah; 1702–1763) who is considered one of the originators of pan-Islamism, Rahmatullah Kairanwi (1818–1892), Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), Syed Abul A’la Mawdudi (also spelled Maududi; 1903–1979), and A...

An intellectual and personal autobiographical essay that explains the factors that triggered the author’s interest in the study of Jews and antisemitism in South Asia, the region to which he belongs, traces his academic journey and explores its overlaps with his personal life, his multi-religious and multiethnic background and connections to family...

Der Artikel wurde ursprünglich auf Englisch verfasst und erschien als Kapitel in ANTISEMITISM ON SOCIAL MEDIA, herausgegeben von Monika Hṻbscher und Sabine von Mering (London und New York: Routledge, 2022) [ISBN 9781032059693], S. 114-128, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003200499. Er wurde für den Bernard Lewis Memorial Prize 2022 nominiert, der von d...

A brief overview of the state of Jewish historical studies in India, the world's most populous country with a continuous Jewish presence for more than a millennium. It delves into the factors that account for the fact that of India's 1,113 universities, 43,796 degree colleges, and 11,296 standalone institutions, just one institution, the Presidency...

The chapter gives an overview of the popularity Adolf Hitler has come to enjoy in India by bringing into sharp focus its varied manifestations in Popular Culture. In its attempt to understand the strange phenomenon, the chapter traces the genesis of the popularity to India’s response to the Holocaust. It draws our attention to the several factors t...

An autobiographical essay that tells the story of how its non-Jewish author developed a deep interest in Jewish History and Antisemitism Studies, driving him to make the study of Jews his lifelong vocation, and how he went on to launch an undergraduate course in Global Jewish History and a postgraduate course in Holocaust Studies at the prestigious...

The article is a study of the abuse of Holocaust memory by Hindus, Muslims, and left liberals in India. It brings into focus how the memory of the Holocaust is manipulated by Muslims for political ends. While on the one hand the anti-Zionists among Muslims deny the Holocaust with the aim of delegitimizing the State of Israel given the fact that it...

Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy Occasional Paper Series (ISBN 978-1-940186-18-4)

Given the slew of timely recent publications, it is evident that contemporary scholars of antisemitism have responded well to the challenges presented by the pervasiveness of this discourse in the 21st Century. Such research addresses the convergence of antisemitism with misogyny, racism, and heterosexism, while also analyzing the far right and far...

Conceptualizing Mass Violence draws attention to the conspicuous inability to inhibit mass violence in myriad forms and considers the plausible reasons for doing so. Focusing on postcolonial perspective, the volume seeks to popularize and institutionalize the study of mass violence in South Asia. Twenty-two eminent scholars from eight countries (Au...

The article presents the story of the only Urdu poem on the Holocaust. It explains why it is the only poem on it in Urdu and tells us about how it came to be written and who wrote it. It also draws attention to the importance of the Urdu language, the lingua franca of linguistically diverse South Asian Muslims who constitute one-third of the global...

Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), New York Webinar Series convened by Dr. Navras J. Aafreedi, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Presidency University, Kolkata and Research Fellow, Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), New York Each webinar will take place on a Thursday at 9 am...

Edited by Navras J. Aafreedi and Priya Singh, CONCEPTUALIZING MASS VIOLENCE draws attention to the conspicuous inability to inhibit mass violence in myriads forms and considers the plausible reasons for doing so. Focusing on a postcolonial perspective, the volume seeks to popularize and institutionalize the study of mass violence in South Asia. Th...

A biographical essay on the Urdu poet and writer Anwar Nadeem (1937-2017) of Malihabad, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India, by his historian son. The essay is at once biographical and autobiographical because of the overlaps in the lives of the father, the subject, and the son, the author. It not only documents Nadeem's life and brings into sharp focus...

The official narrative is that antisemitism has been unknown in India. It is supported by the fact that India and China are the only two countries in the world where Jews lived in absolute peace with their non-Jewish neighbours for centuries. However, the narrative of the absence of antisemitism is flawed for it completely overlooks the long existi...

Ein Meinungsbeitrag zu den derzeitigen Protesten gegen die Staatsbürgerschaftsreformen in Indien von Navras Aafreedi (Presidency University, Kolkata) Übersetzt aus dem Englischen durch die Redaktion der Zeitschrift SÜDASIEN Einige Menschen im In-und Ausland scheinen nicht zu wissen, warum Muslime [in Indien] den Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) und...

Although Kolkata has neither the largest concentration of Jews in India nor the highest number of synagogues and Jewish schools, yet it has more scholars of Indian Jews than any other city in the world. During the last few years more works on Indian Jews have been published by scholars from Kolkata than from anywhere else.

Baghdadi Jews settled in British India in the last quarter of the eighteenth century and tried to make the most of their ambivalent position, result of their belonging to neither Indians nor British, by playing intermediaries between them. It seemed wiser to them to identify with the rulers than with the ruled, aware as they were of British racism...

It is a call for papers and posters from different academic disciplines to help us draw lessons from history as to how mass violence can be prevented and tolerance can be promoted. History testifies to the fact that mass violence is as old as human existence. Almost every episode of mass violence has been followed by efforts aimed at preventing its...

“…A successful attempt at discussing the history of Jews in India, and in initiating a dialogue for introducing Indo-Judaic studies in Southasia. A pioneering work, introducing Indian Jewry to the world of academics, Aafreedi lays the first stone for further research in the field of Jewish History in Southasia.” - - Ambreen Agha, HIMAL SOUTHASIAN

The story of the rise and fall of Jews in the world’s largest film industry

The first book to combine the socio-historical-cultural study of the three Jewish communities of India, viz., the Bene Israel, the Cochini and the Baghdadi, the three Judaizing movements that emerged in India during the last seventy years, viz., the B'nei Menashe of Manipur and Mizoram, the B'nei Ephraim of Andhra Pradesh and the Chhetiars of Tamil...

Special Issue on Indian Jews edited by Dr. Navras Jaat Aafreedi for the online journal CAFE DISSENSUS (ISSN 2373-177X), January 2015 It makes a sincere attempt at generating interest in Indo-Judaic Studies by presenting a comprehensive picture of Jews in India through articles and essays from the best scholars in the field on the three Jwish commun...

There are seven groups in South Asia that claim Israelite descent. Of these, the two that have started practicing Judaism were previously Christian. Thus, the Judaizing movements among them are seen by anthropologists as byproducts of Christianity. Among the five groups that have not yet started following Judaism, four are Muslim and one is Christi...

Where antipathy lives without Jews 14 ASIAN J EWISH LIFE ISSUE 15 T he nature of relations between Jews and Muslims in South Asia is largely determined by Muslim attitudes towards Jews. This is because of the miniscule number of Jews both in absolute numbers and in comparison to the Muslim population. South Asia is an extremely important region for...

m/indian-jewish-literature/?currentPage=all Community and belonging in Indian Jewish literature Reviews By Navras Jaat Aafreedi 12 May 2014 Indian Jews have contributed culturally despite their small, and dwindling, numbers. Jew Town, Cochin Photo: Flickr/ Dietmut Teijgeman-Hansen 2013 was an exciting year f or Indian Jewish literature: two works o...

The year 2013 is historic for Indian literature as well as Jewish literature for after a long period of fifty-two years, after Meera Mahadevan's Apnā Ghar (The Home of One's Own) (1961), the only other Hindi novel with a Jewish theme has appeared on the literary scene, in the form of Sheela Rohekar's Miss Samuel: Ék Yahūdi Gāthā (A Jewish Saga). An...

Indien D ie Welt war schon immer so zerrissen von Hohn und Hader wie heute. Und mit-ten in dieser allgegenwärtigen Ver-rücktheit hat es auch immer einige Beispiele von Vernunft gegeben. Sar-mad gehörte ganz sicher dazu. Para-doxerweise wurde er jedoch von vie-len als verrückt angesehen, was ihn letztlich das Leben gekostet hat. Die Verrücktheit mei...

A few years ago when I happened to be staying for a few days with a cousin of mine in Colaba, Mumbai, I went to the street book vendors at her suggestion. She told me that I could get books on any subject at throwaway prices. When I asked for books on Jews, I was told to come back the very next day. When I returned there in anticipation, I was show...

Trilingual brochure of a Holocaust films retrospective organized by Dr. Navras J. Aafreedi as a Fellow of the Centre for Communication and Development Studies, Pune under its youth outreach programme called Open Space. The 14-day event took place at five different venues in Lucknow (a major centre of Muslim scholarship) in 2009 and happened to be t...