Description
Bloomsbury Professional India Syed Mahmood Colonial India’s Dissenting Judge by Mohammad Nasir and Samreen Ahmed
In the late 19th century, Justice Syed Mahmood, son of the great social reformer Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan, and the first Indian judge of the Allahabad High Court, became an icon of
judicial resistance to British colonialism at the apex of British power across the world.
Appointed to the High Court at the remarkably young age of 32, he displayed during a
tenure of just six years that law without a conscience was merely a facade for the
perpetration of injustice. A number of his dissenting judgments became a template for
reference by future generations.
Outside of law, his largely invisible but wide ranging intellectual corpus engages with
questions related to colonial transformation of education and its reconciliation with
Muslim identity, national integration and religious tolerance. His role in the making of
Aligarh Muslim University, presently celebrating its centenary, was notable, but survives
only as a footnote in history.
This book chronicles the triumphs and tragedies of Syed Mahmood’s life, and his
contribution to shaping the consciousness of modern India. It succeeds in exhuming a
seminal figure from the dust of history, and demonstrates how the past continues to
speak in the present.
Reviews
"A major achievement of this critical biography is to reanimate “the values of religious
tolerance, composite culture, interfaith understanding and mutual respect” which
Justice Mahmood embodied. In these virtues lie the present and the futures of Indian
constitutionalism." - Professor (Dr) Upendra Baxi, Emeritus Professor of Law,
Universities of Warwick and Delhi
"An excellent biography of a towering legal luminary of 19th-century India who had the
courage and conviction to differ from the powers of the day for the sake of justice." -
Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed, Former Chief Justice, Jammu and Kashmir High Court
Author Biography
MOHAMMAD NASIR is Assistant Professor in the Department of Law, Aligarh Muslim
University. He has written on legal and socio-political issues for the Hindustan Times,
Indian Express, Wire and OPEN. He co-edited the Special Centenary Issue of the
Aligarh Institute Gazette, a periodical started by AMU founder Sir Syed in 1866.
SAMREEN AHMED is a legal researcher and writer based at the Aligarh Muslim
University. Her academic writings have been published in the Economic & Political
Weekly.