Ijtihad'21

IJTIHAD

Annual Academic Journal
Volume 8, 2021

Department of History, Lady Shri Ram College of Women

Ijtihad is the annual academic journal of the Department of History, Lady Shri Ram College for
Women. Besides its religious association etymologically, “Ijtihad” also means the “independent
interpretation of legal sources.” True to its name, the journal seeks to reflect the spirit of an
unhindered, ceaseless quest for the many contemplations of the “historical truth.” Starting in
2014, the compilation invites undergraduate student research papers covering various historical
themes, with an aim to nurture historical imagination and critical thinking among young
scholars.

LADY SHRI RAM COLLEGE FOR WOMEN

Lajpat Nagar IV, New Delhi - 110024

Published in New Delhi by
Department of History

Lady Shri Ram College for Women
Lajpat Nagar – IV, New Delhi
Delhi – 110024
Ph. 011 – 26434459

©Department of History, Lady Shri Ram College for Women, 2021

The moral rights of the contributing authors are reserved. These are the views of the authors
themselves and do not intend to make assertions on the sensitivity of any community or social
group. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any
means without prior permission in writing from the Department of History, Lady Shri Ram
College for Women, New Delhi.

ADVISORY BOARD EDITORIAL BOARD
Dr. Sonali Mishra Editor-in-Chief
Dr. Akanksha Narayan Singh Mou Sarmah

HISTORY UNION (2020-21) Editors
Anoushka Sur, President Soumyaseema Mandal
Samvidhan, Secretary
Bidisha Chutia, Treasurer Pavitra Mishra
Anvee Tara

Anjali Goyal

Cover Design By Pavitra Mishra
Cover Art: "Rosette Bearing the Names and Titles of Shah Jahan",

Folio from the Shah Jahan Album, The Metropolitan Museum

Ijtihad, the Annual Academic Journal of the Department of History, Lady Shri Ram College for
Women, attempts to encapsulate the true essence of knowledge and the culture of research.
Likewise, the cover image of our Vol. 8, is that of a star-burst shamsa which was the frontispiece
of the Shah Jahan Album, a muraqqa compiled in the mid 17th century. A shamsa is an
intricately decorated rosette that is used to illustrate manuscripts and domes among other things.
The shamsa on the cover has in at centre “His Majesty Shihabuddin Muhammad Shahjahan, the
King, Warrior of the Faith, may God perpetuate his kingdom and sovereignty” written in stylised
calligraphy. While the symbol of the Shamsa represents the transcendence of God; we chose this
particular shamsa because it has come to represent the epitome of knowledge and culture,
something which we strive to achieve through our efforts at Ijtihad.

While all volumes of ijtihad strive for knowledge, Ijtihad’s Vol. 8 will publish a myriad of
academic papers which were born out of a very difficult time in human history and hence, it is
best represented by a symbol of the light of knowledge i.e the Shamsa.

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

Dear Readers,

It’s been another year that has passed with the hardships of the pandemic and people trying to weave
together their lives in the new normal, from bringing the pieces of their shattered goals together to finding
meaning in life and existence.

These past two years have been like a speed breaker for the fast-moving world and robotic human beings
to take a halt and involve in critical thinking and understanding the core of any civilization- Is it the
people and their bond with fellow members which makes a civilization or the inanimate materials, for
which everyone is striving for, makes up one? However, in such an uncertain environment, what is
important is the continuation of critical thinking and learning and carrying forward the light of
knowledge. Rightfully so, this volume of Ijtihad is established to carry forward the light of knowledge
which is represented by the Shamsa on the cover page itself. With research topics that explore the gender
relations through numismatics, redefining the role of animals in World War, ideas of justice and
punishment, amongst other themes, Ijtihad is all set to take a journey of nuance historical understanding
and critical thinking and interpretation.

We started this session on the lines where we left last year and extended lectures and discussions on
unconventional research themes which included Culinary Anthropology and a search for Daktari Services
in Early 19th century India, in an effort to embolden the spirit of questioning. As the Department indulged
in ‘Art as Resistance’ in its annual academic fest ‘Maazi-o-Mustaqbil’, we took the opportunity to extend
its boundaries to explore the convolutions of ‘Art and Artist: Dichotomy of Resistance.’ Through the
annual paper presentation competition, we attempted to elicit discussions on the dichotomy between art
and the artist, on how indivisible these identities are and how especially in the context of resistance, they
are a common front against the oppressor. The editorial board commends Ms Anushree Joshi for
presenting an engaging paper based on her critical understanding and interpretation of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s
selected excerpts on romancing revolution, for which she was awarded the first prize.

This edition would not have been possible without the tremendous support of our distinguished faculty
along with the constant encouragement of the department union. I must also thank our sub editors who
worked tirelessly to ensure the publication of the journal. Our contributing authors had to put up with the
demands and questions of the editorial board and we appreciate their effort in putting together their best.

The focus of the editorial board has been to publish a journal that is gripping and thought-provoking at the
same time. We earnestly hope that you enjoy flipping through the pages, reading and re-reading some of
the brilliant pieces contributed by our student body which have been meticulously handpicked by the
editorial team of Ijtihad’21.

Thoughtful reading!

Mou Sarmah

Editor-in-Chief

CONTENTS

1. Coins of Badshah Begum: A Tool for 5. Redefining Protagonists: Dogs in
Analyzing Gender Relations and Second World War
Political Agency of Nur Jahan
Pragya Paul 34

Alina Naqvi 1 6. Ideals Of Justice And Punishment: A
Case Of Popular Consciousness?
2. Model Occupation: Investigating the
Alleged Collaborations In The Pia Kaul 47
Channel Islands During The German
Occupation 7. Religious Architecture During the
Tughlaq Period: A Case of
Soumyaseema Mandal 13 Begumpuri Masjid

3. Romancing the Revolution: A Simran Kaur Saini 56
Marxist Reading of Faiz Ahmed
Faiz’s Select Excerpts

Anushree Joshi 20

4. Home and Homecoming: A 8. Appendix I 70
Comparative Study of Dibyendu 9. Appendix II 74
Palit’s ‘Alam’s Own House’ and 10. Appendix III 77
Marga Minco’s ‘The Address’ 11. Index 79

Aaheli Jana 27

Ijtihad Vol.8 1

Coins of the Badshah Begum: A Tool for Analyzing Gender Relations and Political
Agency of Nur Jahan

Alina Naqvi
Department of History, Lady Shri Ram College for Women

In the days of the Mughal Empire, the act of issuing coins was a royal prerogative reserved for
the sovereign. However, during the reign of Jahangir, one comes across the case of Nur Jahan,
Jahangir’s chief consort who was powerful enough to have had coins issued in her name. The act
of her issuing coins along with the actual power exercised by her in the Mughal court was so
exceptional that it has been perceived by several historians as a sign of co-sovereignty. While the
act itself is prominently highlighted, little attention is paid to the coins themselves and the nature
of Nur Jahan’s sovereignty. This paper is an attempt to study the coins issued by Nur Jahan as a
tool to understand the nature of her co-sovereignty and political agency at the Mughal court.
Furthermore, multiple narratives surround the lives of both Jahangir and Nur Jahan. In the light
of the same, the paper demonstrates how the integration of coins in the study of the political
career of Nur Jahan in relation to that of Jahangir can shed light on the nature of power and
authority claimed by both in the backdrop of an established theory of absolute sovereignty.

I. Introduction

In Numismatics, a coin has been defined as coins have served as ‘symbols of
‘a piece of metal with a definite weight and sovereignty’ and the Mughals (1526-1857
value, usually a circular disc, made in CE) were no exception to it.3  
money by being stamped with an officially
authorized device’.1  In the Mughal Empire, issuance of coins was
the royal prerogative of the sovereign or the
Their functions go well beyond economic to king.4 The late 16th and early 17th centuries
include social, political, aesthetic, and witnessed the emergence of  highly
commemorative among others. As a result, centralized notions of Mughal kingship
coins acquire an agency of their own, acting within a patriarchal framework but it is also
as an instrument of disseminating during this time that Nur Jahan emerged as
knowledge and influencing ideas thus, an exception, that is, the only woman in
becoming an active force of change and not
just a passive manifestation of the processes Jere Bacharach, “Signs of sovereignty: the Shahāda,
working within the society.2  Thus, Qurʾanic verses, and the coinage of ʿAbd al-Malik,”
Muqarnas Online, no.27 (2010): 1.
1 Shriya Gautam and Vidushi Chandel, “A 3 Ruby Lal, Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur
Comparative Study of the Victorian and Edwardian Jahan (London: WW Norton & Company, 2018), 11;
Coinage in British India,” Speaking Archaeologically, Gavin Hambly, ed., Women in the Medieval Islamic
no.1 (2018): 16. World (US: Palgrave Macmillan, 1988), 13-14.
2 Fleur Kemmers and Nanouschka Myrberg, 4 Maggie Schuster, “ Light of the World: The Life
“Rethinking numismatics. The archaeology of coins,” and Legacy of Nur Jahan,” Armstrong
Archaeological Dialogues, no.18, (2011): 87-108.; Undergraduate Journal of History, no.7(2): 30.

Ijtihad Vol.8 2

Mughal history to have coins issued in her Maritime routes connected Europe, Asia
name, thus being entitled to the status of a and Americas and huge amounts of
co-sovereign.5 This paper aims to study bullion flowed into the Mughal Empire
coins as an object of analysis as well as a owing to their favourable balance of
means or tool of conducting further analysis. trade. Akbar introduced several monetary
Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to reforms to facilitate this long-distance
present a comprehensive analysis of the trade within his empire, and these reforms
coins of Nur Jahan based on materiality, text remained more or less unchanged until the
and image and to see how coins can be used end of the Mughal period.7
as a tool of analysing and understanding the
political and economic agency of Nur Jahan The level of monetization achieved by the
in the wider context of the Mughal court. A Mughal economy was unprecedented in the
historical archaeological approach has been history of the Indian subcontinent.8 The
adopted for the same. A total number of 8 coinage system introduced by Akbar was
samples were analysed, however, the lack of highly centralized with a mechanism to
physical access to these coins as well as a control the quality and purity of coins.9
paucity of samples owing to a number of When Jahangir ascended the throne in 1605,
factors has acted as a limitation for the he introduced some changes to the coins, the
study. most notable of which is first, he ordered the
weight of both gold and silver coins to be
II. The Mughal Empire and its Coinage increased by 20 per cent.10 Secondly, in the
thirteenth year of his reign, he replaced the
The Mughal empire was founded by month of the issue with an image of the
constellation which belonged to that month11
Zahir-ud-Din Muhammad Babur Lastly, in the year 1623, Jahangir issued
both gold and silver coins bearing the name
(1483-1530 CE), a Chaghtai Turkish ruler, a of Nur Jahan which continued till the end of

descendent of the great conqueror Timur 7 Catherine Ella Blanshard Asher and Cynthia Talbot,
India Before Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge
Gurkani (1336-1405 CE) of Central Asia.6 University Press, 2006), 152.
8  John Folsom Richards eds., The Imperial Monetary
The late 16th and early 17th centuries System of Mughal India (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1987), 1.
witnessed increased commercial activity. 9 Om Prakash, “On Coinage in Mughal India,” The
Indian Economic & Social History Review, no.25
5 Balkrishan Shivram, “Mughal Court Rituals: The (1988): 475-491; Jaroslav Strnad, Monetary History
symbolism of Imperial Authority During Akbar’s of Mughal India as Reflected in Silver Coin Hoards,
Reign,” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, (New Delhi: Harman Publishing House, 2000), 1-7.
no.67 (2006): 331-349; Irfan Habib, “A Political 10 Francisco Pelsaert, Jahangir's India: the
Theory for the Mughal Empire—A Study Of The Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert, trans. William
Ideas Of Abu'l Fazl,”  Proceedings of the Indian Harrison Moreland and P. Geyl (Cambridge: W.
History Congress, no.59 (1998): 329-340; John Heffer and Sons LTD, 1925), 29.
Folsom Richards, "The Formulation of Imperial 11 Nur-ud-Din Jahangir and Mahabat Khan,
Authority under Akbar and Jahangir,” in The Mughal Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri or memoirs of Jahangir: from the
State, 1526-1750, eds.Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay thirteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth year of
Subrahmanyam, (India: Oxford University Press, his reign Vol. II, trans. Alexander Roger and Henry
1998), 285-326; Lal, op.cit., 11; Lisa Balabanlilar, Beveridge (US: Project Gutenberg, 2016), epub, 12. 
“The Begims of the Mystic Feast: Turco-Mongol
Tradition in the Mughal Harem,” The Journal of
Asian Studies, no.69 (2010): 143-144.
6 John Folsom Richards, The Mughal Empire
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 6.

Ijtihad Vol.8 3

his reign in 1627 CE.12 This was an act of which may have been a conscious decision
great significance as no other Mughal of controlling the narrative and regulating
woman was conferred with this privilege in authority.18  In the seventeenth year of his
the long history of the Mughal Empire.  reign, after the death of Itimad ud Daulah,
(Nur Jahan’s father and the finance
III. Nur Jahan minister) he mentions that-

Nur Jahan was born in the Persian “On the first of the divine month of
household of Mirza Ghiyas Baig in the year Isfandarmuz, I gave the establishment and
1577 CE, while he was fleeing from Tehran everything belonging to the Amirship of
to India.13 Mirza Ghiyas found employment Itimad-ud-Daulah to Nur Jahan Begum and
under Akbar and then on account of his ordered that her drum and orchestra should
loyalty, his family rose to position and be sounded after those of the King.”19
power.14 Nur Jahan was first married to Sher
Afghan in 1594 CE. and later to Emperor Other privileges conferred on Nur Jahan,
Jahangir in 1611 CE after getting widowed which were otherwise meant for the king
in 1607 CE.15 He gave her the title of ‘Nur and symbolized his sovereignty in both
Mahal’ (light of the palace) in 1611 CE, in spatial and ritualistic dimensions, included
1613 CE, the title of Badshah Begum and in the performance of jharokha darshan and
1616 CE she was given the title of ‘Nur signing of royal farmans or edicts. Most
Jahan’ (light of the world).16 The title ‘Nur’ important of all of these was the issuing of
was related to Jahangir's own title coins. All these privileges or prerogatives
‘Nur-ud-din’ and invoked the cult of Divine included a public display of power and
Light started by Akbar and thus reflected the authority and have been described as
association of Nur Jahan with imperial evidence of Nur Jahan being a
authority and symbolism.17 co-sovereign.20 They were also reflective of
the kind of political agency that Nur Jahan
Different accounts from the reign of had in the Mughal court which was
Jahangir and even later portray Nur Jahan perceived in very different ways by different
and in different lights. Jahangir in his people, both of the Mughal nobility and
memoirs describes her favourably and foreign travellers as well her contemporaries
acknowledges her abilities and talents, and later sources.21 Contradicting accounts
although he does not mention her a lot, of her personality thus emerge. 

12 Schuster op cit., 30; Jayanti Rath, “Queens and For the European travellers such as
Coins of India,” The Orissa Historical Research Francisco Pelsaert, Nur Jahan was a crafty
Journal, no.47 (2004): 12. wife who had complete control over
13 Schuster op cit., 2. Jahangir and the court politics,
14 Ibid., 194.
15 Schuster op cit., 28. 18 Schuster op. cit., 29; Lal op. cit., 105
16 Soma Mukherjee, Royal Mughal Ladies and Their 19 Jahangir and Khan, op. cit., 228
Contributions (New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 20 Lal op. cit., 1-160.
2001): 133; Ellison Banks Findly, Nur Jahan, 21  Ibid., 11; Mukherjee op. cit., 140 ; Balabanlilar op.
Empress of Mughal India (US: Oxford University cit.,143; Shivangini Tandon, “Negotiating Political
Press, 1993): 40. Spaces and Contested Identities: Representation of
17  Ibid., 40; Hal Schrieve, “Gulbadan and Nur Jahan: Nur Jahan and Her Family in Mughal Tazkiras.” The
The Role of Women in the Creation of the Mughal Delhi University Journal of the Humanities and the
Court and Imperial Policy”, Social Sciences, no.2, (2015): 41-50.
http://hdl.handle.net/1773/33321.

Ijtihad Vol.8 4

appointments, and Jahangir was a king in IV. Coins of Nur Jahan
name only.22
Fig.1. A Silver Rupee Coin with the Name of
A similar description and sentiments are Nur Jahan (Source: Sarmaya Museum)
found in the accounts of other foreign
travellers such as Peter Mundy, an English Fig.2. A Golden Mohur bearing the name of
traveller and merchant,23 Thomas Roe, Jahangir and Nur Jahan (© The Trustees of the
Edward Terry, Pietro Della Valle as well as
later chronicles such as Iqbalnama written British Museum)
during the reign of Shah Jahan.24 This has
had a direct bearing on the way in which V. The Material of Make and Metrology
scholars have perceived both Jahangir as
well as Nur Jahan and has given rise to an Nur Jahan’s coins are found in both gold and
absence of clarity between those who want silver, that is, both mohurs and rupiyas, but
to remedy the perception of Jahangir as a not in copper (see figure 1 & 2). It is
weak and passive ruler and those who trace however unclear whether the coins bearing
the ascendancy and influence of Nur Jahan her name were used as currency or not or to
as a woman in the Mughal court. However, what extent they were used. Pelsaert
what is clear is that the primary texts mentions that very little trade is done with
mentioned above were almost always gold coins partly because they come directly
written with a certain bias and political from the King’s treasure and partly because
motives,25 thus, leading to these biases being most nobles hoard them as khazana or their
repeated at one level or the other. Therefore,
coins as an archaeological artefact become
important in this context. They have not
been analysed holistically so far, that is, they
have not been included in construction of a
historical narrative. That is not to say that
the interpretation and subsequent inclusion
of the analysis will be rid of biases, but
nonetheless, this avenue surely deserves
more attention than has been previously
provided. 

22 Pelsaert op. cit., 50.
23 Peter Mundy, ed., Richard Carnac Temple, The
Travels in Europe and Asia, 1608-1667 Vol II
(London: Cambridge University Press, 1914): 206.
24 Corrine Lefèvre, “Recovering a Missing Voice
from Mughal India: The Imperial Discourse of
Jahāngīr (r. 1605-1627) in his Memoirs,” Journal of
the Economic and Social History of the Orient, no.50
(2007): 454-455; Paromita Chakraborty, “The Aura
and Enigma of Nur Jahan,” Colloquium: A Journal of
the Arts Department, The Bhawanipur Education
Society College, no.3 (2016):78.
25 Lefèvre, op. cit., 452-89. 

Ijtihad Vol.8 5

personal treasure.26 Therefore, while gold written in Persian and the calligraphic style
coins served primarily as a store of value, used was mostly Nastaliq (see Fig. 1 & 2)
silver coins facilitated trade and although the Tughra style was also used at
commerce.27 Hence, the choice of metals for times.32 The ‘couplets’ type of coins has no
Nur Jahan’s coins is in a way reflective of icons or images on them while the zodiac
her political and economic agency as well as coin series consisted of twelve coins, each
a special status which is at once imperial in with a different constellation on the obverse
nature but also limited in the sense that it did and couplet on the reverse,33 showing clear
not penetrate the local economy or facilitate attempts for the creation of a self-image in
small scale transactions unlike the copper defiance of the Islamic laws or Sharia which
coins of Jahangir.  prohibit iconographic representation.34

The coins followed metrological standards The coins also contain ornamentation
of tola and were similar in weight and size including flower and leaf motifs, dots
to other standard imperial coins.28 Thus the among other symbols interspersed on the
weight of Nur Jahan’s coins which were surface of the coin. The exact purpose of
minted towards the later years of Jahangir’s these markers remains uncertain. However,
reign would have those based on Akbari according to C.J. Brown, there could either
standard of 180-188 grains for gold and 178 have been a connection between particular
grains for silver coins.29 symbols and mints or these marks may even
have served as a device to prevent or
VI. Types, Image and Inscriptions identify forgeries.35  

Two distinct types of coins bearing the name One of the most important aspects of Nur
of Nur Jahan were minted. First were the Jahan’s coins is the couplets inscribed on
coins bearing couplets on both the obverse them. These couplets, like the images on
and the reverse sides (see Fig. 1 & 2), zodiac coins, are also public proclamations
and second type of coins were the ones of of sovereignty as well as a means of
the zodiacal series issued by Jahangir in disseminating knowledge among the masses
1618 CE.30 All the coins issued by Nur or ‘propaganda’.36  This makes coins
Jahan were circular in shape and bear the  important as a source for understanding the
name of the mint and year of issue. The notions of sovereignty as projected to the
coins of each metal employed a distinctive masses situated away from the court.
aesthetic, with the gold mohurs having the Table137 contains a few of the different
finest calligraphy and workmanship, couplets which are found on the coins issued
followed by silver rupees and finally copper
dams.31 The inscriptions on coins were 32 PP Kulkarni, ed., A Collector’s Guide to Mughal
Coins and Mints (Calcutta: Jagdish Agarwal, 1989),
26 Pelsaert, op. cit., 29. 31.
27 Prakash, op. cit., 476. 33 Ibid., 10-11; Pelsaert, op. cit., 29; Muhammad
28 Pelsaert, op. cit, 29. Zia-ud-Din, “ Role of Nur Jahan: The Mughal
29 Schuster, op. cit., 30; Prakash, op.cit., 475-476. Empress of India,” Pakistan Perspective, no.17
30 Jahangir and Khan op. cit., 12; Pelsaert, op. cit., 29. (2012): 198.
31 John S. Deyell. “The Development of Akbar’s 34 Bacharach, op. cit., 1.
Currency System and Monetary Integration of the 35 CJ Brown, Catalogue of Coins in the Provincial
Conquered Kingdoms,” in The Imperial Monetary Museum, Lucknow. Coins of the Mughal Emperors
System of Mughal India, ed. John Folsom Richards Vol I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1920), 80.
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), 13-17. 36 Bacharach, op. cit., 1.
37 CJ Brown, op. cit., 27; Balabanlilar, op. cit., 143. 

Ijtihad Vol.8 6

in the name of Nur Jahan. Slight variations begins with ‘By order or by name of King
are found in the way the message has been Jahangir’. Not only is this reflective of the
conveyed. Some of these are found more status of Nur Jahan vis-a-vis Jahangir which
generally on coins, while others are specific was not equal, but it also essentially means
to particular mints.  that the king or Jahangir is still the absolute
source of all power and authority. Despite
Sr. Couplet Mint having issued coins jointly with Nur Jahan,
No. Jahangir still makes his status as the
sovereign very clear. Thus, the accuracy of
1.  By order of Shah General the present-day appellation of ‘co-sovereign’
Jahangir, gold has a application used for Nur Jahan becomes questionable, at
hundred splendours least in the context of the theoretical aspect
added to it by receiving of the notions of Mughal sovereignty.
the impression of the
name of Nur Jahan VII. On Political and Economic Agency 
Badshah Begum.
It is also important to locate Nur Jahan in
2.  From the name of Shah Lahore the wider context of the status of women of
Jahangir the face of the the Mughal household, which retained
coin of Lahore has certain aspects of its Turko-Mongol ancestry
become full of light. It well into the 17th century. This largely
has been increased by pertains to the mobility of the Mughal court
(the addition of) the as well as the subsequent porous boundaries
name Nur Jahan  between the harem and the court.38 Unlike
the women of the Ottoman and Safavid
3.  By order of Shah Lahore empires, women of the Mughal household
Jahangir the coin of were educated, patronized artists and
Lahore, by the name of architectural buildings.39 Economically, they
Nur Jahan Badshah were assigned their own jagirs, engaged in
became full of light.  trade and other commercial activities and
actively participated in.40 Thus the rise of
Table.1 A translation of Persian couplets on the Nur Jahan in the court was not wholly
Coins of Nur Jahan inconceivable or unprecedented as it was
very much a part and consequence of the
The titles used on these coins reflect the kind of privileges and agency that women
imperial status of both Jahangir and Nur had enjoyed in the past as well as continued
Jahan and hence Nur Jahan has been called a to enjoy in the future.41 Even the title of
co-sovereign by several scholars. However, Badshah Begum was not unique to Nur
one aspect that gets overlooked in the Jahan as this title and similar titles had been
creation of a narrative of Nur Jahan as a given to Royal ladies such as Khanzada
co-sovereign in an increasingly patriarchal
and centralized Mughal state is the source of 38 Ibid., 128-147.
her sovereignty and thus the nature of this 39 Balabanlilar, op. cit., 127-128. 
sovereignty itself. On analysing the structure 40 Fatima Bilgrami, “Economic Status of the Ladies
or the way these couplets have been written, of the Mughal Court (Summary),” Proceedings of the
it becomes clear that the source of this Indian History Congress, no.54 (1993): 359-360.
privilege is Jahangir himself, as each couplet 41 Mukherjee, op. cit., 15-127; Schimmel, op. cit.,
143-165.

Ijtihad Vol.8 7

Begum during the reign of Humayun and 1641-42 CE, narrates an interesting story
well as to Jahanara, daughter of Shah about Nur Jahan issuing her coins.46
Jahan.42 
According to this narrative, to perpetuate her
However, this does not negate her status as memory, Nur Jahan planned the issue of a
an exceptional figure. Her power and coin of unique design, with her name on one
privileges and importance become clearer side and a zodiac sign on the other. To
when compared to those enjoyed by other execute the same, she waited till her two
royal women. Therefore, this special status political adversaries, prince Khusrau and
is reflected not only in the acts of issuing Khurram and was no longer a threat as the
coins, signing farmans, performing jharokha former had been blinded and the latter had
darshan (all of which are symbols of been posted at Deccan. When both of them
sovereignty but in this case, ‘limited were away, she then persuaded Jahangir to
sovereignty’), but also in the size of her allow her to be the ruler for twenty-four
personal entitlements, the location and hours in his stead. She sent messengers to
importance of her jagirs, as well as that of mint masters to issue gold and silver coins
mints which were used to issue her coins.  amounting to the value of two million and
within two hours of her enthronement, she
The mints which were used to issue the distributed these coins among the people.
coins of Nur Jahan include Surat, Upon hearing this, prince Khurram became
Ahmedabad, Lahore, Agra, Akbarnagar, furious and when he ascended the throne in
Patna, Kashmir and Delhi.43 Out of these, 1628 CE, he prohibited the circulation of
Ahmedabad, Surat, Patna and Akbarabad these coins and had them melted down.
were the largest in terms of output and this Thus, the coins became very rare.47
relative importance of mints was in turn
determined by their commercial significance This anecdote, although factually incorrect, 
as having been located along the trade routes reveals a lot about how Nur Jahan and the
or strategic/ political significance.44 Surat, act of her issuing coins was perceived years
for example, was commercially one the most after Jahangir’s death. Neither did Nur Jahan
important ports and was a part of Nur become the sovereign for a day, nor was the
Jahan’s jagir.45 Therefore, the choice of idea of issuing zodiac coins solely her
mints used to issue the coins of Nur Jahan is own.48 However, here one can see the
equally telling about her economic and creation of an image of Nur Jahan as a
political agency.  woman who sought to usurp the power of
the sovereign which legitimately belonged
Tavernier, when visiting Agra in the years to Jahangir and his sons, and in this case, to
Prince Khurram or Shah Jahan. Jahangir was
42 Balabanlilar, op. cit., 133-141. effectively construed as a weak or passive
43 Kulkarni, op. cit., 42; Rath, op. cit., 12; RB ruler because he left the reigns of the
Whitehead, Catalogue of Coins in the Punjab government in the hands of a queen who
Museum, Lahore Vol II Coins of the Mughal 
Emperors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914), 46 RB Whitehead, “ The Portrait Medals and Zodiacal
 xxii-xxxv. Coins of the Emperor Jahangir II. The Zodiacal Coins
44 Aziza Hasan, “ Mints of the Mughal Empire: A (Continued),” The Numismatic Chronicle and
Study in Comparative Currency Output,” Journal of the Royal Numismatic Society, no.11
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress no.29 (1931): 93-94.
(1967): 314-345. 47 Ibid., 93-94.
45 Bilgrami, op. cit., 360. 48 Jahangir and Khan, op. cit., 12.

Ijtihad Vol.8 8

issued coins in her own name, which was sovereign. This was very much within the
seen as an infringement of the rights of the patriarchal structures of the empire and the
king or the sovereign. Therefore, the act of theory of kingship. In the light of the same,
her issuing coins becomes central to the a difference between the theory and the
creation of a narrative wherein both Jahangir practice of power emerges which further
and Nur Jahan are depicted in a certain light. complicates the use of the title
Furthermore, when Shah Jahan came to ‘co-sovereign’ for Nur Jahan. While in
power, a deliberate effort was made to theory, Jahangir never conferred absolute
control the narrative of court histories to sovereignty on her or sovereignty which
exclude the accomplishments or memory of would make her his equal. However, in
Nur Jahan.49 She was also accused of having practice, Nur Jahan does seem to have
caused much political instability in the exercised considerable power at the court.52
empire during the 1620s for her own selfish Therefore, the title of 'co-sovereign' used for
gains.50 This was in turn reflected in the ban Nur Jahan is problematic as it does not
put on the circulation of her coins by Shah implicitly or explicitly account for the
Jahan when he came to power as well as the difference between the theoretical and
popular stories that circulated practical aspects of sovereignty exercised by
subsequently.   both her and Jahangir in s shared time and
space. 
VIII. Conclusion
Secondly, the existing literature which
On analysing the coins of Nur Jahan, the makes use of the title co-sovereign for Nur
following points can be inferred. Firstly, the Jahan does not explain what exactly is
coins as symbols of sovereignty serve as a meant by it in that particular context.53 After
tool for understanding the nature, source, all, sovereignty, as a theoretical concept,
projection and perception of this varies over time and space. 
sovereignty. Based on the material of make
as well as couplets inscribed on the coins, Thirdly, coins are an equally important
the ‘sovereignty’ claimed by Nur Jahan source of historical inquiry when compared
appears to be ‘limited’ as compared to that to literary sources. As has been argued
of Jahangir, whose name still continues to be above, the material, mint, image,
the source of all power and authority within inscriptions and usage of coins offer
the empire. Locating this in the larger valuable insights into power politics and
trajectory of events, it becomes clear that socio-political dynamics working at a given
this transfer of sovereignty or point of time. When analysed and
‘co-sovereignty’ was a long drawn process corroborated with the literary evidence, they
and indeed was never realized in absolute bring out a more nuanced or holistic picture.
terms. There were still some prerogatives Therefore, coins serve as an important tool
solely reserved for the king such as reading of analysing and understanding the political
of the name in the khutba meant for the and economic agency Nur Jahan in the
wider public.51 Thus, even though Nur Jahan context of gender relations within the
exercised considerable power within the patriarchal institutions of the Mughal
court, Jahangir still remained the absolute
52 Ibid., 154; Pelsaert op. cit., 50; Jahangir and Khan,
49 Lal, op. cit., 219. op. cit., 228.
50 Ibid., 180- 128. 53 Ibid., 11; Balabanlilar op. cit., 143; Zia-udd-Din op
51 Ibid, 154. cit., 198; Findly op cit., 41-47.

Ijtihad Vol.8 9

Empire. Speaking Archaeologically for providing me
with the opportunity to work on this project. 
Acknowledgements
This is a Speaking Archaeologically
research project. I would like to thank

Ijtihad Vol.8 10

Bibliography Provincial Museum, Lucknow. Coins of the
Mughal Emperor Vol I. Oxford: Clarendon
Archaeology and Objects (Refer to Press, 1920.
Appendix I)
Chakrabarty, P. “The Aura and Enigma of
Sarmaya Museum, 2015.44.6 Nur Jahan.” Colloquium: A Journal
London, British Museum, IOC.1909 of the Arts Department, no.3 (2016):
Pakistan, Lahore Museum, A-1178 78-81.
Indian Museum, Kolkata
Anwar’s coin collection, KM-168.4 Deyell, John S. "The Development of
Anwar’s coin collection, KM-168.5 Akbar's Currency System and
Anwar’s coin collection, KM-168.6 Monetary Integration of the
Anwar’s coin collection, KM-168. Conquered Kingdoms." In The
Imperia Monetar System of Mughal
Bibliography India, edited by John Folsom
Richards, 13-67. Delhi: Oxford
Asher, C.B. and Cynthia Talbot.  India University Press, 1987.
Before Europe. UK: Cambridge
University Press,2006. Gautam S., and Vidushi Chandel. “A
Comparative Study of the Victorian
Bacharach, J.L. “Signs of sovereignty: the and Edwardian Coinage in British
Shahāda, Qurʾanic verses, and the India.” Speaking Archaeologically,
coinage of   ʿAbd      al-Malik.” no.1 (2018): 16-21.
Muqarnas Online, no.27(2010):1-30.
Habib, I. “A Political Theory for the Mughal
Banks Findly, E. “The Pleasure of Women: Empire—A Study Of The Ideas Of
Nur Jahan and Mughal Painting.’” Abu'l Fazl.” Proceedings of the
Asian art, no.6       (1999): 66-85. Indian History Congress no.59
(1998): 329-340.
—E. Nur Jahan, Empress of Mughal India.
US: Oxford University Press, 1993. Habib, I. “A System of Trimetallism in the
Age of the ‘Price Revolution’:
Balabanlilar, L. “The Begims of the Mystic Effects of the Silver Influx on the
Feast: Turco-Mongol Tradition in the Mughal Monetary System.'' In The
Mughal     Harem.” The Journal of Imperial Monetary System of Mughal
Asian Studies, no.69 (2010): India, edited by John Folsom
123-147. Richards, 137-170. New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1987.
Bilgrami, F.Z. “Economic Status of the
Ladies of the Mughal Court Hambly, Gavin, ed. Women in the Medieval
(Summary).” Proceedings of the Islamic World. US: Palgrave
Indian History Congress no.54 Macmillan, 1999.
(1993): 359-360.

Brown, C.J. Catalogue of Coins in the

Ijtihad Vol.8 11

Hasan, A. “Mints of the Mughal Empire: A (1995): 474-480.
Study in Comparative Currency
Output.” Proceedings of the Indian Mukherjee, S. Royal Mughal Ladies and
History Congress no. 29 (1967): Their Contributions. New Delhi:
314-345. Gyan Publishing House, 2001.

Hasan, S.N., 1958, January. The Theory of Mundy, P. and  Richard Carnac Temple ed.,
Nur Jahan Junta'—A Critical The Travels in Europe and Asia,
Examination.”  Proceedings of the 1608-1667 Vol II. London:
Indian History Congress no. 21 Cambridge University Press, 1914.
(1958): 324-335.
Padshah Jahangir N. The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri:
Kemmers, F. and Nanouschka Myrberg, Or, Memoirs of Jahangir Vol I.
“Rethinking numismatics. The Translated by Henry Beveridge and
archaeology of coins,” Alexander Roger. US: Project
Archaeological Dialogues, no.18, Gutenberg, 2016. epub.
(2011): 87-108.
— Mahabat Khan. Beveridge, H. and
King, L.W. and William Vost. “Some Rogers, A. (trans.).
Novelties in Moghal Coins.” The Tuzuk-l-Jahangiri or Memoirs of
Numismatic Chronicle and Journal Jahangir Vol II. Translated by  Henry
of the Numismatic Society, no.16 Beveridge and Alexander Roger.
(1896): 155-182. US: Project Gutenberg, 2016. Epub.

Kulkarni, P.P. (ed.). A Collector’s Guide to Pant, C.  Nur Jahan and Her Family.
Mughal Coins and Mints. Calcutta: Allahabad: Dandewal Publishing
Jagdish Agarwal, 1989. House, 1978.

—Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Pelsaert F. Jahangir's India: the
Jahan. New York: WW Norton & Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert,
Company, 2018. Translated by William H Moreland,
and P. Geyl. Cambridge: W. Heffer
—Domesticity and power in the early and Sons LTD, 1925.
Mughal world. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2005. Prakash, O. “On Coinage in Mughal India.”
The Indian Economic & Social
Lefèvre, C. “Recovering a Missing Voice History Review, no.25 (1988):
from Mughal India: The Imperial 475-491.
Discourse of Jahāngīr (r. 1605-1627)
in his Memoirs.” Journal of the Poole, S.L. The Coins of the Moghul
Economic and Social History of the Emperors of Hindustan in the British
Orient, no.50 (2007): 452-489. Museum. London, Order of  the
Trustees,1892.
Metcalf, B.D. “Narrating lives: a Mughal
Empress, a French Nabob, a Rath, J. “Queens and Coins of India.” The
nationalist Muslim intellectual.” Orissa Historical Research Journal,
Journal of Asian Studies no.54 no.47 (2004). 11-14.

Ijtihad Vol.8 12

Richards, J.F. "The Formulation of Imperial Tandon, S. “Negotiating Political Spaces
  and Contested Identities:

Richards, J.F. ed. The Imperial Monetary Representation of Nur Jahan and Her
  Family in Mughal Tazkiras.” The
Delhi University Journal of the
—. —The Mughal Empire. UK: Humanities and the Social Sciences,
Cambridge University Press, 1995. no.2, (2015): 41-50.

Schimmel, A. The Empire of the Great Whitehead, R.B. “The Portrait Medals and
Mughals: History, Art and Culture. Zodiacal Coins of the Emperor
London: Reaktion Books, 2004. Jahangir II. The Zodiacal Coins
(Continued).” The Numismatic
Schrieve, H., 2015. Gulbadan and Nur Chronicle and Journal of the Royal
Jahan: The Role of Women in the Numismatic Society, no.11 (1931):
Creation of the Mughal Court and
Imperial Policy. 91-130.
—.Catalogue of Coins in the Punjab
Schuster, M. "Light of the World: The Life
and Legacy of Nur Jahan.” Museum, Lahore Vol II. London:
Armstrong Undergraduate Journal Clarendon Press, 1914.
of History, no.7 (2017): .27-43.
Whitehead, R.B. “The portrait medals and
Shivram, B. “Mughal Court Rituals: The zodiacal coins of the Emperor
symbolism of Imperial Authority Jahāngīr.” The Numismatic
During Akbar’s Reign,” Proceedings
of the Indian History Congress, Chronicle and Journal of the Royal
no.67 (2006): 331-349).  Numismatic Society, no.9 (1929):

Strnad, J. Monetary History of Mughal India 1-25.

as Reflected in Silver Coin Wright, N.H. Catalogue of the Coins in the

Hoards.New Delhi: Harman Indian Museum Calcutta Including
Publishing House, 2000. the Cabinet of the Asiatic Society of
Bengal vol III: Mughal Emperors of
India. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1908.

Zia-ud-Din, M., 2012. Role of Nur
Jahan: The Mughal Empress of
India. Pakistan Perspective, no.17
(2012): 193-204.

Ijtihad Vol.8 13

Model Occupation: Investigating The Alleged Collaborations In The Channel
Islands During The German Occupation

Soumyaseema Mandal
Department of History, Lady Shri Ram College for Women

It is said that history is written by the victors. On the face of it, Channel Islands may seem one
such victor of the Second World War. The Channel Islands, one of the crown dependencies of
Great Britain, has continued to remain an interest to many of the Occupation historians.
Scholars have argued that the Nazi Occupation of the Channel Islands has been somewhat
different than what was witnessed in the rest of the continent. Many of them have not failed to
associate a negative connotation to this distinction. Although the official history published in
1975 tried to balance the narrative, the declassification of certain files followed by Madeleine
Bunting's book stirred up controversy around the conduct of the wartime officials and the civil
population. Besides, the use of terms like ‘Model Occupation’ has left no stone unturned to scale
down the pain, distress, and hardship experienced by the Islanders between 1940 and 1945. This
paper is an attempt to look at the alliances that may have materialized between the locals and
the German soldiers. It would further inspect whether all these relationships could be delimited
as ‘Collaboration with the Enemy’. The notion that any placid correspondence between the
Islanders and the soldiers is equivalent to fraternising the Occupiers will also be scrutinized.
The basic purpose of this paper is to understand the local dynamics between the civil population,
local officials, and the stationed German soldiers in the context of an apparent absence of what
the French have appropriately termed as résistancialisme or Resistance-ism.

I. Introduction pride in their autonomy and shared heritage,
it was England they looked up to in matters
The British Channel Islands are
micro-states, situated off the north-west of international relevance. Furthermore, it
coast of France. Their four most notable was not just the idea of constitutional
Islands around which the controversial story protection that they were inclined to hold
of the Nazi Occupation unfolded in the onto. They were also economically
1940s are Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and dependent on the Mainland, as is evident
Sark. As British Crown dependencies, the from the quantum of exports and imports.54
islands are formally not a part of the UK
constitutional and political processes. But at So when the British War Cabinet came out
the same time, the Islanders and their loyalty
towards the British Crown was not a 54 The sum total of all exported goods from the
clandestine affair. They have time and again Channel Islands in 1939, as quoted by the Channel
demonstrated their value to the country and Islands Monthly Review, published by the Stockport
its people. As pointed out by Jerseyman and District Channel Island Society in September
Lord Portsea in the House of Lords on 7 1943, reached a value of £4,700,000, and their
March 1944, the gallant deeds of the collective imports from Britain, an even higher figure
Islanders for the Crown can never be at £6,000,000.
forgotten. Therefore, although they took

  14

55 Hazel Knowles Smith, Changing Face of the these assertions keeping in mind the grass
Channel Islands Occupation : Record, Memory and root political dynamics of the Islands.
Myth. (UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), Introduction Oxford dictionary defines collaboration as a
XV. ‘traitorous cooperation with the enemy’. It is
indeed challenging sometimes to
compartmentalize activities in the baskets of
traitorous and non-traitorous. Therefore, a
contextual examination is significant to
ascertain the nature of these relationships.
Moreover, the meaning of the term ‘enemy’
starts to dwindle once we do away with a
generic overview and initiate a focused
inquiry in a specific context. For instance,
until the latter part of 1944, the German
officers in charge of running the Islands
were not Schutzstaffel (SS) Police, neither
were they devoted to Nazi party ideals.
Many had a background in administrative
affairs, and a large number appeared on the
surface at least to be quite charming and
cultured, for example, Baron Hans Max von
Aufsess and Prince von Oettingen.56 So, they
were equally interested in maintaining peace
and harmony in the Islands as the local
officials because anything otherwise would
throw them back to the eye of the storm that
had entrapped most of Europe.

This paper will therefore look at the accused
episodes of collaboration from three
different angles and attempt a study of their
features.

II. Alliances With Seemingly No Ulterior
Motive

One of the biggest dilemmas during the
Occupation was faced by the civilian
population, who could not avoid running
into the Germans either in public places or at
their homes when the German soldiers came
to collect their requisitions. These Islanders
found their encounters tinged with
uncertainty as they wrestled with numerous
small daily dilemmas. What level of
interaction was acceptable? How should

56 Ibid., 25.

Ijtihad Vol.8 15

they respond when a soldier acknowledged ‘You will never know how much I appreciate
them in the street, or stopped to ask this,’ Ulrich said, awkwardly shaking Mrs.
directions?57 Moreover, the directives of the Smith’s hand. ‘For as long as I live, I will
British Home Office before they left the not forget your kindness.’59
Islands and that of the Bailiffs had  
determined the options for possible Episode B
resistance to the invader in advance.58 In
such circumstances, it is very imperative to Gladys Sangan, a Guernsey girl,
differentiate amongst the well-disposed experienced a love story of a lifetime,
encounters that may have taken place something that she could not have possibly
between the two entities.  imagined in her wildest dreams. She did
have a fulfilling life with a violent husband
Episode A and daughters until they were evacuated in
1940. After the German Occupation, she met
A young Wehrmacht lieutenant, Ulrich Hugo Fach, a young soldier whom “she still
Dryer, was celebrating his twenty-first calls the love of her life”, although it was
birthday at the Smith family hotel on Cobo just a few meetings with a guaranteed
beachfront. He also had one of his legs heartbreaking ending. The Sunday Mail
broken in a motor accident. Mrs. Smith, Review described it ‘as a last testament to an
being the generous old lady that she was, impossible love that transcended war,
could not control herself after getting to politics, and even the conditions of a decent
know about this tragedy. life, but [was] surely no less beautiful for
that’.
 ‘I made a carrot cake today,’ she told her
husband.  Given that many of these alleged
‘How about if I take it in for Oolie to eat collaborators were fully aware of the trouble
with his friends?’‘Absolutely not!’ they were getting into, the term
exclaimed Mr. Smith, who had fought on the ‘fraternization’ does not seem to do justice
Western Front.  to the unusual family circumstances and the
‘Just imagine if we had a son, and he was consequent anxieties that the Islanders
celebrating his twenty-first birthday miles faced. For others, as Ralph Durand
away from home,’ she protested. elaborates, the efforts on the part of the
‘We haven’t got a son,’ said Mr. Smith. ‘Only Germans to disillusion the Islanders about
two daughters who need every crumb we the wars or Germany’s records made many
can give them.’  ‘prepared to be friendly with the Germans’
But he could see the strength of feeling in his and put the guilt for their misery on the local
wife’s eyes, and he had no wish to fight with officials. In the above-mentioned instances,
her. ‘All right then,’ he agreed with they were no real gain on anyone’s part, nor
resignation.  was there a common pursuit that they were
Mrs. Smith with her limited resources did working for. It is very mechanical of us to
manage to pull off a small birthday associate anything else than pure
celebration. compassion and love to the relationship that
developed between Mrs. Smith and the
57  Duncan Barrett, Hitler’s British Isle : The Real soldier. Hence, classifying relationships
Story of the Occupied Channel Islands (London; New emanating from pure love, compassion, and
York: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 96-97.
58 Smith, op. cit., 23. 59  Barrett, op. cit., 104-105.

Ijtihad Vol.8 16

empathy into conventional categories of Islands’ censored Press.61 Paul Sanders is
patriots and enemies can be somewhat very critical of these overarching negative
problematic.  overtones attached to collaboration and calls
some of these as ‘tactical maneuvers to
III. Political Alliance With German deflect German fire’. 

Officers Moreover, there is a need to understand the
various motives or responsibilities that
The first rumors of a possible collaboration influenced their decision-making and
between the Bailiffs and the German political consciousness—duty of office,
officials started doing rounds after the radio loyalty to the Crown, speculation of the
broadcast by Guernsey’s President of the repercussions of various German threats,
Controlling Committee, Ambrose Sherwill. patriotism, and responsibilities towards
Sherwill referred to the German occupiers as family, friends, and countrymen. They also
reasonable people who had treated the had to deal with threats of hostage and the
Islanders with courtesy and respect. He possibility of other worse treatment meted
further confessed that he was not speaking out to the Channel Islanders, particularly the
from a script written by the Germans nor did Jewish population. In fact, without their
he have a gun pointing at him.60 initial adherence and political
farsightedness, the Islands would have never
On 23 October 1940, anti-Semitic laws achieved a position to bargain when the time
started taking shape under the garb of a arose. Moreover, nobody was sure about the
German Order meant to implement extent of the retaliation of any act of
‘elaborate regulation for registration of the resistance. Additionally, it was the concept
entire civil population’. The absence of any of “resistance myth” as explained by Tony
objection from the Bailiffs to the registration Judt that exaggerated the importance of
of the first anti-Jewish Order led to several resistance and anti-German sentiment in
accusations of collaboration with the enemy. postwar European thought. If being guilty
In the spring of 1942, the German militants included collaborative acts, then being
came out with another Order with a fair innocent implied an anti-German stance.62
warning of deportation if their directives But such a simplistic categorization of their
were disobeyed. The official response of the encounters and interactions fails to capture
Island government was almost the complexity and the fluidity of the
indistinguishable from the earlier ones. As a boundaries. Again, that does not suggest that
result, they were time and again associated the Island government did not commit
with the innocuous term, ‘collaboration’. mistakes, particularly during the Jewish
registration. 
The fact is that many accusations of Despite the tainted picture of a docile
collaboration with the enemy have occurred government, it is not that the Bailiffs never
simply as a result of the wording of various put up a untrammeled show of devotion. As
Government announcements made in the a matter of fact, Ambrose Sherwill had to

60 Roy Macloughlin, Living with the Enemy: An 61 Smith, op. cit., 32.
Outline of the German Occupation of the Channel 62 Gilly Carr, “Occupation Heritage, Commemoration
Islands with First Hand Accounts by People Who and Memory in Guernsey and Jersey,” History and
Remember the Years 1940 to 1945 (St. John, Jersey: Memory 24, no. 1 (2012): 87,
Channel Island Publishing, 125. https://doi.org/10.2979/histmemo.24.1.87.

Ijtihad Vol.8 17

face arrest and imprisonment on the charges were the ubiquitous spies and informers,
of harboring German enemies, two of the who could be tempted with a few extra
British officers, Nicolle and Symes. shillings or just with the idea of taking
Alexander Coutanche was no different. revenge against their neighbors. ‘Spies,
Irrespective of his public image, his ‘appeal frequently females, would stand in queues
for mercy’ on behalf of Mesdemoiselles and listen to gossip and it was not unknown
Schwob and Malherbe and decision to resign for one member of a family to denounce
in the wake of bulk deportation of the another.’65 In such circumstances, the
innocent Islanders is enough to reiterate the situation seemed much more tense. The
loyalty of the local government. Therefore, Germans took advantage of this opportunity
‘collaboration’ in an absolute sense could from both sides—more civilians easily
not be applied to the Channel Islands, blurted out the truth, and the lucrative
especially while defining the relationship remuneration did attract a few of them. 
between the Island government and the
German soldiers. V. Conclusion

IV. Alliances That Jeopardized The As it has been observed on several
Interests Of The Islanders occasions, in the effort to bind together a
broader narrative, the nuances of a few
Despite having made an attempt to explain episodes or activities get overlooked. In the
the position of Islanders and the Island end, we tend to get disenchanted due to the
government, the alliances that have been overshadowing generalization within and
formed based on pure economic interests beyond the categories. The Channel Islands
and political gains need no explanation. have been inculpated of ‘collaboration’,
Amongst other citizens who had favored the ‘co-operation’, ‘fraternization’. Without an
enemy and made money out of the accurate epistemological knowledge of the
Occupation were various farmers, black terminologies, their use can lead to
marketers, and profiteers,63 and this group misleading results. It cannot be denied that
had to face enough criticism from their there were episodes of cooperation between
fellows. The indignation for such an act was the Islanders and the German officials.
so high that once, when a Jersey bank clerk, Coming to the sobriquet collaboration, the
outraged by the bags stuffed with German ulterior motive of both sides comes into
money that certain islanders who had traded play. Although it is impossible to predict the
with the Germans were asking him to exact scheme that may have driven them, it
change, drew up a list of their names. His is not implausible to get a sense of it. In the
sister remembers: ‘He was told by one of the first case, most of the Islanders did not
Liberation Force officers to tear the list up consider the Germans necessarily as their
because Churchill had said that the British enemies, and therefore, it cannot be called
Empire was not to know about things like fraternization. Similarly, the collaboration
that.’64 also seemed to be dicey, particularly in the
first case, because there was no
Another group of Islanders who had give-and-take except for their emotional
voluntarily collaborated with the enemies attachment. The third case can definitely be
classified as collaboration since they did
63 Smith, op. cit., 165. away with the allegiance towards the nation
64  Madeleine Bunting, Model Occupation. (United
Kingdom: Vintage, 2017), 251.  65 Smith, op. cit., 165.

Ijtihad Vol.8 18
 
they identified with. But, some degree of
deviation cannot be ruled on account of
widespread unemployment66 and rising
prices.67 In fact, to solve this problem, Paul
Sanders has suggested the usage of the
various typologies of collaborations
established by Werner Rings and Peter
Davies, for instance, heart-and-soul
collaboration, shield philosophy, conditional
collaboration, tactical collaboration,
submission on the grounds of superior force,
and wait-and-see collaboration
(attentisme).68

66 With the breakdown of trade links between the
Islands and England, hundreds of Jersey and
Guernsey residents were out of work. Immiseration
followed after the collapse of the islands’ inadequate
parish welfare programmes under the burden of need.
67 The economic crisis marked by scarce food
supplies and price rationing of some essential items
gave way to hoarding and black markets—where the
same products were sold at exorbitant prices. 
68 Paul Sanders, The British Channel Islands under
German Occupation, 1940-1945 (Jersey: Societe
Jersiaise, 2005), 67.

Ijtihad Vol.8 19

Bibliography Macloughlin, Roy. Living with the Enemy :
An Outline of the German
Barrett, Duncan. Hitler’s British Isles : The Occupation of the Channel Islands
Real Story of the Occupied Channel with First Hand Accounts by People
Islands. London: Simon & Schuster, Who Remember the Years 1940 to
2018. 1945. St. John, Jersey: Channel
Island Publishing, 2005.
Bennett, Rab. Under the Shadow of the
Swastika: The Moral Dilemmas of R C F Maugham. Jersey under the Jackboot.
Resistance and Collaboration in (Reissued.). London: Transworld
Hitler’s Europe. Basingstoke: Publishers, 1971.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Bunting, Madeline. Model Occupation. Sanders, Paul. “Managing under Duress:
United Kingdom: Vintage, 2017.
Ethical Leadership, Social Capital

and the Civilian Administration of

Carr, Gilly. “Occupation Heritage, the British Channel Islands during
Commemoration and Memory in
Guernsey and Jersey.” History and the Nazi Occupation, 1940–1945.”
Memory 24, no. 1 (2012): 87.
https://doi.org/10.2979/histmemo.24. Journal of Business Ethics 93, no. S1
1.87.
(June 2010): 113–29.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0

629-4.

Hazel Knowles Smith. Changing Face of the Sanders, Paul. The British Channel
Channel Islands Occupation : Islands under German Occupation,
Record, Memory and Myth. UK: 1940-1945. Jersey: Societe Jersiaise,
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 2005.

Ijtihad Vol.8 20

Romancing the Revolution: A Marxist Reading of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Select
Excerpts

Anushree Joshi
Department of English, Lady Shri Ram College for Women

This essay performs a reading of post-Partition Pakistan's renowned poet, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, in the
framework of Antonio Gramsci’s and Louis Althusser's Marxist discourses on hegemony and ideology.
The qualitative analysis of select excerpts from Faiz’s oeuvre is located within these frameworks,
alongside the socio-historical conditions of his material un-freedom. This  contextualisation allows for the
radical potential of these ghazals to be critically considered,  since these becomes instances of an
intellectual war of manoeuvre, argued in Gramsci, and are  beyond their time in their subversive power,
as they preempt how Ideological State  Apparatuses (ISAs) are inscribed in literature, art, and education.
The ISAs, historically and politically, have preserved their hegemonic control because they remain
seemingly autonomous and hidden, normalising them in day-to-day life. Faiz’s employment of romance 
and concurrent imagery makes his poetry a site of ideological contestation, in a way emptying  the ISAs
and repressive state apparatuses (RSAs) of their power, by normalising revolution  through romantic
aestheticisation. The paper further argues that Faiz's "Lauh-o-Qalam," "Mujh se pehli si muhabbat," and
"Jaan nisaar teri galiyon mein" become ideological sites for using the normative popularity of romantic
metaphors and imagery, through which he contests the oppressive narrative of the ruling class.

I. Introduction

Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911-1984) was an opposed to the barā-e adab (literature for
literature’s sake) function.71
avowed Marxist, the winner of the Lenin
To understand the radical potential of his
Peace Prize, a prominent figure of the poetry, one has to pay close attention to the
contexts his collections were written in, and
Progressive Writers’ Movement,69 and a the titles they acquired during those times.
For example, Zindan Nama or Prison
bilingual70 poet and author of Narrative was written during the 1950s,
when Faiz was imprisoned in the
pre-Independence India and Rawalpindi Case for a conspiracy to
overthrow the Liaquat administration, and
post-Independence Pakistan. His art is an its prominent tonality is of optimism,
undercutting the bleak underpinnings of his
integral embodiment of the adab barā-e material circumstances, with poems such as
“For Your Lanes, My Country”72 and the
zindagī (literature for life’s sake) and following couplet (shayari), which has been

taraqqī pasand (progressive) ideologies, as 71 A. Sean Pue, “Rethinking Modernism and
Progressivism in Urdu Poetry: Faiz Ahmed Faiz and
69 This began with the formal establishment of the N. M. Rashed,” Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan
Progressive Writers’ Association in London in 1935, Studies, vol. 5, no. 1 (2013): 1.
with Munshi Premchand delivering his seminal 72 The translation by Riz Rahim will be followed
Presidential address, entitled “Sahitya ka Uddeshya” throughout this essay.
or “The Nature and Purpose of Literature.” Its
members included eminent writers and artists such as
Amrita Pritam, Kaifi Azmi, Ismat Chughtai, Saadat
Hasan Manto, Sahir Ludhianvi, and Mulk Raj Anand,
and Sajjad Zaheer – he was also imprisoned in the
Rawalpindi conspiracy case along with Faiz. The
objectives and ideologies of the PWA were
left-leaning, Marxist, with the literary style
incorporating social realism.
70  Faiz had pursued and received two MA degrees –
one in Arabic, and the other in English.

Ijtihad Vol.8 21

resurrected multiple times over the course of society74 and the role of the intellectuals75 in
history, is the apt example of this formidable the 1930s restructured this to argue that the
sense of hope: base and superstructure were not in a
one-dimensional relationship, but had a
“दिल ना-उमीद तो नहीं नाकाम ही तो है / लम्बी circular form of exchange, through the
है ग़म की शाम मगर शाम ही तो है|”73 employment of hegemony76 (domination
through consent) that made the ruling class’
This essay examines Faiz’s poetry, primarily narrative appear as common-sense for the
“For Your Lanes” and “My Beloved, Do entire society.
Not Ask Me for My Former Kind of Love”
(“Mujh se pahli si muhabbat mere mahbub Faiz’s writings imbibe within them an
na mang”), in the framework of Marxist outlook that was beyond his time, and would
literary theory and the significance of be theorised in the 1970-essay by Althusser
ideology in literary culture, and then – “Ideology and the Ideological State
examines how Faiz uniquely adapts this Apparatuses.”
notion by employing the metaphor of
romance for revolution.  In this essay, Althusser furthered Gramsci’s
notions of hegemony, by laying more
II. Ideology and the Marxist Framework significance upon the ruling class’ narrative,
in Faiz materially practiced and propagated through

The theoretical framework for Faiz’s 74 Gramsci notes: “What we can do, for the moment,
writings, after “Do Not Ask,” is clearly is to fix two major superstructural ‘levels’: the one
Marxist, and it is integral to look at Antonio that can be called ‘civil society’, that is the ensemble
Gramsci’s collection, Prison Notebooks, to of organisms commonly called ‘private’, and that of
analyse the revolutionary ideology ‘political society’ or ‘the State.’” Antonio Gramsci
underpinning Faiz’s Zindan Nama, and other “The Formation of the Intellectuals.” Selections from
works. Marxist theory presents the spatial the Prison Notebooks, edited and translated by
infrastructure of society in the form of an Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, 11th ed.,
economic base and cultural superstructure, 5-14 (New York: International Publishers, 1992), 12.
while Gramsci’s theories about the civil 75 Gramsci argues that any social group, in order to
gain power, must develop its own intellectuals,
73 This heart is not hopeless, but lacks purpose for the known as organic intellectuals. There should also be
moment / The dusk of sorrow is long, but it’s dusk an effort to create and sustain an alliance with
nonetheless”; Faiz Faiz Ahmed Faiz, “दिल ना-उमीद traditional intellectuals, for example, religious
तो नहीं नाकाम ही तो है.” Rekhta, Accessed figures. Intellectuals, on a whole, are not categorised
February24,2021. merely by intellectual thought or activity, but by their
https://www.rekhta.org/couplets/dil-naa-umiid-to-nah role in the organisation of society: “The functions in
iin-naakaam-hii-to-hai-faiz-ahmad-faiz-couplets?lang question are precisely organisational and connective.
=hi. The intellectuals are the dominant group's "deputies"
exercising the subaltern functions of social hegemony
and political government.” Ibid., 12.
76 Organic intellectuals of a social group function by
establishing its hegemony, which may be understood
as follows: “The ‘spontaneous’ consent given by the
great masses of the population to the general
direction imposed on social life by the dominant
fundamental group; this consent is ‘historically’
caused by the prestige (and consequent confidence)
which the dominant group enjoys because of its
position and function in the world of production.”
Ibid., 12.

Ijtihad Vol.8 22

the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs),77 Deemed to be a threat for the ruling
which includes the school, family, and administration in his socio-political context,
cultural domains of art and literature.  Faiz’s romance metaphors are a safeguard
against censorship and punishment, but they
III. Metaphors of Romance and are relevant even today because the intimate
Resistance intermingling of the personal with the
political80 uniquely connects with the
Faiz’s works strike at the core of such ISAs, popular sentiment.
since he skilfully employs the images and
symbolism relevant to the common masses The transformation from inward-gazing
and cloaks the radical potential of his ideas romanticism to the progressive strain of
within predominantly romantic metaphors. using romantic metaphors as a tool of
Overtly attacking the ISAs, as Althusser subversion occurred post-1941, as his work
remarks, is not possible since “individuals was described until then by critics as
are always-already subjects”78 but playing “standing at the ‘junction of Romance and
with language and literature to connect with Reality.’”81 With regard to this change, Faiz
the masses allows for an alternative himself noted:
perspective, breaking the illusion of the
obviousness that ISAs infuse within material “[T]hese writings are related to the mental
practices of ideology.79 impressions and thought processes which
started with ‘My Beloved, Do Not Ask Me
77 In Althusser, the State comprises State power and for My Former Kind of Love.’”82
State Apparatus (SA). The latter is further inclusive
of the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) and the The two writings here include Dast-e-Saba
Repressive State Apparatus (RSA). Althusser states, or Hand of the Wind and Zindan Nama or
“[T]he Ideological State Apparatuses function Prison Narrative. The former, or first, love
massively and predominantly by ideology, but they for Faiz’s speaker is the revolution that
also function secondarily by repression, even if liberates the masses, and it becomes
ultimately, but only ultimately, this is very attenuated poignant to remember this pleading caution
and concealed, even symbolic”. He further argues from the speaker regarding all the poems, or
that “no class can hold State power over a long
period without at the same time exercising its are themselves defined by the material ideological
hegemony over and in the State Ideological
Apparatuses” (Althusser Louis Althusser, “Ideology apparatus from which derive the ideas of that
and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an
Investigation),” in the Lenin and Philosophy and subject,” Ibid., 169.
Other Essays, trans. Ben Brewster (New York:
 Monthly Review Press, 2002), 145-147. 80 This is fittingly summarised in Faiz’s response to a
78 ISAs secure their hegemony by remaining latent question by interviewer Allen Jones: “One’s outlook
and “what thus seems to take place outside ideology is formed basically by the urge for freedom, not for
(to be precise, in the street), in reality takes place in oneself, but for one’s fellow beings – freedom from
ideology,” Ibid., 175. oppression of all kinds, from exploitation. In a
79 The Ideological State Apparatus (ISA), which country such as Pakistan, the function of the poet is
includes the institutions such as family, school, and as a recording instrument of the dominant aspirations
religion, among others, thus comprises these multiple of the people, of their sufferings and happiness,” Faiz
ideologies which seem obvious truths, but are Faiz Ahmed and Allen Jones, “Interviews With Faiz
actually narrativised by the ruling class for Ahmed Faiz,” Journal of South Asian Literature, vol.
consolidating their power. Althusser explains that one 10, no. 1(1974): 141–144.
can note this interpellation, which is otherwise latent
and insidiously invisible to subjects, as follows: 81 Rashed qtd. in Pue op cit., 4
“[H]is ideas are his material actions inserted into P82oCetarryloOCf oFpapizolAa,h“mAendotFhaeirz,A” dJooluersncaelnocfe:STouhtehPArissioann
material practices governed by material rituals which Literature, vol. 27, no. 2(1992): 152.

Ijtihad Vol.8 23

romances, which follow this one – nothing following in this regard:
would be like his first love for revolution.
The scatological imagery of the bloodshed “‘Those things which happen to the heart’
that is the cost of revolutionary uprising and in this context refer not only to love, but also
the preceding injustice in the society is to any other experience the heart—here a
juxtaposed with the romantic image of the synecdoche for the whole person—may
beloved’s “husn” or sensual body: experience, including confinement to jail
[for his leftist convictions and struggle].”85
रेशम ओ बअिकतलतसे हुएओकूकचमा-ओख़ा-बबामज़ंे बारनु मवंे ाजएिहस्ुएम
जा-ब-जा IV. Struggle in the Realm of Revolution
ख़ाक मंे लथु ड़े हुए ख़नू में नहलाए हुए and Romance
जिस्म निकले हुए अमराज़ के तन्नरू ों से
पीप बहती हुई गलते हुए नासरू ों से Not only is the imagery of Faiz’s poetry
लौट जाती है उधर को भी नज़र क्या कीजे romantically evoking the revolution, in his
अब भी दिलकश है तिरा हुस्न मगर क्या कीजे 83 transitional poem, “Do Not Ask,” the
speaker reminds the readers that the love is
The juxtaposition of this blood, a metonym not to eclipse the vision of all that lies in the
for revolution, with the heartaches world outside of the relationship. In a
associated with the romantic separation from critical essay on progressive poetry, “Faiz
a beloved is also seen in “Slate and Pen” or speaks of the ‘distance’ between the poet
“Lauh-o-Qalam,” where he writes about and his public as a loss;” thus, when the
things “which happen to the heart,” and the refrain from “Do Not Ask” echoes,
socio-political context of the times also
figures in this seemingly romantic “और भी दखु हैं ज़माने मंे मोहब्बत के सिवा /
alienation: राहतंे और भी हैं वस्ल की राहत के सिवा |”86

“We shall gather reasons for the sorrows of There is a connection formed between the
loss of justice for the people, and the
love / And thus remove the desolateness of speaker, transcending the inward-gazing
the times”84 romanticism that may lead the speaker to
surrender melancholically to the tragedy of
Further, in the sixth couplet of the poem, the separation. 
speaker states that he will use the
tear-coloured red from his heart’s blood, to In his introductory essay for Dast-e-Saba
decorate the beloved’s cheeks and lips. The (Hand of the Wind), Faiz articulated the
beloved here can be read as a symbol not following:
only for people, but for the homeland as
well. Coppola pinpoints the nerve of such “‘Art is a part of this Life, and an artistic
juxtapositions and metaphors, by stating the effort is just one aspect of this struggle. This
demand of the artist remains eternally;
83 “Bitter threads began to unravel before me / as I therefore, his struggle has no end. His art
went into alleys and in open markets / saw bodies lies in endless effort and in eternal
plastered with ash, bathed in blood. / I saw them sold
and bought, again and again. / This too deserves 85 Coppola op cit., 155.
attention. I can’t help but look back / when I return 86 Faiz op cit., lines 8-9; “There are other sorrows in
from those alleys – what should one do? / And you this world, / comforts other than love.”
are still so ravishing – what should I do?”
Faiz, op cit.
84 Faiz qtd. in Coppola op cit., 153.

Ijtihad Vol.8 24

struggle|’”87 However, the lines succeeding these are a
sharp contrast to the hope here, as the
This outlines that Faiz sees art and life, both material reality of the speaker confines him
produced through a dialectical interaction within the prison – he lives in “imagined
according to Marxism, and this struggle of days and nights,” as he exists “in the shadow
life and art incorporates the conflicted of the prison walls.”91
nuance of the separated beloved/lover of the
ghazal and the courtly poet tradition, which The imagination, even in this confinement,
Faiz was well-versed with due to his becomes an emancipatory route for the
education in both Arabic and English.88 speaker and the distance between him and
Thus, the transition from the beloved is bridged through the same.
romantic/revolutionary juxtapositions leads Gramsci’s idea of a revolution incorporates a
his later collections into embracing the war of position that precedes the direct,
romantic counterpart of this binary, and the physical war of manoeuvre against the
revolution becomes an inevitable part of this State.92 In the former, there is a struggle
relationship, instead of another conflict, as against the hegemony of the civil society,
emphasised in the use of “और भी दखु ,”89 which may also be understood as
othering it even as he recognises it. Althusser’s ISAs. Faiz’s verse here becomes
an instance of this ideological struggle, as
V. “Nisaar Mein Teri Galiyon Ke” the artistic imagination imbibes within its
revolutionary ideals. This is why the
“For Your Lanes, My Country” epitomises following metaphor portrays the
this change. A part of Zindan Nama or regeneration of revolutionary hope in its
Prison Narrative, this poem’s optimistic dialectic against the oppressive regime:
tone undercuts the melancholy of separation
from the homeland and its people, here “यहूँ हमेशा खलाए ह हम ने आग म फू ल / न
symbolised as a lover separated from the उन क हार नई है न अपनी जीत नई”93
beloved. The sensuality of the beloved’s
body is a reminder of the intimacy that they shadow of the prison walls.” Faiz Ahmed Faiz, “For
once enjoyed, and the speaker nostalgically Your Lanes, My Country,” Partition Literature: An
turns to its memory: Anthology, ed. by Debjani Sengupta, trans. by Riz
Rahim (New Delhi: Worldview, 2018), lines 17-18. 91
बझु ा जो रौज़न-ए-ज़िंदाँ तो दिल ये समझा है
कि तरे ी माँग सितारों से भर गई होगी Faiz op cit., 17-18.
92 The war of position takes place in the sphere of
चमक उठे हंै सलासिल तो हम ने जाना है civil society and primarily counters the hegemony
कि अब सहर तिरे रुख़ पर बिखर गई होगी90 sustained here by promoting proletarian culture,
involving socio-political agitation within the domain
87 Coppola op cit., 154. of culture, as opposed to physical might and violence
88 For his MA English dissertation, Faiz chose the employed in the war of manoeuvre. The former is
Victorian poet Robert Browning. also referred to as passive revolution in some
89 Faiz op cit.,line 8. analyses. Antonio Gramsci,“The Transition from the
90 Faiz 2018, lines 13-16; “When the prison gratings War of Manoeuvre (Frontal Attack) to the War of
darken, / my heart sees stars sprinkled in your hair, / Position,” Selections from the Prison Notebooks,
when I see light through these gratings, / I know your edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey
face would be bathed in dawn”; trans. By Rahim) Nowell Smith, 11th ed. (New York: International
However, the lines succeeding these are a sharp
contrast to the hope here, as the material reality of the Publishers, 1971), 238-239.
speaker confines him within the prison – he lives in
“imagined days and nights,” as he exists “in the 93 This is how we always grew flowers in fire, / their

Ijtihad Vol.8 25

When=the=ideological=battle=is=won=through= struggle against socio-political injustice
resilient=optimism,=the=separated=lover,=i.e.= transitioning into the seemingly private, and
the=confined revolutionary, has nothing to be= yet more intimate, agony or pain of roman
mournful of, so he says that the dark night of= separation. The Marxist strain in his poetry is
seemingly= pessimistic= confinement= and= evident and drives the progressive ideals
parting=would=inevitably=be=followed=by=the= forward, as his poems become a site of
reunion= with=the=beloved=on=a=new=day,= ideological struggle against tyrannous control
symbolising=the=beginning=of=a=new=world= asserted by the State Apparatuses. With
order for the homeland: reference to the same quality, Carlo Coppola
fittingly states the following:
“गर आज तझु से जदु ा ह तो कल बहम ह गे /ये रात “Thus struggle against tyranny of all kinds,
भर क जदु ाई तो कोई बात नह ं”94 especially which of a political nature, is the
dominant theme of both Hand of the Wind and
VI. Conclusion Prison Narrative, permeating many of the poems
with a genuine sense of indomitable optimism
Faiz has reiterated in several interviews that and unfaltering confidence.”
he himself finds “no difference between What makes Faiz’s poetry unique and firm
writing for yourself and for others,” because against the test of time is how this optimism
he has “never differentiated the personal and reconfigures the narratives of social injustices
the impersonal.” A study of his excerpts, or into pangs of momentary separation, with
the entirety of his poetic oeuvre, therefore abundant possibility for a reunion with
reveals an embodiment of the revolutionary revolution.

defeat isn’t new, our victory isn’t new”; Faiz op cit., 96 Coppola op cit., 153.

lines 21-22.
94 “We are apart today, but tomorrow / we’ll be

together; / separation for one night isn’t much”; Faiz

op cit., 25-26.
95 Faiz and Jones op cit., 143.

Ijtihad Vol.8 26

Bibliography Faiz, Faiz Ahmed. 2020. “ दल ना-उमीद

Althusser, Louis. 2002. “Ideology and नह ं नाकाम ह तो है.” Rekhta.

Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Accessed February24,2021.
towards an Investigation).” Lenin
andPhilosophayndOtherEssays, https://www.rekhta.org/couplets/dil-n
translated by Ben Brewster, 127-186.
New York: Monthly Review Press. aa-umiid-to-nahiin-naakaam-hii-to-h

Coppola, Carlo. 1992. ""Another ai-faiz-ahmad-faiz-couplets?lang=hi.

Adolescence": The Prison Poetry Of Gramsci, Antonio. 1992. “The Formation of
Faiz Ahmed Faiz." Journal of South the Intellectuals.” Selections from the
Asian Literature, vol. 27, no. 2, Prison Notebooks, edited and
translated by Quintin Hoare and
149-74. Accessed February16,2021. Geoffrey Nowell Smith, 11th ed.,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40874123
5-14. New York: International
Faiz, Faiz Ahmed, and Allen Jones. 1974. Publishers.

  Gramsci, Antonio. “The Transition from the
War of Manoeuvre (Frontal Attack)
to the War of Position.” Selections
from the Prison Notebooks, edited
and translated by Quintin Hoare and
Geoffrey Nowell Smith, 11th ed.,

Faiz, Faiz Ahmed. 2009. “Don’t Ask Me For 238-239. New York: International
Publishers.
That Love Again.” Maraahmed.com,

translated by Agha Shahid Ali. Lall, Inderjit. 1975. “Faiz—Poet of Vitality.”
Indian Literature, vol. 18, no. 4, 58–
Accessed February26,2021. 62. Accessed March 15, 2021.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2415756
https://maraahmed.com/wp/2009/06/ 2.

09/dont-ask-me-for-that-love-again-b Pue, A. Sean. 2013. “Rethinking Modernism
and Progressivism in Urdu Poetry: Faiz
y-faiz-ahmed-faiz/. Ahmed Faiz and N. M. Rashed.” Pakistaniaat:
A Journal of Pakistan Studies, vol. 5, no. 1,
Faiz, Faiz Ahmed. 2018. “For Your Lanes, 1-15.
My Country.” Partition Literature:
An Anthology, edited by Debjani
Sengupta, translated by Riz Rahim,

6-7. New Delhi: Worldview.

Ijtihad Vol.8 27

Home and Homecoming: A Comparative Study of Dibyendu Palit’s ‘Alam’s
Own House’ and Marga Minco’s ‘The Address’

Aaheli Jana
Department of English, Lady Shri Ram College for Women

Marga Minco’s “The Address”, written in 1957, is a story about a young girl who goes to
retrieve the belongings of her family after the War, in Holland. “Alam’s Own House” by
Dibyendu Palit traces the journey of Alam as he navigates through post Partition Kolkata in
search of the house he had left behind after Partition and the memories that it withheld. Both the
stories are set in different time periods, written in different languages and explore the aftermath
of two greatest events in world history across two continents - The Second World War and the
Partition of India. Despite their linguistic and cultural distinctions, both stories sift through the
grand narratives of history to bring forth the poignant accounts of human loss, ruptured
memories and a longing for home. Both stories explore the idea of a home that transcends the
boundaries of physical space and geographical location. The paper attempts to analyse how the
idea of home is constructed and reconstructed through the debris of memories of individuals who
are forced to negotiate with the reality of suddenly finding themselves uprooted and displaced
due to events like The Partition and The War.

With uprooting comes a longing for the home, the place where one finds a sense of belonging,
along with the desire for homecoming. The act of homecoming is also riddled with the
realisation that the gap between past and present has widened. By comparing the two
fictional narratives, the paper endeavours to examine the complexity of the accounts of
individuals who have experienced the violence, the chaos and the grief of such events,
accounts which are often silenced in the proclamations of the “official” history.

The Second World which lasted between the knowledge to harness their military prowess
time period of 1939 to 1945 saw the - military aircraft, tanks, strategic bombing,
participation of a majority of nations across espionage and nuclear weapons. As military
the world with most of the powerful nations prowess began to be seen as the testimony of
aligning themselves into two opposing national honour, violence and warfare were
groups - The Axis (Germany, Italy, Japan) presented as glorious, silencing the
and The Allies ( France, Great Britain, devastating human cost of it all. The Second
United States, Soviet Union). The war, World War saw deaths in multitudes, the
which is said to have begun with the death of civilians exceeding the military
invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany under casualties. The bombings on highly
Adolf Hitler and ended with the defeat of populated areas left many with disabilities
Germany and the Hiroshima - Nagasaki and deformities. The War had scarred
bombings in Japan in 1945, witnessed the millions for life as they suddenly found
nations deploying most of its economic, themselves without a home, a family and
industrial, technical resources and scientific were forced to start their life afresh with the

Ijtihad Vol.8 28

fractured memories of the past.  new nation-states were forged from its
debris. This ‘operation’, which is often
The end of the war in 1945 brought to light described using the metaphors of surgery,
the horrors of the Holocaust that took place was far from clinical. Partition played a
in Nazi Germany during the Second World central role in the making of new Indian and
War. The world was forced to take notice of Pakistani national identities and the
the systematic killing of six million Jews, apparently irreconcilable differences which
carried forward by the commands of the continue to exist today. We could even go as
State. The Holocaust, seen as the ‘final far as saying that Indian and Pakistani ideas
solution’ to ensure racial purity was carried of nationhood were carved out diametrically,
forward by creating mass killing centres in in definition against each other, at this time.
the form of concentration camps. Post-1945, Partition, then, is more than the sum of its
the survivors of the Holocaust found further considerable parts – the hundreds of
difficulties in reintegrating into their thousands of dead, the twelve million
homelands. Many had lost their families, displaced. It signifies the division of
found their houses and lands occupied by territory, independence and the birth of new
new residents and were looked upon with states, alongside distressing personal
hostility by their neighbours. Hundreds memories, and potent collective imaginings
found themselves stuck in-between their of the ‘other’. Partition itself has become a
traumatic past and the possibility of a loaded word, with multiple meanings in both
present, becoming permanent inhabitants of English and the vernaculars, and triggers
refugee camps. The survivors, those who complex feelings with deep psychological
were rescued and those who had fled from significance”.97
the concentration camps, sought shelter in
Western Europe, The United States, Canada The World War, the Holocaust and the
or Australia. Some refugees were taken in Partition of India are historical events that
lieu of working as labourers in mining and are frequently revisited, relooked and
other industries. For many, it was a long reassessed through literature, films, theatre
wait before they could rebuild their lives and etc - perhaps in an attempt to find a sense of
look forward to living without fear and with closure, demand answers or look for
dignity.  catharsis - by trying to find sense and
coherence from a time period where chaos
The decision to divide British India into the ensued over humanity. The official records
nation-states of India and Pakistan was made may bring forth the ordered appraisal of this
public on June 3 1947 and suddenly millions appraisal - clearing bracketing the victor’s
found themselves on the wrong side of the history and the enemy’s history. However,
arbitrarily drawn borders, and what followed when we look at personal narratives -
was the largest mass migration in human diaries, memoirs, letters, oral testimonies -
history tainted with violence and bloodshed these fine lines of division seem to blur and
in a bid to glorify religious loyalties. The what remains are accounts of loss, grief,
crossing of these man-made borders was trauma and an unending search for their own
characterised by the loss of not just life and “home”.
livelihood but also a shared past and the old
ways of harmonized living. Yasmin Khan, in The idea of ‘home’ is often associated with
describing the Partition and its aftermath,
writes - “An empire came to an end and two 97  Yasmin Khan,The Great Partition: The Making of
India and Pakistan. (Yale University Press, 2007).

Ijtihad Vol.8 29

the idea of security, stability and familiarity. Hence, for them the act of remembering
The idea of a home may not be in alignment becomes a painful task, leaving the act of
with the idea of a house, which is a physical selective forgetting as the sole means of
structure located in a specific geographical coping with the trauma associated with their
location inhabited by a group of people who past life.
may share a sense of familiarity with one
another. Rather than a geographical fixity, The subtlety, as well as the complexity of
home has strong connotations with the idea individual memories, is silenced amidst the
of belongingness and attachment - which grand narratives of history. These memories
can be to a person, place or objects. become merely quantified to be archived in
According to Paolo Boccagni, some of the the official records of the State. The grand
basic attributes associated with home are narratives assume history is centred and
security, familiarity and control. The feeling fixed, locating phenomena like The Second
of security is associated with a sense of World War, The Holocaust and The Partition
protection of one’s identity, safe from any of India in the political space of victory and
interference from the outsiders. Familiarity conquest,  creating a colective narrative of
is linked to the sense of comfort that one vilification and glorification. Seldom do
feels while control refers to the autonomy to they take into account the trauma and
use a certain place according to one’s own healing of individual narratives, which get
needs and taste.98 All three attributes overlap lost in the rhetoric of a “glorious past”. Even
an idea of permanence and a predictable in the case of migration and displacement,
idea of the future associated with the those who seek refuge in another land
experience of home, a sense of rootedness to appear to gain a sense of stability, a
what the individual categorises as home. geographical location, a “home” only in the
How is this experience then impacted by a official records. But such data only records
sudden and unforeseen displacement? the magnitude not the intensity of such large
Forced migration due to events like war and scale displacement, either during the
violence brings with it a sense of Holocaust or during the Partition. They
rootlessness. As individuals are forced to overlook the factor of destabilisation that
take refuge in an alien land, leaving behind comes with displacement, and the constant
their homeland, their experience of home is need for the self to belong somewhere.
destabilised. The permanency and Fictional narratives present a different
predictableness of the future is replaced by a viewpoint to these ‘grand’ events in history.
sense of helplessness and uncertainty, Such narratives, as Anjali Gera Roy and
heightened by a lack of control over the Nandi Bhatia note in the context of 
present circumstances. Home for those Partition, “ facilitate the fictional means to
designated as refugees then becomes corroborate the compelling memories of the
associated with an evocative memory of the time, memories that remain etched in the
past, an irrevocable longing. Home is then collective consciousness of the Partition
recreated from memory with a tint of survivors...the revival of such memories
nostalgia. However, for some, the through literary texts leads to the resurgence
experience of home begins to be associated of hidden or suppressed histories that
with trauma, a site of violent memories. destabilise and challenge the official ones.”99

98 Paolo Boccagni, Migration and the search for 99 Anjali G Roy., and Nandi Bhatia, Partitioned
home: Mapping domestic space in migrants’ Lives: Narratives of Home, Displacement and
everyday lives, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 1-10. Resettlement, (Pearson Longman, 2008).

Ijtihad Vol.8 30

This is evident in Dibyendu Palit’s ‘Alam’s of reluctance in confronting the memories of
Own House’ and Marga Minco’s ‘The her past life which have now become
Address’. The two writers differ from each associated with trauma after the violence of
other in terms of language, nationality and the War and the Holocaust and forceful
are writing in the aftermath of two greatest exile. As the narrator recalls “ Initially after
events of world history which occurred the Liberation I was not interested in all that
across two continents - The Partition of stored stuff and naturally, I was also afraid
India and The Holocaust. However, both the of it. Afraid of being confronted with things
stories deal with the feelings of loss, that had belonged to a connection that no
belongingness, the trauma of memory and longer existed; which were hidden away in
the temptation of forgetting100 - all cupboards and boxes and waiting in vain
surrounding the idea called “home”. until they were put back in their place again;
which had endured all those years because
A closer look at the title of the two short they were ‘things’ ”. Material objects in
stories indicates the geographically fixed themselves do not contain meaning, they
concept of home. However, this perception exist merely as things. These objects gain
soon gains ambiguity as  the protagonists significance only when they are attached to
and the readers navigate and confront the a memory. Thus, one’s perspective towards
truth about memory and reality.  The title that particular object changes with a shift in
‘Alam’s Own House’ indicates a sense of the memory connected to it. For the narrator
belongingness which is irrespective of one’s of ‘The Address’, the objects which were
nationality or political boundaries. It is also once associated with happiness and
an association with one’s life before the togetherness, now serve as a reminder of the
tragic incident, in this case, Alam’s past life trauma and loss she had suffered due to the
in the Pre Partition Calcutta. ‘The Address’ violence and turmoil of The War and the
also indicates a home that has gained Holocaust. The objects, which could have
permanence in official records. But there is become a memory of her mother, now
no sense of belongingness associated with it, remind her of a home that has been lost
it is merely an address. This is because the forever.
narrator has no attachment with the house
but still finds herself returning to the address As Barnali Saha notes, the nostalgia for a
and her homeland in search of her memory lost space can be both romantic and painful,
before the Holocaust. It is the house of her can be an anchor for the self as well as
mother’s friend Mrs Dorling who had troubled with the recognition of violence.101
promised to take care of their possessions
when the narrator and her family had to For Dibyendu Palit’s protagonist Alam, the
escape during the Holocaust. So for her, the house in Kolkata becomes a storehouse of
material objects evoke a memory of a life memories, memories of his life before
before the War and the Holocaust. Partition. If the narrator of ‘The Address’
feels a deliberate alienation with the objects
However, there is a sense of detachment in that evoke a sense of nostalgia, Alam seeks
the voice of the narrator figure and a sense to engage with this feeling of nostalgia.

100  Jason Francisco, Alok Bhalla's ‘Stories on the 101 Barnali Saha, Problematizing Nostalgia: A Study
Partition of India’–A Review Essay, (Annual of Urdu of Selected Short Stories on Bengal Partition, (Space,
Studies, 1995) 208-217. Place and Landscape in Literatures of the World -
The MELOW Journal of World Literature, 2019), 3.

Ijtihad Vol.8 31

Alam proclaims that his roots are in Kolkata, that''. But gradually, these unforeseen events
hinting at the complex identity of those who of history assimilate into the mundane pace
had migrated during Partition. Palit iterates of everyday life and the relations which
that one’s nationality may not be the same as were created solely on the basis of
one’s homeland. Alam’s longing for home, ownership and exchange of possessions,
his effort in navigating through the changing begin to fade away. A sudden return of the
city of Kolkata and his effort to create a original owner creates a sense of discomfort
portrait of Raka from his memories lends a between the two. Both Minco and Palit
sentimental touch to the story. Barnali Saha highlight this hesitation in their stories. In
in her essay Problematising Nostalgia notes ‘Alam’s Own House’ both Sneha and
“Memories of the past - real or imagined, Anantshekhar welcome Alam with a sense
compete with an actual post-partition of uneasiness, or as Alam observes “with a
reconstruction of life making the nostalgic sense of surprise and embarrassment”. In
subject discordant from the present.”  ‘The Address’, Mrs Dorling, to whom the
Alam’s belief that personal relations would narrator’s mother had given their family
remain untouched by the Partition, his belief antiques for safekeeping, initially refuses to
that Raka would wait for him hints at his recognise her and the narrator notes “ She
refusal to acknowledge the reality of held her hand on the door as though to
Partition and its impact which would last for prevent it from opening any further...she
generations. Throughout the story, his kept staring at me in silence.” 
physical journey runs parallel with the
journey that he makes in his mindscape, the As mentioned earlier, objects gain
readers get a glimpse of his entire life in significance when they become associated
fragments and these segments take up more with a particular memory. Alam’s house and
prominence than his physical journey the narrator’s family possessions serve as a
towards his ‘own’ home, to where he reminder of their experience of home, before
belongs - only to meet with a loss of the chaos and turmoil that ensued. For the
belongingness.  new owners, these objects become mere
‘things'. ‘In The Address’, Mrs Dorling’s
In ‘The Address’, the narrator’s mother daughter tells the narrator that they had once
leaves their family heirlooms with her friend eaten on the plates which hung on the wall
and in ‘Alam’s Own House’ Alam’s and but had found “nothing special about it”
Raka’s families, who belong to the opposite whereas the plates were an integral part of
sides of the border, exchange their houses. the narrator’s childhood. Anantshekhar in
Trust becomes an important determinant in ‘Alam’s Own House’ finds the ‘Kathchanpa’
the transaction and safeguarding of tree which Alam’s father had planted, as
possessions in both stories. In both the contributing to the “incorrect planning of the
stories, political violence and turmoil force house”. Alam recalls that the tree was
the protagonist and their families to part planted by his father in such a manner that it
with their prized possessions but with a could be visible from both the windows
belief towards a possibility of a reunion. It is upstairs and downstairs. But neither of the
this belief that makes Alam stay at his home, authors adopt an accusatory tone towards the
which now belonged to Raka’s father new owners. Perhaps the experience of the
Anantshekhar and it is this belief that makes actual historical events had made them
the narrator’s mother reiterate the address to realise, as Palit points out in his story, that
her daughter - “Number 46. Remember “necessity guided actions”. 

Ijtihad Vol.8 32

Towards the end of “The Address”, the  
narrator introspects “objects that are linked
to your memory with the familiar life of
former times instantly lose value when
severed from them; you see them again in
strange surroundings”. If a house full of
memories creates the experience of
home, mundane objects like cutlery and
table cloth can also evoke a feeling of home.
But as the narrator observes, just as
individuals uprooted from their origins feel a
sense of meaninglessness, so do the objects
when severed from the memories that give
them significance. The narrator notes that
these family antiques would find no space in
her small rented room “where the shreds of
blackout paper still hung along the windows
and no more than a handful of cutlery fitted
in the narrow table drawer”. Living at a time
when the scars of the Second World War
were still unhealed and life was limping
back to normalcy, these memories would
have to be fitted awkwardly into the
narrator's ruptured life. Leading to the
realisation of the impossibility of return, she
resolves to forget the address.

The narrator of “The Address” experiences a
sense of alienation when she finds her
familiar objects in an unfamiliar space. On
the other hand, Alam faces a similar sense of

Ijtihad Vol.8 33

Bibliography

Boccagni, Paolo. 2016. A New Lens on the and Rupayan Mukherjee. Taylor and
Francis. Google Books.
Migration-home Nexus in Migration
and the Search for Home: Mapping Palit, Dibyendu. 2018. “Alam's Own
Domestic Space in Migrant's House.” in Partition Literature: An
Everyday lives. Palgrave Macmillan. Anthology, edited by Debjani
Google Books. Sengupta, 13-35. Worldview.

Francisco, Jason. 1995. Alok Bhalla's Roy, Anjali G., and Nandi Bhatia, eds. 2008.

"Stories on the Partition of India"--A Partitioned Lives: Narratives of
Review Essay in Annual of Urdu
Studies. Home, Displacement and
https://jasonfrancisco.net/stories-on-t
he-partition-of-india. Resettlement. Pearson Longman.

Khan, Yasmin. 2017. The Great Partition: Royde Smith, John G. 1998. “World War
The Making of India and Pakistan.
N.p.: Yale University Press. II.” Britannica Encyclopedia.
https://www.britannica.com/event/W
Kumar, Sukrita P, and Malashri Lal. 2007. orld-War-II.

Introduction in Interpreting Homes Saha, Barnali. 2019. “Problematizing
in South Asian Literature. Pearson
Longman. Google Books. Nostalgia: A Study of Selected Short
Stories on Bengal Partition.” in
Minco, Marga. 2006. The Address in Space, Place and Landscape in
Literatures of the World - The
Snapshots- Supplementary Reader in MELOW Journal of World
English For Class XI, 10-15. Literature.
NCERT.
Schoonheim, Marloes. n.d. “Marga Minco.”
Mukherjee, Rupayan, and Kritika Nepal. The Encyclopedia of Jewish Women.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/
minco-marga.

2020. “From Home to Homeland: Wasserstein, Bernard. 2011. “European

Negotiating Memory and Refugee Movements After World
War Two.” BBC.
Displacement in Dibyendu Palit's http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/world
wars/wwtwo/refugees_01.shtml.
‘Alam's Own House’” in Partition

Literature and Cinema: A Critical
Introduction, edited by Jaydip Sarkar

Ijtihad Vol.8 34

Redefining Protagonists:  Dogs in Second World War

Pragya Paul
Department of History, Lady Shri Ram College for Women

Much goes in the name of war, than what actually happens in it. The experiences of animals
during war attains different meanings when prepositions like, ‘on’, ‘of’, ‘in’, ‘at’ are added
between ‘animals’ and ‘war’. The paper engages with the congenital humanness in an
animal-centred history and the never ending debate on animal agency. Special emphasis has
been given on Dogs, in an attempt to redefine the Protagonists. One recognises the inherent
humanness in terms as basic as ‘casualties’, ‘war time delirium’ and incorporates these
micro-narratives by de-humanising them. The complementary relationship shared during war
between the ‘humans’ and ‘animals’ and the fading of this rhetorical variation is perplexing to
note. Abstract human created notions like ‘sacrifices’, ‘wars’, ‘patriotism’ are not exclusive to
human experiences and take into its ambit other species as well. A sense of nostalgia hits the
human psyche when memories flash up, but what remains behind are the events which are not
remembered, or forgotten. Is remembering as uncomplicated as it seems, or are there layers of
memories buried deep inside which are chosen not to be remembered, so as to remember
something we choose to remember?

I. Introduction While the use of the word, ‘dog’ signifies a
sense of commonality, their experiences of
Amidst the overwhelming narrative of who war were not homogenous. The contrasting
fought whom, when and why, where are civilian-military experience transcended and
animals in the pages of history? The history percolated deep into the world of animals
of animals, despite its tendency to be based on their involvement or
subaltern in nature, suffers from innate non-involvement with their human
humaneness, which puts into question the counterparts as witnessed in the experiences
plausibility of writing animal centred history of ‘pet’, ‘street’, and ‘employed’ dogs.
at all? 
The paradoxical relation in a racist,
Despite being aware of the internal Anti-Semitic Nazi Germany, their
disparities between humans, the paper preference for certain kinds of animals,
generically clubs all humans together Hitler’s unexplained love for his pet dogs
vis-a-vis animals in general and dogs in vis-à-vis his annihilating hatred against the
particular who form the central focus. Jews all take a moral turn. Michel Foucault’s
Briefly tracing the trajectory of the uses of interpretation of Panopticon model is used to
dogs in warfare throughout history, the understand the question of dogs’ complicity
factual narrative follows a more ethical on the brutalities inflicted during Holocaust. 
domain: why were they subjected to such The re-presentation of the animals in the
experiences in the first place? 

Ijtihad Vol.8 35

Animal in War Memorial in Britain animals. 
discusses the extent and intent of
remembrance and forgetting. While the When the world was witnessing towering
architecture aimed to valorise and humanise changes in the socio-cultural domain of
the ‘sacrifices’, the actualities of war to a history writing, the history and
great extent remains ignored. A subtle historiography on animals still remained in
hierarchy of animal experiences flows where the margins. It is only in the recent past that
the ‘employed’ animals are commemorated animals as subjects of larger socio-cultural
and not those who died ‘ordinarily’. This act history have received attention. One such
of remembrance has been deconstructed and work is Jilly Cooper’s Animals in War which
what surfaces up are conundrums of despite its limitations created ripples of
memories.  ideas in the domain.

II. The Agency Debate While scholars like Jonathan Burt, Harriet
Ritvo and Kathleen Kete argue the need to
Traditional works on human-animal re-imagine the sense of animal centrality,
relationship “insert” or “add” animals in the there are others who question the very
colossal portrait of humans by either treating possibility of such an act. The most
them as objects of loyalty, allegiance and fundamental problem is yet again the innate
altruism or subjecting them to the deepest humanness in both the sources as well as the
level of inferiority that a human must not be. scholar. Whether a view expressed in the
There has been an engrained contingency to sources taken up can be anything but a
escalate human emotions over animal representation of our idea of an animal
experiences. While military animals creates a situation of standstill and questions
received some level of scholarly focus if animal agency is plausible at all.103 It is the
whose valorised acts are chosen to contrasting mode of communication and not
remember, the uncomfortable annihilating a space void of voice that complicates the
episodes of the rests are opted out. A very matter in hand and thus agency and
practical question surfaces about the very noiselessness should not be confused.104
possibility of an animal agency in history?102 Cary Wolfe talks about the externalities of
the internal realities. While an external,
Consciously avoiding animal idealisation,
moral philosophers Steven Sapontzis and 103  This is where the accounts of marginalised human
Stephen Clark believe that moral agency is groups and communities differ from those of other
different from moral judgement. However, species.  Despite the dearth of sources, there is a
agency should not be confused with the consensus of a space where the voice can find a
“animals are like us” which is prone to fall space. However, in the case  of animals as a species
in a never-ending cycle of different from ours, the question of representation
anthropomorphism or humanisation of and agency becomes an issue of  contestation. 
Likewise, historian Dorothee Brantz believes  the
102 According to William H. Sewell, being an agent need to acknowledge the “past”, before delving into
“means to be capable of exerting some degree of history writing, since history writing is selectively
control over the social relations in which one is choosing  parts of the past. Source- Ibid. Pg. 14.
enmeshed, which in turn implies the ability to Original Source- Brantz, Dorothee, ed. Beastly
transform those social relations to some degree.” natures: Animals, humans, and the study of history.
Source- Brantz, Dorothee, ed. Beastly natures: University of Virginia Press, 2010.
Animals, humans, and the study of history. University 104 Arundhati Roy’s remark on voice reaffirms this-
of Virginia Press, 2010. “There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There
are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably
unheard.” 

Ijtihad Vol.8 36

post-humanist environment might encourage alleviated?108 Was it not just another way to
a person to attempt to engage with the justify the insanity of war? 
theme, the internal realities of the person
belonging from an entirely different species Dogs were made (or forced) to serve their
remains the same.105 Hilda Kean discusses nation in a number of ways. While many
the structural impedance of history as a practices discontinued after a span of time,
discipline which overrides any historians’ they were not done out of sudden moral or
wish to write the history of animals.   ethical enlightenment, but due to their
effective failure. Dogs have been used in
Despite these contradictions, on the brighter warfare since antiquity. Evidence shows
side, the theme looks forward to a space of such uses by Egyptians, Huns, Romans,
engagement among newer historians with Vietnamese, Romans, and Persians among
their own sets of plethoric paradoxes, others.109 While animal appropriation is not
explanations and counter explanations. If not new and the idea of animal welfare
revolutionise our perception of war, such developed with time, it was certainly the
works would at least let us acknowledge a incorporation of technologies and the
breathing body different from ours which resultant amount of destruction which left a
carries the potentiality to profoundly alter mark. Physical acuteness like superior
the comfortable quiddity of history. The sensory abilities and strategic aids like
conventional hierarchies between “humans” replacement of soldiers at various fronts
and “animals” at times faded into an explain the appropriation of dogs in war.110   
undefinable bond which Hilda Kean
describes as-“We were there: they were Draft or sled dogs were used to pull dog
there with us.”106 carts. Abandoned by the 1840s in Britain,
the practise was taken up by Belgium,
III. The ‘Employed’ Dogs France and USSR to carry their wounded
soldiers in an attached stretcher. This
The spontaneity at which the burden of insatiable appetite led to the extinction of
citizenship, engulfed by patriotism could the Belgian Mastiff, a breed of Belgian
erupt is evident at the statement of Arlene Draught Dog. 
Erlanger, an US patriot and dog breeder who
declared on the eve of the Second World Aided by the Red Cross societies,
War- “the dog world must play its part in Ambulance Dogs, (also called Mercy,
this thing”.107 Despite their temporary status Medical, Casualty or Red Cross dogs), were
alleviation was it of any meaning to the one those who were trained silently to equip para

105 Kean, Great Massacre. pp.12-13. Original work by 108 This included rewarding dogs with medals and
Wolfe, Cary. What is Posthumanism? Vol. 8. U of prizes. For example- PDSA Dickin Medal was
 Minnesota Press, 2010.  instituted in 1943 in the United Kingdom to honour
106 Kean, Hilda. The Great Cat and Dog Massacre: the work of animals in World War II, bearing the
The Real Story of World War Two's Unknown words "For Gallantry" and "We Also Serve".
Tragedy.  University of Chicago Press, 2017. p.18. 109 To read
107 The quote has been extracted from Johnston, more-https://www.military.com/undertheradar/2017/0
Steven. "Animals in War: Commemoration, 3/brief-history-dogs-warfare 
Patriotism,  Death." Political Research Quarterly 65, 110 While the discussion here is limited to dogs, the
no. 2 (2012): p.362. Original work by- Lemish, roles of other animals like pigeons, mules,
Michael G. War dogs:  A history of loyalty and horses, camels, elephants and others shall not be
heroism. Potomac Books, Inc., 1999. forgotten. 

Ijtihad Vol.8 37

-medical roles.111 They crossed the no-man’s units, were trained to return back to their
land, carrying essential first aids like liquor, companion soldier after the desired work.116
water etc. attached with their saddlebags to Liaison dogs were trained to identify two
the wounded soldiers, differentiating them handlers and communicated between them
from the dead ones. During an emergency, amidst war. The Germans trained most dogs
they pulled a part of the clothing as a relic to for this purpose.117 Their uses declined with
let the paramedical team come and assist the evolution of better information and
them.112 communication technology.

Used by the US, USSR and Germany, Sentry dogs with their hugely built body and
anti-tank dogs (also called Hundminen, dog vigilant listening skills, quickly beware of
mines or suicide dogs), mostly of Alsatian the slightest threat were fundamentally
breed, carried explosives to desired military involved in policing and guarding an area,
targets which killed them in the process.113 often providing a moment of break for
The English deployed parachuting dogs114 exhausted soldiers. Slightly different from
and mining dogs, appropriating their sniffing the conventional role of the sentries, the
qualities.115 police dogs appropriated by the Nazis to
guard the concentration camp are an
Messenger Dogs, one of the elitist canine important innovation in this regard. 

111 The practice of silence was a tough one. Many of Foucault’s ideas on biopolitics complicate
these animals were strictly trained in their early years our understanding of this ‘employment.’118
to act ‘unnaturally’, i.e. not make any noise while Biopolitics can be called a “political
working. For example, the British needed mules (who rationality” which engages with all forms of
naturally expressed themselves by braying)  in Burma life, human as well as non-human as its
during the Second World War, an extremely desirable subjects, ‘to ensure, sustain, and multiply
choice for the local environment. However, this life, to put this life in order’.119 This is
natural tendency proved threatening to the British influenced from his notion of “biopower”
soldiers. Thus, the vocal cords of around 5,500 mules
were destroyed by the British militia before exporting 116 Pigeons too were trained to act as messengers.
them to Burma. Until the information technology revolution,
112 The story of Sergeant Stubby from World War 1 is messenger or carrier pigeons were commercially used
interesting to note. To read more, visit  to deliver communication. However, there was a
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zqhyb9q/article greater preference for messenger dogs over pigeons
s/z7g9mfr. In fact, there is an animated movie on the  for two major reasons. Firstly, while pigeons could
theme, Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero. However, return to only where they were born, dogs could be
movies should be critically analysed for there is trained to cover a variety of locations. Furthermore,
always a  congenital chance to sanitise the realities. the one-way delivery could be reversed. A keeper and
113 To read more about the process, it’s execution, the his dog would go to the front, and then the dog would
brutalities associated and the reasons of its failure, be taken to headquarters at the rear so that front-line
refer to officers could receive new instructions from
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/12/a headquarters. 
nti-tank-dogs-world-war-ii/ 117 As per the Treaty of Versailles Germany could not
114 This is the story of one such paratrooper, Brian. To have a standing army, thus they utilised the time to
read more, visit train military dogs.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/the-par 118 Coined by Rudolf Kjellen, to intend the
achuting-dogs-of-the-british-army-in-world-war-ii-a intersectionality of biology with politics.
939002.html 119 Original ideas from- Foucault, Michel. The
115 This is a story of one a dog who was “destroyed” history of sexuality: 1: the will to knowledge. Penguin
after precisely being used UK, 2019.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bravest-sniff
er-dog-world-war-8620003 

Ijtihad Vol.8 38

which can be loosely defined as the a matter of pride or insult depending upon
augmentation of state’s power over the the vantage point one was looking at.
biological and political bodies of a Condescendingly choosing a morally elite
population, which he describes as the position, Nazis associated themselves with
“subjugation of bodies and the control of wolves, considered to possess heroic and
populations”.120 superior characteristics, to the extent that
Hitler’s code name was Wolf.124 Their
IV. The Nazi Paradox preference for Lupus dogs (i.e. wolf-like
domestic breeds) such as German Shepherds
The Nazis' notoriety against some and cult over Aureus dogs (jackal-like breeds) and
worship for others stands paradoxical.121 cats which were seen as possessing inferior,
Inside the suffocating quarters of degenerative, decaying and precarious
concentration camps, brutalities knew no qualities like Jews125 manifests a completely
limits, but little is discussed about the role of baffling appropriation of the ideas of Social
police dogs in inflicting the desired terror. Darwinism. The hatred for cats could be
"Sometimes they [animals] served as seen in the writings of Nazi writer, Will
models, sometimes as images of the enemy, Vesper who described them as “Jews among
sometimes  they were just a means to an animals!”126
end…….anyone who wants to learn about
the arbitrariness and  contradictions of the With the passing of Nuremberg Laws127
Nazi regime should not ignore the animals" Jews were outlawed to hold pets. Many of
writes Jan Mohnhaupt, in his work, Tiere im what were considered ‘pure’ breeds were
Nationalsozialismus (Animals in National snatched away and later trained by the
Socialism).122 militia. Other strategies of appropriation

The Nazi ideas of hierarchy throttled the 124 In an anecdotal event, Hitler’s would-be
non-human animal world as well. Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels in 1928 wrote
Association with animals, reverberated in a letter to the Weimar Republic  during the election
anthropomorphism123 which could either be campaign, “"Like a wolf tearing into the flock of
sheep, that is how we come!” (Italics added). This
120 Ibid. soon  became true in 1933 with the Nazis
121 So is the relationship shared by Hitler with his pet overthrowing the Weimar Republic. Source-
dog vis-a-vis his abhorrence towards Jews. To read https://www.dw.com/en/hitlers
more, refer to- dogs-g%C3%B6rings-lions-how-the-nazis-used-and-
https://www.dw.com/en/hitlers-dogs-g%C3%B6rings abused-animals/a-53698708 
lions-how-the-nazis-used-and-abused-animals/a-5369 125  Such episodes were also witnessed in Fascist Italy.
8708. You can also watch- According to Mussolini, goats were an unsuitable
https://youtu.be/wS2tozxv9dY.   animal for  a fascist country and during his regime
122 Quoted from (1922–1943) the number of goats declined by a third.
https://www.dw.com/en/hitlers-dogs-g%C3%B6rings Source- McNeill, John Robert. Ideas and Politics in
-lions-how-the-nazis-used-and-abused Something new under the sun: An environmental
animals/a-53698708. Original Source- Mohnhaupt, history of the twentieth century world (the global
Jan. Tiere im Nationalsozialismus. Carl Hanser century series). WW Norton & Company, 2001.
Verlag GmbH Co KG, 2020. 126  Jewish writer Victor Klemperer had to put down
123  Recent studies show that the Nazis tried to teach his pet cat because of the prejudices against them.
dogs to talk, read and write as a larger strategy to win 127 The Nuremberg Laws were a set of Anti-Sematic
the Second World War! Source- and racist laws with provisions which worked with
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nazi-dogs-read-write the ultimate motive of ‘othering’ the Jews. There is a
-jan-bonderson_n_866784 . film with the name, Shepherd: The Hero Dog.
It revolves around the story of a Jewish family whose
pet dog was snatched away by the Nazis. 

Ijtihad Vol.8 39

included selective breeding and invading episode of Nazi ‘inhumanity’ and a
dogs from the territories of other nations. barbarous episode of animal exploitation
The trepidation of Holocaust involved not to literally enslave and exterminate the Jews.
only rhetorical animalisation of the Jewish
community, but inflicted a sense of terror V. The Pet Holocaust: The British
among the prisoners in the concentration Experience 
camps.128
Applying Foucault’s ideas from his work The enigmatic ripples produced when love
Discipline and Punish, Robert Tindol argues for one’s country confronts the love for an
how dogs were used in a Panopticon set up individual and the tussle between holding on
to patrol the camps where the one being and letting go is witnessed in the censored
viewed was constantly aware of being episode of the silent holocaust British pets.
stalked by the viewing authority situated By the first week of the War approximately
physically or symbolically at the nucleus 60-70,000 pets were exterminated132 by their
with total command. This process of owners. Many of the pet parents either lived
surveillance proved to be an effective tool the previous wars or were acquainted with it
for ultimate control of the subjects, through their ancestors and many inhibited
conscious of their actions. Modern prison war psychosis or war-neurosis. 
was used as a tool to inflict psychological
pain more than the physical one.129 Tindol The National Air Raid Precautions Animals
writes, “Discipline, then, was ironically a Committee (NARPAC) was formed in 1939
mechanism for extending the life of a drafted a recommendation, widely
prisoner ultimately fated for destruction, and reproduced in popular media which advised
the guard dog was a helpful companion in pet owners- "If at all possible, send or take
this role.”130  your household animals into the country in
advance of an emergency…..If you
Foucault’s ideas on ‘camp bureaucracies” cannot…. it really is kindest to have them
brings us to the aspect of compliance.131 destroyed."133 The added subsistence
While on the surface level, it seems that the challenges finally led many to ‘put to sleep’
dogs were complicit, the ideology of the their pets in the ‘most humane way.’
‘owner’ and the ‘server’ must be seen as
separate. This manifests an exclusive The state often ordered the citizens to hand
over their pet dogs for the ‘greater good’ of
128 Many survivors breathed their experiences of the nation and fulfill their duty as a ‘good
terror in the ferocious compartments of concentration citizen’. While there was some who resisted,
camps. To read more, refer to- Tindol, Robert. "The others proudly handed over their dogs.134
Best Friend of the Murderers: Guard Dogs and the
Nazi Holocaust." Animals and War: Studies of 132 This majorly included cats and dogs. However,
Europe and North America (2013): 105-121.  there were other animals too- rabbits, cattle, horses,
129 This involved a stage of exploitation aimed at camels and pigs etc. were some other names.
extreme utilisation of Jewish labour (an indispensable 133 Quoted from
asset of war time economy), ultimately causing their https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24478532 
death. 134 One woman said, ‘My husband has gone, my son
130 Ibid., 117. has gone…Please take my dog to bring this cruel war
131 This idea of “Camp Bureaucracies” befits the easy to an end’. Another (patriotic) girl noted, ‘We have
swapping of positions of powers between the human let Daddy go and fight the Kaiser, now we are
and animal in-charge, where every participant of the sending Jack to do his bit.’ Quoted from, Cooper,
mastering and mastered class were given a space. Jilly. Animals in war. Random House, 2000.

Ijtihad Vol.8 40

What exactly caused them to give up their the course of creation of a larger narrative
dogs? Nation is an abstract concept, of over the period of time.  
which patriotism is both a cause and
consequence. However, war transforms this VI. What’s in a name?
metaphysical entity into a living one,
cherished enough to make any assault on it There is a need, at least while engaging with
seem personal and real. The British animal studies, to open the windows for
experience was no different. As soon as the words carrying the burden of humanness and
idea of war started transpiring, the love for accommodate a panoptic rhythm. The
one's own nation hegemonised other discussion on the theme makes one realise
emotions. This was seen by the general the necessity to incorporate deaths of both
public at the home front doing their own bit humans and animals in the word
and thus being a part in the war by fighting ‘Casualty.’137 The psychological boundary of
the demonic Fascist Nazis, thereby strictly affirming to humans blur as many
self-awarding themselves a higher animals too suffer from mental illnesses like
moral seat than the ‘others.’ war psychosis or Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder (PTSD).138 Likewise the rhetoric of
With the failure of diplomatic relations, ‘Conscription’ and ‘Holocaust’ too can be
defined in multiple ways.139 This shows how
German envoy Joachim von Ribbentrop left words as casual as these have a tendency to
subsume intricacies.
Britain without accompanying his pet dog
VII. The Silver Linings 
Baerchen. The dog was interpreted as the
Beyond the mirage of appropriation and
‘greater good’ Britain was thriving for misappropriation, developed some intricate
bonds if not forever, but for the time being.
amidst the burgeoning tyranny. Thus the A beautiful conversation between two
characters from the series Money Heist
adoption request for Baerchen was applied displays the bond created amidst war
between humans and dogs. 
in hundreds, all willing to do their bit in the
“Pamuk! My dog’s name was Pamuk. It was
war. Hippy, pet dog of Nevile Henderson,
137 For example, read the definition of ‘casualty’ in
British ambassador never enjoyed the Cambridge dictionary, Macmillan, Collins or Oxford
dictionary where the theme binding them all are
alleviated status as Baerchen did.135 This “human deaths”.  
138 To read more on mental health and animals, visit-
proves that more than the love for dogs, it http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150909-many-ani
mals can-become-mentally-ill,
was the emblematic message and state http://sites.bu.edu/daniellerousseau/2019/04/30/post-t
raumatic-stress-in-animals/ and Forrest, Alexandra
propaganda which made the noise.136 D., Carlos A. Coto, and Steven J. Siegel. "Animal
models of psychosis: current state and future
Paradoxical emotions of pride and directions." Current behavioural neuroscience
reports 1, no. 2 (2014): 100-116.
lamentation reaffirms Britain’s 139 To engage in this discussion, look for Kean, Great
Massacre. p.4.
condescending fight against injustice,

thereby delimiting the agency of animals in

135 To read the entire episode, refer to Kean, Great
Massacre. pp.7-9 
136 It is ironic to note that the condescending “animal
loving” British who differentiated themselves from
the tyrannical Nazis deep down had many things in
common. Britain denied medals to many dogs who
risked their lives in the battlegrounds because of their
humble origins. These street dogs were ‘euthanised’
or put to death ‘humanely’ after extracting what was
needed. Rex was one such dog. To read his story,
visit-
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bravest-sniff
er dog-world-war-8620003 

Ijtihad Vol.8 41

with me the whole war. I know what you USA, in the post war period, injured war
feel.”  veterans were often assisted by guide dogs.
“Marseille, are you trying to create a However, battlefield dogs were not allowed
metaphor or something between your dead to return back because they were deemed
dog and my wife?”  ‘unfit’ for a society accustomed to
“She was a female dog. After the war, all of diametrically opposite values. The
my friends were dead……Pamuk was always separation was psychologically fatal for both
outside waiting. Always.”140  the human and animal companion.142 While
This discussion brings us to the brighter side some daring soldiers smuggled them back
of the unpleasant event. The gloomy picture home, very few were adopted, some
of loss, exploitation and despair has a abandoned at zoos or warfront, others
comforting prospect, which although doesn’t euthanised and the fate of yet others remains
sanitise the horrific realities, does give hope unknown.143 Thus, while the brief period of
of human-animal reconciliation and war witnessed some kind of reversal of the
growth.141 conservative power relations between the
During training in the military-industrial ‘superior  human’ and the ‘inferior animal’,
complex, an apprehension arose that the end of war brought back the ever-present
unrestrained ‘love’ could pose a serious superior-subordinate power hierarchy.
problem in the larger cause. During the
course of war, amidst chaotic destruction VIII. A Memory Enigma 
and disruptions, the shared relationship
strengthened. Particularly in Germany and While memories help to manifest the past in
the present, such choices of selection and
140 Although this conversation between Marseilles rejection come with their own sets of
and Sergio or the Professor in Money Heist might complexities. The architectural platform of
seem bizarre to many for comparing a ‘dead dog’ and the Animal in War Memorial of Britain
a ‘dead human’, it reflects the intimate bond, war houses this contradiction between the
often created between  the militarised soldier and his desired intent and its possible impact over
dog companion. The interaction beautifully shows the viewer’s psyche.  
two sides of the same coin. While the Professor is
desperately trying to cope with the loss of his human The Memorial from its very foundation in
love and for him a comparison between his  ‘dead 2004 has attracted a lot of attention from
wife’ and a mere ‘dead dog’ would feel like mockery.
On the other hand, there is Marseilles, a soldier, who  142 Ryan Hedigar discusses this in context of the
has been to war and lost all human companions and abandoned militarised dogs in Vietnam. It was only
for him grief of losing transcends the animal-human in 2000, when US President Bill Clinton passed the
dichotomy. In other words, while for Sergio it is the “Robby’s Law” which thereon allowed soldiers,
latter word, i.e. ‘human’ or ‘animal’ which matters, handlers and their families the right to adopt military
for  Marseilles, it is the former word, ‘death’ which animals at the end of their military service. To read
matters. The brief three minutes conversation, indeed, more, refer to- Hediger, Ryan. "Dogs of war: the
reflects  how the bond created in the battlefield didn’t biopolitics of loving and leaving the US canine forces
necessarily end there. Source- Game Over, Money in Vietnam." Animal Studies Journal 2,  no. 1 (2013):
Heist (S04E01).  Credits- Netflix.  55-73.
141 To read and see more pictures, visit- Lisa B. Auel, 143  This as a topic is huge and cannot form a part of
Buddies: Soldiers and Animals in World War II, the present paper. This article mentions some of the
National  Archives, Fall 1996, Vol. 28, No. 3, ways in which military dogs could and can be ‘used’
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1996 post  war-
/fall/buddies.html; No Better Friend: One  Man, One https://www.petfinder.com/pet-adoption/dog-adoption
Dog, and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage and /military-dog-adoption/
Survival in WWII; Judy: The Unforgettable Story  of
the Dog Who Went to War and Became a True Hero.  

Ijtihad Vol.8 42

both admirers and critics. Despite its aims to having “no choice”, on the other hand their
make people aware and appreciate animal contribution is acknowledged making them
participation in wars, the re-presentation conscious and active agents. 
subtly ignores inverts and sanitises the
actual war brutalities, thereby underscoring, The resultant by-product is a cycle of debt.
justifying and solidifying patriotism’s The present generation being grateful to
extraction of animals.144 In the words of their ancestors who fought tooth and nail to
Steven Johnson, “Death has no secure what is theirs, promises to protect
architectural presence in what is a (and thus fight) and surpass their ancestral
conservative memorial form.”145 glories and accomplishments, setting new
The commemoration creates a class of records and thus justifying any and every
“heroic”, self- sacrificing animals, hailed for sacrifice. Thus, the memorial proficiently
keeping the war ignited, entering the erases the very purpose of its existence and
superstructure of patriotism, on the flipside moulds them in the traditional patriotic
of which are the ignored ones dying glory, turning blind eye to the ‘un-heroic’
‘ordinary’ deaths.   animal.
The inscription on the walls announces
“They had no choice” as Hilda Kean claims IX. Conclusion
falls back in the category of “human centred
history.”146 A contradiction surfaces up The paper attempted to demystify the
where while the animals are pitied for sacrosanct “People’s war”, the success and
failure of which depends on the readership.
144 Baumel-Schwartz and Judith Tydor focus on the The whole idea of species hierarchy blurs,
interplay for five factors- "intention," "reception", fades and reaffirms in new ways before,
"comprehension", "explanation" and "validity” and during and after wars. Although the focus
locate the inference of the viewers vis-à-vis the has particularly been on the Dogs in the
original aim  of the creators. For more, read- Second World War, a whole world of 
Baumel-Schwartz, Judith Tydor. "Beloved Beasts: animal species had been a part of the event,
Reflections on the History  and Impact of the British a process which Dormant ideas of sacrifice
“Animals in War” Memorial." History and Memory (or death), patriotism when resurrected
29, no. 1 (2017): 104-133.  transcends their creators and encloses the
145  Johnson questions this architectural sanitisation by species considered to be intellectually
questioning why these are not represented- “why not different from. Animals suddenly become
mules drowning in craters of mud and water?  Why citizens who “must play their part” and as
not horses dismembered, remnants of body parts the situation normalises, citizenship yet
strewn about? Why not dog corpses piled on top of again becomes an ambiguous catchphrase
dog  corpses? Or, more subtly, why not present a debated at every corner.  
mélange of animals on one side of the wall and leave
the other side  vacant, suggesting that animals enter Use of animals synchronises with the
the war machine but do not exit it? Wouldn't this propaganda campaigns administered by
facilitate remembrance?” Extracted from - Johnston, nations fighting for their ‘greater cause’,
Steven. "Animals in War: Commemoration, manipulating concepts like ‘love’ and
Patriotism, Death. p.363. Likewise, George Monbiot ‘choice’. This helps the state to justify the
complains about “the Disneyfication of war [which] righteousness of their act, appease citizens,
allows us to ignore its real savagery.” To  read more, boost their morale, and appeal to them to
visit- participate in the ‘greater good’ by posing
https://www.spiked-online.com/2006/11/10/what-nex
t-a-tomb-of-the-unknown-pigeon/#
146 To engage more, refer to- Kean, Hilda,
“Challenges for Historians Writing Animal–Human
History: What Is Really Enough,” Anthrozoös 25,

Supplement 1 (2012):  s60, s63. 

  43

not necessarily of those being
commemorated.148 It is essential to
inquire whether the intention of the
creator syncs with the interpretation of
the viewer.

Ultimately all of this becomes a maze of
perceptions. For some the entire act signifies
a greater bond across species, yet for others
this is grave injustice and every possible
way to commemorate the dreadful realities
is seen as nothing but reductions. For a few,
such acts are a part of the reality, and so is
the innate hierarchy between different
species. Nevertheless, no particular view can
be upheld and endorsed as the ultimate truth.
Next time, while reading a valorising
narrative on how faithful ‘men’s best friends
are’, we can introspect what makes them
best and what happens if they do not abide
by it? Often an ultrathin line differentiates a
‘beast’ from a ‘pet’ and when the animal
crosses the limit, it is awarded with what it
was not expected to be.

147 Baumel-Schwartz, Judith Tydor- Beloved Beasts
op cit., 127.
148 Baumel-Schwartz, Judith Tydor- Beloved Beasts op

cit., 109.