Champion of Minority Rights

OMAR KHALIDI (1953-2010)

Dr. Omar Khalidi, author of more than two dozen books and scores of academic articles on minority rights, history, architecture, economics, demography, politics, Urdu education, military history, library science, and cataloguing, died on 29 Nov. in an accident in Cambridge, MA. He will be remembered for his incisive writings that inspired the 2006 Sachar Committee, tasked by Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh with reporting on the social, economic, and educational status of Muslim Indians, to include a review of minority representation in the country's armed forces.

Born in Indian-occupied Hyderabad, Dr. Khalidi was initiated into the scholarly world by his father, Abu Nasr Muhammad Khalidi, a specialist in Islamic studies and Urdu literature at Osmania University. He earned a B.A. (Wichita State University, 1980), an A.L.M. (Harvard University School of Extension Studies, 1991), and a Ph.D. (University of Wales-Lampeter, UK, 1994). After spending part of the 1980s working at King Saud University, he joined MIT. At the time of his death, he was the librarian of MIT's Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture.

His scholarly venture began with "The British Residents at the Court of the Nizams of Hyderabad" (1981). His landmark "Hyderabad after the Fall" (1988) documents India's 1948 invasion (and subsequent fall) of independent Hyderabad and how this affected the Muslims. Before the publication of this book, the events surrounding Operation Polo and its aftermath were long forgotten and undocumented. It was Khalidi who unearthed excerpts from the Pandit Sunderlal Commission report that, for the first time, offered a glimpse into what really happened in 1948. He also was guest editor of "Islamic Horizons'" special Nov.-Dec.1998 issue on Hyderabad.

His attempt to broaden his scholarly horizons by researching the socioeconomic and political issues from the early 1990s culminated in his "Khaki and Ethnic Violence in India: Army, Police, and Paramilitary Forces during Communal Riots" (2003) and "Muslims in the Indian Economy" (2006). These two meticulously documented books were instrumental in exposing the institutional discrimination against Muslims in India. L. K. Advani personally held Khalidi responsible for the Sachar Committee's request for a community-wide census and attacked him for allegedly tarnishing the army's secular credentials. In addition to revealing the degree of entrenched Hinduism in the country's official machinery, in later years Khalidi called the Archaeological Survey of India a "Handmaiden of Hindutva" for its distortion of history. Despite his strong critique of the state machinery, he nevertheless retained a firm belief in the idea of India as a secular, democratic, and progressive nation that guarantees rights for all of its citizens.

Apart from his scholarly work, Khalidi was active in the American Federation of Muslims of Indian Origin (the regional vice president), Indian Muslim Relief and Charities, the Indian Muslim Council, and the Association of Indian Muslims. He regularly wrote for the "Economic and Political Weekly," "Oudook," "India Abroad," "Two Circles," and other print and Internet media outlets.

He is survived by his wife Nigar and daughter Aliya.

[Author Affiliation]

- Mohammed Ayub Khan is a doctoral student in political science. (Excerpted with permission)