Sufism and Liberation across the Indo-Afghan Border: 1880-1928

Caron, James

Abstract

How do we understand links between sufism and pro-egalitarian revolutionary activism in the early twentieth century; and how did upland compositions of self and community help constitute revolutionary activism in South Asia more broadly? Using Pashto poetry as my archive I integrate a history of radical egalitarian thought and political practice to a holistic study of self-making; of imperial spatiality; and of shifting gradients of power in the regions between Kabul and Punjab. Amid a chaotic rise of new practices of imperial and monarchic hegemony around the turn of the twentieth century, I argue, older sedimentations of ‘devotee selfhood’ in the high valleys of eastern Afghanistan gave rise, in social spaces preserved by self-reflexive poetic practice and circulation, to conscious desires for avoidance of all forms of hierarchy or sovereignty, in favour of a horizontal politics of reciprocity. Such inchoate drives for freedom later played a role in constituting anti-statist revolutionary subjectivities across great geographical and social distance. From upland sufi roots they rippled outward to intersect with the work of transnational socialist and anti-imperialist militants in Indian nationalist circles too; and even influenced scholars at the heart of the nascent Afghan nation-state.

Citation

Caron, J. Sufism and Liberation across the Indo-Afghan Border: 1880-1928. South Asian History and Culture, 7(2), 135-154. https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2016.1143667

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Feb 19, 2016
• Deposit Date: Jan 29, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 13, 2025
• Journal: South Asian History and Culture
• Print ISSN: 1947-2498
• Electronic ISSN: 1947-2501
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 135-154
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2016.1143667
• Keywords: Islam; sufism; radical politics; resistance; socialism; communism; revolution; Afghanistan; Pashto poetry; empire
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