Entangled Ideas: K. M Ashraf, Horst Krüger and New Indology in the German Democratic Republic

Table of Con­tents
Intro­duc­tion: Horst Krüger Papers  |  Kun­war Muham­mad Ashraf Papers  |  Entan­gled Ideas and Archives |  Appen­dix | End­notes |  Bib­li­og­ra­phy | 

Introduction: Horst Krüger Papers 

A broad sur­vey of the doc­u­ments includ­ed in the Horst Krüger Papers (now pre­served in more than 90 box­es and list­ed online in the Leib­niz-Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent (ZMO) https://www.jpberlin.de/zentrummodernerorient/biblio/index.php) reveals the breadth and depth of Krüger’s schol­ar­ship on colo­nial and post­colo­nial India. Horst Krüger (17.8.1920 — 11.3.1989) stud­ied His­to­ry and Ger­man Stud­ies at the Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin. From 1957 to 1959, he was a cul­tur­al con­sul­tant at the Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Ger­man Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic (hence­forth GDR) in India. This time spent in India seems to have inspired his life­long schol­ar­ship on his host coun­try. From 1960, he start­ed work­ing on the his­to­ry of India at the Akademie der Wis­senschaften der DDR /AdW (Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of the GDR). His main research focus was on the Indi­an Nation­al Move­ment and its rela­tions with the inter­na­tion­al labor move­ment. This result­ed in his mul­ti­vol­ume work, Die inter­na­tionale Arbeit­er­be­we­gung und die indis­che nationale Befreiungs­be­we­gung, that appeared as “Indis­che Nation­al­is­ten und Welt­pro­le­tari­at”, Berlin 1984, und “Anfänge sozial­is­tis­chen Denkens in Indi­en”, Berlin 1985.[1] The Krüger col­lec­tion includes per­son­al papers, doc­u­ments, and cor­re­spon­dences as well as news­pa­per cut­tings. The col­lec­tion also hous­es pub­li­ca­tions on inter­na­tion­al anti-colo­nial net­works of the Indi­an nation­al­ist move­ment; the Con­gress par­ty and its lead­ers; Mus­lim lead­ers and their role(s) in the edu­ca­tion and pol­i­tics of colo­nial India; Nehru­vian state poli­cies; Intra-Asian sol­i­dar­i­ty; Afro-Indi­an con­nec­tions; and inter­na­tion­al pol­i­tics. There are numer­ous papers on Africa 1958–61 (Indi­ans in Africa, the South African Union and sev­er­al coun­tries); Afro –Asian sol­i­dar­i­ty and the Con­fer­ence of Ban­dung, 1955; North and South Korea 1960–61; Indone­sia 1954–61; and NATO 1957–61. There is also a wide range of papers now pre­served on micro­films, includ­ing those from the Archive of the Ger­man Depart­ment of For­eign Affairs, Regard­ing British India, Issue 36 (1911–1912).

List­ed below are some of the files that con­tain sundry threads of entan­gled Indo-Ger­man his­to­ry. There are two pos­si­bil­i­ties to search online for the same.

First­ly, through indi­vid­ual name search­es, that is, by look­ing for spe­cif­ic names of Indi­ans who had con­nec­tions with Ger­many. Such a search leads one, for instance, to the files relat­ed to:

V.N. Chat­topad­hyaya
Shyamji Krish­navar­ma
Har Day­al
Ram Chan­dra
Chempakra­man Pil­lai
K.M. Ashraf
Jab­bar and Sat­tar Kheiri
G. Adhikari
N.M. Joshi
Ram Chan­dra
Rajen­dra Prasad
Jawa­har­lal Nehru
Aurobindo Ghosh

Sec­ond­ly, through search­es of insti­tu­tions and themes, that con­nect Indo-Ger­man his­to­ries. Among oth­ers, some of the cat­e­gories that emerge from the col­lec­tion are:

The Edu­ca­tion­al Sys­tem in India
The ‘All India Trade Union Con­gress’
The ‘Afro-Asi­at­ic Con­fer­ence of Women’ in Cairo in Jan­u­ary 1961
The Indi­an Nation­al Con­gress and Mass Con­tact)
The ‘All India Con­gress Com­mit­tee’
The For­eign Pol­i­cy of Pak­istan — Rela­tions with India 1957-‘61
Indi­an Uni­ver­si­ties and Col­leges 1957-‘61
Social­ism and Com­mu­nism in India
Board Free­dom Move­ment Maha­rash­tra
The ‘Indi­an Nation­al Move­men­t’
Sec­ondary Schools in India
The Domes­tic Devel­op­ment of Nepal 1956 — 1961
The ‘Silk Let­ter Con­spir­a­cy Case’
Indi­an-Japan­ese Rela­tions 1916–19
Impe­ri­al­ism and the Indi­an nation­al lib­er­a­tion move­ment
’Holy War’ and the Pan-Islam­ic move­ment
Ninth Euro­pean Con­fer­ence on Mod­ern South Asian Stud­ies, 1986
Indi­an-Ger­man polit­i­cal rela­tions before World War II

The doc­u­ments were col­lect­ed in var­i­ous archives in India, Great Britain and Ger­many like for instance at the Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um and Library, Del­hi (NMML), the Nation­al Archives of India, Del­hi (NAI), the Poli­tis­ches Archiv des Auswär­ti­gen Amtes, Berlin (PAAA; Polit­i­cal Archive of the Ger­man For­eign Office) or the Dim­itroff-Muse­um, Leipzig.

This post focus­es on one of the results of such a name search in the Horst Krüger col­lec­tion: files relat­ed to K.M. Ashraf. These files occu­py a dis­tinct and impor­tant space in the Krüger Papers, and can be seen as a graph­ic illus­tra­tion of entan­gled ideas and archives.

Kunwar Muhammad Ashraf Papers

The Marx­ist intel­lec­tu­al and cul­tur­al milieu in the GDR was deeply entan­gled with the growth of pro­gres­sive social­ist think­ing and pol­i­tics among Mus­lims in South Asia. Aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions like the Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, Berlin (Deutsche Akademie der Wis­senschaften zu Berlin, and lat­er Akademie der Wis­senschaften der DDR/ AdW) and the Indo-Ori­en­tal Sem­i­nar at the Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin with its empha­sis on “New Indol­o­gy”, opened a new chap­ter to ini­ti­ate schol­ar­ly engage­ments with Islam and Mus­lim schol­ar­ship in India.[2]

In this post, I want to pur­sue a strand of the entan­gled Indo-GDR intel­lec­tu­al his­to­ries by fol­low­ing the tra­jec­to­ry of Kun­war Muham­mad Ashraf (1903–1962)[3] and his efforts to find answers to the “Mus­lim Ques­tion” with­in the con­text of Indi­an cul­tur­al inte­gra­tion through his engage­ment with ”New Indol­o­gy” in the GDR. His ideas and per­son­al papers are housed in the Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um & Library, Del­hi, while many of his per­son­al writ­ings and papers are in the Horst Krüger col­lec­tions in the archive of the Leib­niz-Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent (ZMO). Ashraf´s think­ing and writ­ings on the “Mus­lim Ques­tion” were pro­duced in dia­logue with Ger­man ideas and intel­lec­tu­als at the Insti­tute of Indol­o­gy, Hum­boldt- Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin.[4] It was a sig­nif­i­cant deci­sion that the Insti­tute chose a Mus­lim Marx­ist schol­ar as a vis­it­ing pro­fes­sor of Medieval Indi­an his­to­ry and culture.

K.M Ashraf had a long asso­ci­a­tion with Marx­ist inter­na­tion­al cir­cles as a stu­dent in Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don from 1927–32. He con­nect­ed with the wider net­work of South Asian Com­mu­nists in Ger­many, includ­ing Saj­jad Zaheer, Viren­dranath Chat­topad­hayay and M. N. Roy. His polit­i­cal role as a Con­gress social­ist par­ty leader in charge of the Mus­lim mass con­tact pro­gramme between 1935 until 1947, and sub­se­quent dis­il­lu­sion­ment and move to the Com­mu­nist Par­ty, is a trag­ic tale of missed oppor­tu­ni­ties.[5] Ashraf was a staunch oppo­nent of “Mus­lim sep­a­ratism” and a firm believ­er in pro­gres­sive inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty. Based on the Gan­gad­har Adhikari the­sis, the Com­mu­nist Par­ty of India’s (CPI) deci­sion on the “Mus­lim Ques­tion” was in favour of the cre­ation of Pak­istan. Despite his per­son­al reser­va­tions, Ashraf moved to Pak­istan due to par­ty pre­cepts. In Pak­istan, he came under polit­i­cal sus­pi­cion and was arrest­ed on charges of being a Com­mu­nist. He was nei­ther wel­comed in Pak­istan nor accept­ed back in India.[6] Nei­ther here nor there, Ashraf became emblem­at­ic of the unre­solved “Mus­lim Ques­tion” in post-par­ti­tion South Asia: he became a state­less per­son and was in exile in Eng­land before he was reha­bil­i­tat­ed in Kirori Mal Col­lege, Del­hi where he taught his­to­ry from 1956–60.[7] Con­stant­ly under sus­pi­cion and attack in India, he moved to Berlin on a vis­it­ing pro­fes­sor­ship. A vic­tim of par­ti­tion pol­i­tics in South Asia, Ashraf´s Berlin stay was also marked by the hard­en­ing of divi­sion between the two Ger­manys. He wit­nessed the clo­sure of the free cor­ri­dor between the two Ger­man states on 13 August 1961.

Deter­mined to use his time to engage with the issue that had affect­ed both his aca­d­e­m­ic and per­son­al life, Ashraf start­ed work­ing on the theme of Mus­lim iden­ti­ty and Indi­an cul­ture. As an aca­d­e­m­ic and polit­i­cal activist in colo­nial India, he had writ­ten on the top­ic of the “Mus­lim Ques­tion” in India, which was sub­se­quent­ly pub­lished as His­tor­i­cal Back­ground of Hin­du- Mus­lim Ques­tion in India.[8] He had also writ­ten on the “Mus­lim ques­tion” and pol­i­tics in the Urdu jour­nal Awa­mi Daur and was work­ing on revis­ing his con­tri­bu­tions and pub­lish­ing them as a book. It even­tu­al­ly came out as An Overview of Indi­an Mus­lim Pol­i­tics 1920–1947.[9] This issue was close to his heart and fel­low com­mu­nist leader Saj­jad Zaheer was involved in the process of mate­ri­al­iz­ing the book. In fact, Ashraf and Zaheer dis­cussed it dur­ing their Berlin meet­ing in May 1961. Zaheer even­tu­al­ly also wrote the fore­word for the book. As Zaheer not­ed, Ashraf´s work was char­ac­ter­ized by a strong desire that the “Mus­lims will join rev­o­lu­tion­ary, most log­i­cal and most sci­en­tif­ic and humane move­ment of India in order that Mus­lims must have a place of hon­our and dig­ni­ty in the coun­try.”[10] It was this desire that impelled Ashraf to turn to pro­gres­sive inter­na­tion­al­ism as an answer to the Minor­i­ty Question.

The GDR was involved in build­ing new ties with the erst­while colonies and third-world coun­tries and was devel­op­ing what they called “Mod­ern Ori­en­tol­ogy”.[11] This vision of mod­ern Ori­en­tol­ogy was to be realised and imple­ment­ed at the Insti­tute for Ori­en­tal Stud­ies at the Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, Berlin. [12]The New Marx­ist Ori­en­tol­o­gists in the GDR, while pay­ing homage to and “con­tin­u­ing the human­is­tic tra­di­tion of clas­si­cal Ger­man Indol­o­gy,” want­ed to bring fun­da­men­tal changes to the dis­ci­pline.[13] Mod­ern Ori­en­tol­ogy had its ori­gins in the writ­ings of Karl Marx, sim­i­lar to which it aimed to con­cen­trate on the mod­ern his­to­ry and cul­ture of India with the study of social­ist ideas as the main aca­d­e­m­ic con­cern. K. M Ashraf´s Berlin years were marked by aca­d­e­m­ic vital­i­ty and activism that his Ger­man col­league Horst Krüger fond­ly describes in his rem­i­nis­cences of Ashraf.[14] Both had met in Del­hi in 1957 and bond­ed over shared research inter­ests and method­ol­o­gy. Krüger con­sid­ered him not just a good friend or col­league but in his own words “Dr. Ashraf was not sim­ply my guru but at the same time the liv­ing and inspir­ing exam­ple of the Indi­an people´s strug­gle for free­dom and bet­ter life.”[15]  Ashraf’s vis­it to Berlin as a Guest Pro­fes­sor of Medieval His­to­ry in 1960 fur­ther cement­ed this bond over shared aca­d­e­m­ic and every­day activ­i­ties in Berlin. His vis­it coin­cid­ed with the 150 years cel­e­bra­tions of the Hum­boldt Uni­ver­sität and a con­fer­ence on “The Nation­al Awak­en­ing of peo­ple of Asia and Africa and Task of Ori­en­tol­ogy”. Ashraf, Krüger recounts, not only active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the con­fer­ence but also gave an impromp­tu lec­ture on “Anti-Impe­ri­al­ist tra­di­tions in Urdu lit­er­a­ture.”[16] Dur­ing his stay, he also gave a series of lec­tures on the theme of “The Mus­lim Ques­tion in Indi­an Pol­i­tics”, which were based on his own polit­i­cal expe­ri­ence and schol­ar­ly writ­ings. [17] The same year also saw him being elect­ed the pres­i­dent of the Indi­an His­to­ry Con­gress at its ses­sion in Ali­garh, where he gave an impor­tant pres­i­den­tial address.[18] This lec­ture reflect­ed on the com­plex issue of “Mus­lim cul­ture” and the pol­i­tics of knowl­edge pro­duc­tion on Indi­an his­to­ry. Ashraf cri­tiqued the absence of medieval his­to­ry in the tra­di­tion­al Indol­o­gist stud­ies of Indi­an cul­ture, which focussed on San­skrit lin­guis­tic and tex­tu­al stud­ies to define the core of Indi­an cul­ture – a trend that also con­tin­ued under colo­nial and nation­al­ist his­to­ry-writ­ing where the medieval peri­od became the peri­od of cul­tur­al deca­dence. He did not spare the Mus­lim apol­o­gist his­to­ry-writ­ings of Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Zakaullah.[19] Instead, he advo­cat­ed a Marx­ist his­to­ri­og­ra­phy as devel­oped by Muham­mad Habib at Ali­garh Uni­ver­si­ty, who cri­tiqued Mus­lim com­mu­nal­ist and sep­a­ratist his­to­ri­og­ra­phy. Remem­ber­ing the vio­lent par­ti­tion of the coun­try, Ashraf sug­gest­ed a crit­i­cal engage­ment with the his­to­ry and cul­ture of Mus­lims in India to rethink the issue of con­flict and (re)conciliation. In this direc­tion, he empha­sized a pro­gres­sive out­look and cit­ed the exam­ple of new Indol­o­gy in the social­ist world, which was “more holis­tic and diverse in its approach” and pro­vid­ed new ori­en­ta­tions in the study of Indi­an his­to­ry.[20] He high­light­ed the new ini­tia­tive at the Ori­en­tal insti­tutes in Berlin, Halle and Leipzig in their study of Mus­lim cul­ture in India.[21] The prob­lem of Mus­lim cul­ture in medieval and mod­ern India and its con­ti­nu­ities and trans­for­ma­tion remained a recur­ring research theme in his work. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, he could not attain his vision, dying sud­den­ly on 7 June, 1962 in Berlin due to a heart attack. He was buried at the Zen­tral­fried­hof in Berlin Friedrichs­felde, also known as Sozial­is­ten­fried­hof (Ceme­tery of the Social­ists)”.[22]

Ashraf was an impor­tant actor in forg­ing an entan­gled his­to­ry of pro­gres­sive ideas among Marx­ist intel­lec­tu­als in GDR and India. His engage­ment with the new Indol­o­gy project in East Berlin allowed him to rethink his own work on Mus­lims and nation­al­ism. Fur­ther, it threw new light on the pol­i­cy fol­lowed by the Com­mu­nist Par­ty on Pak­istan, sup­port­ing the move­ment in the loom­ing Cold War con­text. The fail­ure to come to terms with minori­ties and the inabil­i­ty to resolve the ques­tion of “nation­al cul­ture” remained a fraught sub­ject, which was sel­dom dis­cussed open­ly. Ashraf revis­it­ed the “Mus­lim Ques­tion” not as a reli­gious but as a polit­i­cal and cul­tur­al ques­tion of minori­ties to analyse the cat­e­gories of reli­gion and his­to­ry writ­ing in GDR and India. He engaged with and pro­mot­ed new ways of study­ing Mus­lim and Indi­an his­to­ry to not only empha­size the his­tor­i­cal con­struc­tion and trans­for­ma­tion of “Mus­lim and Indi­an cul­ture” but also to demon­strate them as mutu­al­ly con­sti­tut­ing, and not sep­a­rate, cat­e­gories. The pro­gres­sive and inter­na­tion­al schol­ar­ly milieu of East Berlin pro­vid­ed a space and fur­nished him with resources to artic­u­late some of these unre­solved ques­tions from the past and imag­ine new futures.

Entangled Ideas and Archives

This entan­gled his­to­ry of intel­lec­tu­al exchange and the trans­for­ma­tion of ideas shared between Ashraf and FRG schol­ars is pre­served as Ashraf files in the Krüger col­lec­tions at the ZMO archive (for details about the files relat­ed to Ashraf see the appen­dix). The mak­ing and remak­ing of this archive is in itself a sub­ject wor­thy of study.[23] Due to Ashraf’s sud­den death in East Berlin, it seemed that his papers and oth­er doc­u­ments includ­ing pho­tographs were giv­en to the Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of the DGR, Berlin, most like­ly by his wife Phyl­lis Mary Kemp Ashraf, a social­ist activist schol­ar, who had accom­pa­nied him to East Berlin in 1960.

Also found in the Krüger Papers are pho­tos that young Ashraf sent to her. A ten­der pri­vate moment of love appears amidst pub­lic and polit­i­cal papers that are con­cerned with com­mu­nist and rev­o­lu­tion­ary work and writings.

Anoth­er sur­viv­ing spec­i­men of his per­son­al archive is the hand-writ­ten auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal note in which Ashraf recounts his extra­or­di­nary jour­ney from being a devout Mus­lim in Mewat to becom­ing a com­mit­ted com­mu­nist in East Berlin. These were appar­ent­ly trans­ferred to NMML, Del­hi due to the efforts of his son Moham­mad Jaweed Ashraf. How­ev­er, it seems Krüger also had addi­tion­al copies as some orig­i­nal doc­u­ments and pho­tos remained with him for his work on the Ashraf Festschrift vol­ume and found their way into the archive of the Leib­niz- Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent with­in the Krüger collection.

Along with Ashraf´s own intel­lec­tu­al work and writ­ings, the Ashraf Files also pro­vide us with an insight into the mak­ing of his Festschrift vol­ume and the numer­ous let­ters of con­do­lence and affec­tion that arrived on his untime­ly death, includ­ing one per­son­al­ly signed by Jawa­har­lal Nehru to com­mem­o­rate Ashraf´s life and works. Sev­er­al of these let­ters and essays were incor­po­rat­ed in the felic­i­ta­tion vol­ume and many oth­ers now sur­vive as let­ters in the Ashraf Files with­in the Horst Krüger Papers. Krüger also col­lect­ed all the pub­lic­i­ty mate­ri­als gen­er­at­ed for the book, includ­ing brochures and the reviews that appeared after­wards, irre­spec­tive of whether they were crit­i­cal of or glo­ri­fy­ing Ashraf. The Ashraf Files in the Krüger col­lec­tion show that the pro­tag­o­nists did not mere­ly share an aca­d­e­m­ic or intel­lec­tu­al con­nec­tion but a bond that was root­ed in mutu­al admi­ra­tion and affec­tion. Ashraf seems to have left a last­ing impres­sion on Krüger´s intel­lec­tu­al and per­son­al career. The Krüger col­lec­tion pro­vides an archive of this entan­gled his­to­ry of ideas.

Appendix

Doc­u­ment list based on elec­tron­ic search K.M Ashraf in Krüger papers, ZMO Archives

Box	Num­mer	Sach­gruppe	Autor	Titel	Quelle	Ort	Jahr
3	9,3	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	Habib H.	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf from the Edi­tor of ‘The Agra Cititzen’).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um & Library	Agra	06.06.1938
3	9,3	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee	(?)	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um & Library	Lahore	19.03.1938
3	9,3	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	Vak­il, M.Sh.	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf from the ‘Indi­an Insti­tute of Sociology’).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um & Library	Bom­bay	01.04.1938
3	9,3	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	(?)	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um & Library	Del­hi	02.04.1938
3	9,3	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	Kachroo, D.N.(?)	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf in con­nec­tion with ‘The ‘Stu­dents Review’, the jour­nal of the ‘Benares Stu­dents Association’).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um & Library	Sri­na­gar	11.06.1938
3	9,3	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	Brelvi, S.A	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	Bom­bay	18.05.1937
3	9,3	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	Mazum­dar, G.	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	Cal­cut­ta	05.05.1937
3	9,3	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	(?)	Arti­cle (in ‘The Search­light’ regard­ing a speech held by K.M. Ashraf at a pub­lic meet­ing on the rela­tion­ship towards the Con­gress and the Muslims).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	(?)	27.04.1937
3	9,3	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	(?)	Arti­cle (in a news­pa­per) :”Mus­lim Cul­ture And Lead­er­ship. Con­gress Leader’s View.” (regard­ing a speech held by K.M. Ashraf at a pub­lic meet­ing at Patna).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	(?)	25.04.1937 (?)
3	9,3	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	Mazum­dar, G.	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	Cal­cut­ta	09.09.1937
3	9,3	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	Brelvi, S.A.	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	Bom­bay	26.04.1937
3	9,4	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	Mar­dana, V.(?)	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	(?)	14.10.1938
3	9,4	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	(?)	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf from the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Pun­jab Con­gress Social­ist Party).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	Lahore	22.09.1938
3	9,4	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee	Lon­don, M.N.	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	Agra	05.10.1938
3	9,5	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	Bazaz, P.N.(?)	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf, Sec­re­tary of the ‘All India Con­gress Com­mit­tee’, Allahabad).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	(?)	(?)
4	10,2	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	Kumar­man­galam, M.	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	Cam­bridge	03.01.1938
4	10,2	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	(?)	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	Amrit­sar	29.11.1937
4	10,2	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	(?)	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf from the Sec­re­tary of the Con­gress Committee).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	Bijapur	19.12.1937
4	10,3	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee	(?)	Let­ter (to K.M. Ashraf from the Man­ag­er of ‘The Dai­ly Asia Agra’).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	Agra	06.12.1937
4	11,6	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	(?)	Col­lec­tion (of sev­er­al Indi­an news­pa­pers arti­cles regard­ing K.M. Ashraf and the rela­tions between the Con­gress and the Muslims).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	(?)	22.01.1960
4	11,7	Papers on the ‘All India Con­gress Committee’	(?)	Com­mu­nique (pub­lished by K.M. Ashraf in ‘The Dec­can Times’ regard­ing a let­ter from J. Nehru to R.A. Kidwai).	Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um &Library	Madras	26.09.1937
17	100,1	J. Nehru Papers	Nehru, J.	“Let­ter (to Dr. H. Krüger regard­ing K.M. Ashraf 2 copies).	Krüger Files	New Del­hi	(?)
23	128,1	K.M. Ashraf Papers	(?)	“Anno­ta­tion : ”Kun­war Moham­mad Ashraf 1903 ‑1962. An Indi­an Schol­ar And Rev­o­lu­tion­ary.” (edit­ed by H. Krüger pub­lished in ‘Cat­a­logue’, 1973).	Krüger Files	New Del­hi	(?)
23	128,1	K.M. Ashraf Papers	(?)	“Review : ”Kun­war Moham­mad Ashraf: An Indi­an Schol­ar And Rev­o­lu­tion­ary 1903 — 1962.” (edit­ed by H. Krüger pub­lished in the jour­nal ‘Eco­nom­ic And Polit­i­cal Weekly’).”	Krüger Files	New Del­hi	(?)
23	128,2	K.M. Ashraf Papers	(?)	Let­ters, reviews and anno­ta­tions (in con­nec­tion with the book ”Kun­war Moham­mad Ashraf” by H. Krüger).	Krüger Files	(?)	(?)
23	128,3	K.M. Ashraf Papers	(?)	Let­ter (to H. Krüger from J. Nehru includ­ing pho­tos from K.M. Ashraf).	Krüger Files	New Del­hi	13.10.1963
38	288,1	Pro­files of var­i­ous Indi­an and Ger­man Schol­ars and Politicians	(?)	Bio­graph­i­cal sketch (of P.M. Ashraf).	Krüger Files	(?)	(?)
49	363,1	Horst Krüger Papers	Krüger, H.	“Arti­cle (in a spe­cial edi­tion issued by the Insti­tut für Ori­ent­forschung der Deutschen Akademie der Wis­senschaften zu Berlin) : ““Kun­war Moham­mad Ashraf, An Indi­an Schol­ar And Rev­o­lu­tion­ary (1903–1962).”””	Krüger Files	Berlin	(?)
58	424,1	K.M. Ashraf Papers	Ashraf, K. M.	Hand­writ­ten notes (K. M. Ashraf on himself ).	Krüger Files	(?)	(?)
58	424,1	K.M. Ashraf Papers	Ashraf, K. M.	Typed script: ““K. M. Ashraf’s pres­i­den­tial address to the Fourth Ses­sion of the All-India Stu­dents’ Fed­er­a­tion held in Cal­cut­ta on the 1st Jan­u­ary, 1939. The Con­fer­ence was opened by Sj. Sarat Chan­dra Bose”” ”	Indi­an Annu­al Reg­is­ter, 1939, Vol. 1	Cal­cut­ta	1939
58	424,1	K.M. Ashraf Papers	Ashraf, K. M. / Gup­ta, N. L.	“Typed script:““ Inter­view with K. M. Ashraf dat­ed 27th Octo­ber 1960”””	Krüger Files	Del­hi	27. Octo­ber 1960
63	440,3	Papers on P. M. Ashraf	(?)	Pho­tos of P. M. Ashraf (belong­ing to Mrs. P. M. Ashraf)	Krüger Files	Lahore	1907 ?
75	504	Jawa­har­lal Nehru: files and news­pa­per articles	(?)	Nehru papers relat­ing to Ashraf, Bald­win, Bridge­man, Brod­ck­way, Chat­topad­hyaya, Tarak­nath Das, Edo Tin­nen, Innes, Pol­lit, Ral­land, M.N. Roy, Agnes Smed­ley, H.N. Spald­ing, Ernst Toller, Shcukat Usmani / Cor­re­spon­dence between Nehru and Motilal	(?)	(?)	1936

Endnotes

[1]	See ZMO Web­page Bestände / Nach­lass Dr. Horst Krüger. https://www.zmo.de/biblio/sammlung_krueger.html
[2]	On the  larg­er his­to­ry and schol­ar­ly activ­i­ties at the Deutsche Akademie der Wis­senschaften (Adw) zu Berlin see: Annemarie Hafn­er, „Indologie/Südasienwissenschaften an der Deutschen Akademie der Wis­senschaften (AdW) zu Berlin bzw. der Akademie der Wis­senschaften der DDR zwischen1947 und 1991.“ In Maria Framke, Han­nelore Lötzke, Ingo Strauch (eds.).  Indolo­gie und Südasien­stu­di­en in Berlin: Geschichte und Posi­tions­bes­tim­mung. Stu­di­en zur Geschichte und Gegen­wart Asiens.  Vol. 4, 2014. pp. 259–284.
[3]	For the bio­graph­i­cal details, includ­ing his polit­i­cal career in Con­gress Social­ist Part and Com­mu­nist Par­ty in India, see, Khizar Humayun Ansari. The Emer­gence of  Social­ist Thought Among North Indi­an Mus­lims (1917–1947). Karachi: Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2015.
[4]	On the  emer­gence of and affini­ties between the “Jew­ish Ques­tion” in Ger­many and the “Mus­lim Ques­tion” in South Asia see, Aamir Mufti. Enlight­en­ment in the Colony: The Jew­ish Ques­tion and the Cri­sis of Post­colo­nial Cul­ture. Prince­ton NJ: Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2007.
[5]	Chowd­hury, Abdul Haye, “The Free­dom Move­ment in Mewat and Dr. K. M. Ashraf”, in: Horst Krüger, (ed.). Kun­war Mohammed Ashraf: An Indi­an Schol­ar and Rev­o­lu­tion­ary 1903–1962. Del­hi: People’s Pub­lish­ing House, 1969, pp. 291 – 340, here pp. 330–333.
[6]	On Ashraf’s role in Mus­lim mass con­tact pro­gramme see: Venkat Dhuli­pala. Cre­at­ing A New Med­i­na: State Pow­er, Islam, and  the Quest for Pak­istan in Late Colo­nial North India. New Del­hi: Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2015.
[7]	Chowd­hury, Abdul Haye, “The Free­dom Move­ment in Mewat”, pp. 331–333.
[8]	Kun­war Moham­mad Ashraf. Hin­du-Mus­lim Ques­tion And Our Free­dom Strug­gle. Two Vols. New Del­hi: Sun­rise Pub­li­ca­tions, 2005.
[9]	Kun­war Moham­mad Ashraf. An Overview of Indi­an Mus­lim Pol­i­tics 1920–1947. Trans­lat­ed by Jaweed  Ashraf. New Del­hi: Man­ak Pub­lish­ers, 2001. The Urdu ver­sion was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in 1963 and has been trans­lat­ed by Jaweed Ashraf.
[10]	Ibid.,7.
[11]	Ibid.
[12]	Michael Maschke & Jana Tschurenev. “Von der Philolo­gie Zur Gesellschaftswis­senschaft: Berlin­er Südasien­forschung in der Zeit der DDR.“ In Maria Framke, Han­nelore Lötzke, Ingo Strauch (eds.). Indolo­gie und Südasien­stu­di­en in Berlin: Geschichte und Posi­tions­bes­tim­mung. Stu­di­en zur Geschichte und Gegen­wart Asiens.  Vol. 4, 2014. pp. 165–203.
[13]	Krüger (ed.), Kun­war Mohammed Ashraf. On Krüger and his per­son­al papers  see, https://www.zmo.de/biblio/sammlung_Krüger.html
[14]	Horst Krüger on K.M. Ashraf, in: Krüger (ed.), Kun­war Mohammed Ashraf, p. 380.
[15]	Ibid., 380–381.
[16]	Ibid.
[17]	Ibid.
[18]	K. M Ashraf. “Pres­i­den­tial Address to the Medieval His­to­ry Sec­tion of the Indi­an His­to­ry Con­gress, Ali­garh 1960.” Cit­ed in Horst Krüger (ed.). Kun­war Mohammed Ashraf: An Indi­an Schol­ar and Rev­o­lu­tion­ary 1903–l962. Del­hi: People’s Pub­lish­ing House, 1966, pp. 403–411.
[19]	Ibid., 405.
[20]	Ibid., 408.
[21]	Ibid.
[22]	Ibid., 384.
[23]	See also the post by Anan­di­ta Baj­pai. “Trac­ing India in a Berlin Archive: Reflec­tions on the Joachim and  Petra Hei­drich papers in the Leib­niz-Zen­trum  Mod­ern­er Ori­ent Archive.” MIDA Web­site Post.

Bibliography

Ansari, Khizar Humayun, The Emer­gence of Social­ist Thought Among North Indi­an Mus­lims (1917–1947). Karachi: Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2015.

Ashraf, Kun­war Moham­mad, An Overview of Indi­an Mus­lim Pol­i­tics 1920–1947. Trans­lat­ed by Jaweed Ashraf. New Del­hi: Man­ak Pub­lish­ers, 2001.

——–, His­tor­i­cal Back­ground of Hin­du- Mus­lim Ques­tion in India 1725–1943.” Two Vols. New Del­hi: Sun­rise Pub­li­ca­tions, 2005.

——–, Indi­an His­to­ri­og­ra­phy and Oth­er Relat­ed Papers. Trans­lat­ed from Urdu  and pre­pared for Pub­li­ca­tion  by Jaweed Ashraf. New Del­hi: Sun­rise Pub­li­ca­tions, 2006.

Baj­pai, Anan­di­ta, Trac­ing, Cat­a­logu­ing, Index­ing: Reflec­tions on the Joachim and Petra Hei­drich papers in the Leib­niz-Zen­trum Mod­ern­er Ori­ent Archive, 2018, https://www.projekt-mida.de/reflexicon/tracing-cataloguing-indexing-reflections-on-the-joachim-and-petra-heidrich-papers-in-the-leibniz-zentrum-moderner-orient-archive/. (Last accessed on: 03-05-2019).

Chowd­hury, Abdul Haye, “The Free­dom Move­ment in Mewat and Dr. K. M. Ashraf”. In: Horst Krüger (ed.), Kun­war Mohammed Ashraf: An Indi­an Schol­ar and Rev­o­lu­tion­ary 1903–1962. Del­hi: People’s Pub­lish­ing House, 1969, pp. 291 — 340. 

Dalmia, Vasud­ha, Poet­ics, Plays and Per­for­mances: The Pol­i­tics of Mod­ern Indi­an The­atre. Del­hi: Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2006.

Dhuli­pala, Venkat, Cre­at­ing A New Med­i­na: State Pow­er, Islam, and the Quest for Pak­istan in Late Colo­nial North India. New Del­hi: Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2015.

Krüger, Horst (ed.), Kun­war Mohammed Ashraf: An Indi­an Schol­ar and Rev­o­lu­tion­ary 1903–1962. Del­hi: People’s Pub­lish­ing House, 1969.

——–, Die Inter­na­tionale Arbeit­er­be­we­gung und die indis­che nationale Befreiungs­be­we­gung, in 4 Bän­den. Berlin: Akademie-Ver­lag, 1984

——–, Anfänge sozial­is­tis­chen Denkens in Indi­en : der Beginn der Rezep­tion sozial­is­tis­ch­er Ideen in Indi­en vor 1914. Berlin : Akademie –Ver­lag, 1985.

——–, Indis­che Nation­al­is­ten und Welt­pro­le­tari­at. Der nationale Befreiungskampf in Indi­en und die inter­na­tionale Arbeit­er­be­we­gung vor 1914. Berlin: Akademie Ver­lag, 1984.

Mufti, Aamir, Enlight­en­ment in the Colony: The Jew­ish Ques­tion and the Cri­sis of Post­colo­nial Cul­ture. Prince­ton NJ: Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2007.

Maschke, Michael, Jana Tschurenev, “Von der Philolo­gie Zur  Gesellschaftswis­senschaft: Berlin­er Südasien­forschung in der Zeit der DDR”. In: Maria Framke, Han­nelore Lötzke, Ingo Strauch (eds.), Indolo­gie und Südasien­stu­di­en in Berlin: Geschichte und Posi­tions­bes­tim­mung. Stu­di­en zur Geschichte und Gegen­wart Asiens: 4. Berlin: trafo, 2014, S. 165–203.

Razak Khan, MIDA, CeMIS, Georg-August-Uni­ver­sität Göttingen