The idea of a composite India was passed on to us as an inheritance by our iconic nationalists and freedom fighters. It is something we need to respect while we go through the exercise of rewriting history textbooks.

'We will have to campaign for equality and equity. We will have to punish those who oppose the creation of such a world,' he wrote.

Azad spent most of his life propagating and defending an idea of India that was premised on a composite/indivisible nationalism.

The image of him as a trigger-happy young man was deliberately publicised by the colonial government, which many of us internalised and continue to romanticise.

S. Irfan Habib's tribute to Mushirul Hasan, historian and former vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia.

What the state really ought to do is help those Muslims who want to transcend the traditional framework of a purely religious education.