Opinion

Dr. Omar Khalidi, a prominent scholar, died in a train accident on November 29 in Boston. Dr. Khalidi was serving as the Islamic Architecture Librarian in the Aga Khan Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
During the past four decades his research covered a wide range of topics: social equity, justice for minorities, sociology of politics, upward and downward economic mobility of ethnic groups, nationalism and Diaspora. Dr. Khalidi paid special attention to exploring the roots of social equity and justice.
Dr. Khalidi was born in 1954 in Hyderabad. He was the son of Professor A.N.M. Khalidi, a well-known scholar of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Osmania University. He was educated in India, England and the United States. He received his BS form Wichita State University, an ALM from Harvard University, and a PhD from University of Wales-Lampeter, England.

Dr. Khalid authored more than 20 books and 300-plus articles covering the social, political and cultural aspects of Muslims and other minorities in India. He conducted his scholarly activities in English and Urdu and engaged in extensive scholarship on the fall of Hyderabad, Deccan. In his Book “Muslims in Indian Economy,” he analyzed the current state and status of Muslims in India by exploring a wide array of topics: pre-Independence legacy, the impact on Muslims of Partition and politics on ownership of assets, employment, and access to education, public services or their role in labor, commerce and industry. In “Memoirs of Cyril Jones: People, Society and Railways in Hyderabad,” Dr. Khalidi provides an account of the everyday life in Nizam’s state through the eyes of Jones, the British engineer, who built the Railway network in Hyderabad.

In his most recent book “Khaki and Ethnic Violence in India: Armed Forces, Police and Paramilitary During Communal Riots,” Dr. Khalidi analyzed the use of political bias in the composition of police forces for achieving the desirable outcome during communal and ethnic riots.
Dr. Kahlidi dedicated his life for promoting social equity in India. His legacy will continue to inspire the younger researchers to carry on the task of promoting social equity and justice for all ethnic groups in India.