Studies in the Foreign Relations of India- From the Earliest Times to 1947 (An Old and Rare Book)

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Professor H. K. Sherwani was Head of the Department of History and Politics when I entered the service of Osmania University in 1927. A conscientious teacher, a voracious reader and a person even otherwise interested in the progress of the University and of the students, Professor Sherwani was a very considerate colleague and Head of Department, and one who was always appreciative of any suggestions made for innovations and experimentation by his colleagues. I remember how one or two of us went to him once with the suggestion that we might introduce the essay system and the system of group discussions in the third and fourth years and the M.A. class, and he welcomed the idea and, with his insistence on methods, asked me to prepare a working paper based on a time-table to show how this could be carried out. He was also well-known for discouraging the dictation and taking down of notes and encouraging instead more of library work. He was the last to keep all power and control to himself and liked to share these with his colleagues whom he met regularly once a week in order to discuss difficulties, changes and the business of the Department. I happened to be the senior most after him, and succeeded him as Head of the Department of History. This was after one of us had suggested at one of our meetings that History and Politics should form separate Departments and this naturally meant that Professor Sherwani would lose the Head-ship of one of them. The position was embarrassing for all the three of us as one of us would be succeeding as either Head of the Department of History or Head of the Department of Politics, but Professor Sherwani raised no objection; on the contrary, he welcomed the suggestion as being logical and conducive to better division of work and responsibilities, and he took up entirely on himself to move the separation in the Faculty. We were working in those days in a rented building located opposite to where the State Bank is at present, and the classes were rather cramped on account of shortage of space. During spare time, we used to collect in the common room, where members of the staff met with each other and discussed most of our problems common to all the Departments in the Faculty of Arts. Some of our jokes were aimed at our seniors, among them Professor Sherwani, and met with quick repartee. All respected him for his earnestness, hard work and sincerity. Even when sometimes some of the students came up with impossible demands, I have never known him to have lost his temper, and he was always accessible not only in College, as it then was, but even at home to his colleagues and students.

Professor Sherwani, even long after his retirement, continued to be not only a teacher but himself a student, and it became part of his life and almost his profession to continue to learn and amass knowledge. When we were pursuing the scheme of Deccan History, we could think of no better person for editing the work on Medieval History than Professor Sherwani because of his publications and his continuing search for facts and material in the field. Even now, despite age and its handicaps, we continue to receive off-prints of his articles published in learned journals, more especially on the Qutubshahi period, and a great part of his success as a historian lies in the fact of his attracting to himself the association and collaboration of other scholars with whom he has worked in harmony and from whom he has always extracted the best. It is a great quality in a man not only to give of his own best to the world but also to take the best from others and offer it to the world. Professor Sherwani has and has always had that quality. It is a matter of pride for me to write this foreword to a felicitation volume devoted to him, and I am happy to be associating myself with others in tribute to a person with whom I served and worked during my days at Osmania University.

Towards the end of 1971 some friends, admirers and students of Prof. H.K. Sherwani, at an informal meeting, considered a suggestion made by one of them that a gesture of some kind should be made to acknowledge the sincere devotion and distinguished services of Prof. Sherwani to the cause of Indian History, particularly Deccan History. It was considered that the best way in which this could be done was to present a festschrift or a felicitation volume to the learned professor. It was also felt that it would be in the fitness of things if the Government of Andhra Pradesh would agree to sponsor this Project.

When the plan for this festschrift was submitted to the Government of Andhra Pradesh it received a ready and generous response. The Government fully approved the plan and appointed a committee to prepare the felicitation volume. The Committee members were drawn from among distinguished scholars and administrators with Nawab Ali Yavar Jung as the President and Mr. Mir Akbar Ali Khan as the Vice-President, the Director of State Archives, Hyderabad being the ex-officio Member-Secretary. The Government also nominated Dr. P.M. Joshi as Editor and Dr. M.A. Nayeem as Joint Editor. They are the real architects of this volume.

It was a problem to choose a proper subject for the festschrift volume as the editors wanted to have a new theme not familiar with the already existing ones. It was ultimately decided that a comprehensive work on India's Foreign Relations from ancient times to the present day covering the various facets of the relations, during the centuries would be an appropriate subject matter.

This volume is the result. It is an effort to understand in proper perspective the various aspects of India's foreign relations-political, diplomatic, cultural, social, economic etc., which were not simple but were multiplex and the dimensions of which had reached unprecedented proportions during medieval and modern times. As a background to the papers presented in the second part of the Volume an Intro-duction is provided preceding the papers. The Introduction traces the mutual cultural contacts with the world from the earliest times to the Middle Ages. The volume offers to the readers useful material on different phases and aspects of India's foreign relations. However, the relations were so vast and multi-dimensional that it is beyond the scope of any single volume to cover everything. The Editors have tried to be as comprehensive as possible and what is presented here is a representative collection.

The Editors approached friends and pupils of Professor Sherwani and scholars both in India and abroad informing them of the Sherwani Festschrift and inviting them to contribute papers on any aspect of the general theme of the volume-"Studies in the Foreign Relations of India". The response to the invitation was spontaneous and papers on various facets of the main topic ranging from ancient times to our own days came in from India, Germany, Iran, U.S.A., U.K. etc. Some papers came in after the dead line and when the press-copy of the volume was almost ready. It is regretted that due to lack of space they could not be accommodated. But all these scholarly papers are living evidence of the regard and affection of scholars everywhere for Prof. Sherwani.

On behalf of the Committee of the "Prof H.K. Sherwani Felicitation Volume" I have great pleasure in offering to our distinguished Professor Haroon Khan Sherwani this academic tribute.