Jamia’s Aapa Jaan: The Many Lifeworlds of Gerda Philipsborn

Very little is known about the life of Gerda Philipsborn, one of the early contributors to the Jamia Millia Islamia, the bold experiment in national education started in 1920. In this unusual biography, historian Margrit Pernau pieces together—’through the odd reference here and a half sentence there’—Gerda’s remarkable story, from the port city of Kiel in Germany to the bucolic environs of Okhla in Delhi in the 1940s.

Many different worldviews competed with each other when Gerda was born to an affluent Jewish family in 1895. A growing suspicion of modernity led many Germans to look to the East for salvation. New ideas about education also began to take root, soon drawing sensitive young people like Gerda to social work.

Into this cultural churning in Germany arrived three students from India—Zakir Husain, Abid Husain and Muhammad Mujeeb. They had been deeply influenced by the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movements back home, and also by Gandhi’s call for national education. Jamia, which had recently been founded, strove to realize that new vision. And the three students were determined to dedicate themselves to this university with the benefit of their education in Germany.

Gerda would befriend these young men, and by 1932, find herself in Delhi’s Karol Bagh, where Jamia was then located, working with the smallest children. She continued her discussions with Zakir Husain here, contributing to ideas which made their way into Gandhi’s Basic Education programme, expounded by Husain at Wardha in 1937. She would also write regularly for Jamia’s children’s magazine, Payam-e Ta’lim, and soon become a beloved Aapa Jaan, elder sister, to the entire Jamia biradari.

An absorbing biography, Jamia’s Aapa Jaan is also an important history. Through the life of one individual, it connects the history of the Weimar Republic with the national movement in India. It tells the story of not only the deep friendship between Gerda and Jamia’s founders, but also of the emergence of a radically new educational institution in India.