The Kagzi are a Muslim community found in the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra in India.

The term Kagzi in Urdu means a manufacturer of paper, from the word kagaz or paper. There are, in fact, two distinct Kagzi communities, with their own customs, traditions and origin myths, one found in Gujarat and the other in Maharashtra

The Gujarat Kagzi claim to have come to Ahmedabad have from Bukhara in Central Asia, at the invitation of Sultan Ahmad Shah. The community have always been associated with the manufacture of paper, and many still reside in the Shahpur area of Ahmedabad, their original settlement in Gujarat. In Maharashtra, the Kagzi claim to be descended from soldiers of the Tughlaq armies that invaded the Deccan. They are now found mainly in the districts of Aurangabad, Jalgaon, Pune, Akola and Nasik. The Maharashtra Kagzi speak the Dakhani dialect of Urdu, although most can understand Marathi.

The Gujarat Kagzi are divided into a number of clans, the main ones being the Mehtar, Pathan, Raddiwala, Khanzada, Mirza and Shaikh. Their traditional occupation has been greatly affected by the growth of paper mills, and many Kagzis have abandoned their paper manufacturing. Many are now involved in petty trade, or have taken to farming. The Ahmadabad Kagzi Jamaat is their caste association, and deals with the various problems of the community.

Mehdi Hasan is a British journalist who has worked in television current affairs and the national press.

After graduating from Christ Church, Oxford in 2000, with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), he began his working life answering the phones on the ITN newsdesk, before working as a researcher and then producer on LWT's Jonathan Dimbleby programme, with a brief period in between on BBC1's The Politics Show. He then became deputy executive producer on Sky's breakfast show Sunrise before moving to Channel 4 in June 2007 as their editor of news and current affairs.

He has appeared four times on the BBC Question Time: on 13 May 2010, 23 September 2010, 10 February 2011 and 8 December 2011. He also makes frequent appearances on the Sunday morning programme The Big Questions.

He has been appointed as a new presenter on Al Jazeera's English News Channel and will be presenting the new series of "The Cafe" starting in July 2012.

He was appointed senior editor (politics) at the New Statesman in the late spring of 2009, but left the post in May 2012 to take up a post as political director at The Huffington Post website. Political Correspondent Rafael Behr replaced him at the Statesman, although Hasan will continue to write a weekly column.