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Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA) Peace & Harmony Stories from South Asia
*Muslims perform last rites of Pandit woman, Greater Kashmir, March 7, 2008 http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=7_3_2008&ItemID=30&cat=22 Srinagar : Upholding the tradition of lending a caring hand, Kashmiri Muslims on Thursday performed the last rites of an elderly Pandit woman who died on Thursday. She was putting up with her son, Dr Surinder Kumar, in suburban Pantha Chowk area for the past 20 years. Her neighbors cremated her as per Hindu rituals. Not only this, they had been nursing Shanti Devi wife of Trilok Nath Jato during her fortnight hospitalization at SKIMS before she breathed her last. Her was the only Pandit family in the locality who declined to migrate when most others of their community left the Valley in early ’90s.
*In Kashmir, Shivratri enlivens communal amity, Greater Kashmir, March 7, 2008 http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=7_3_2008&ItemID=57&cat=1 Sheikhpora (Budgam), Mar 6: Joy knew no bounds for Reetu Kumari, a 51-year old Kashmir Pandit, when a native Muslim potter knocked her door at the apartment in the newly constructed migrant colony here on the principal festival of the Pandits, Maha Shivratri, popularly known as Herath, celebrated across the state Thursday. Reetu says the potter from Chadoora has been providing her and other Pandit families earthen-ware for Shivratri for the past 40 years. Without naming him, she said the man had traveled a long distance to reach the colony. “We share a bond of love with him and other Muslims. Without them we are rootless,” she said. The state government with the assistance of New Delhi established the colony as a “safe zone” for the Pandits who migrated to Jammu in early ’90s. However, on experimental basis, instead of the migrants, Pandits who had stayed back have been settled in the heavily fortified colony. Out of 30 families, only 15 moved in on Tuesday. Despite security restrictions, the Muslims thronged the colony to greet the Pandits on the festival. Incidentally, when aged Fatima and other women of this tiny hamlet went to greet their Pandit brethren, they had to face a volley of questions before being ushered in by the gun-totting security guards deployed in the premises in strength. “We don’t personally know them (Pandits) but they are part of our culture and so we feel it’s our responsibility to greet them on Shivratri. That is why we were not bothered by the strict security restrictions in the colony,” Fatima said as she crossed the security barrier. Emotional scenes were witnessed when the women felicitated the Pandits. Sitting in his new two bedroom apartment, Bansi Lal said “although we are contended with the new accommodation, we fear loosing ties with our Muslim brethren, if such security restrictions continue.” In a choked voice, Lal added “for centuries past, the Muslims have shared our grief and sorrows.” “It’s because of their love and affection that we didn’t migrate to Jammu . All our festivals rather culture is incomplete without them. They should enjoy free access to meet us,” he demanded. “We believe death is eternal. Why should we fear it. The government should see to it that the security restrictions should not make us vulnerable to some more trouble,” Lal said. After the Sangrampora massacre, the Pandits said, the authorities asked them to shift to the migrant houses in Budgam. “Life was miserable. We had to share a room with many families. But as for Muslims they always offered us unflinching support and this helped us survive the tough times,” said Vinod Pandita, who teaches at a government school in Budgam. However, when the authorities decided to rehabilitate them at a separate colony in Sheikhpora, the Pandits had a “tough choice”. “Despite problems, we preferred to stay in Budgam. However, the migrant landlords pressurized us to vacate.” “It was an emotional separation from the Muslims at Budgam but we had no choice,” Pandita added. His counterpart Nannaji had apprehensions of settling in the new colony. “But our fears have vanished following warm response from the locals,” he said as a group of residents hugged him saying ‘Herath Mubarak’.
*Neither 'Hindu' Nor 'Muslim' But a Bit of Both: Rajasthan's Cheeta-Merats, Yoginder Sikand ysikand@yahoo.com, February 12, 2008 65 year-old Naseeb Khan recently arranged for his son Prakash Singh to marry Sita, daughter of Ram Singh and his wife Reshma. Three months ago, Hemant Singh's daughter Devi married Lakshman Singh in a nikah ceremony solemnized by a Muslim maulvi. Naseeb Singh's elder son Roshan had a Muslim-style nikah, and his younger son Iqbal got married in the Hindu fashion. Salim Khan keeps pictures of Hindu deities and local Rajasthani folk heroes in an altar in his hut, and regularly visits a neighbouring dargah of a Muslim saint. He says he is a Muslim, but, like many people in his village, he does not know the kalima shahada, the Muslim creed of the faith. His neighbour and first cousin, Madho Singh, has been offering the Eid prayers in the village Eidgah for as long as he can remember. Yet, like everyone else in his village, he also celebrates Holi and Diwali with equal gusto. These intriguing people who defy conventional notions of 'Hindus' and 'Muslims', belong to a little-known community known as the Cheeta-Merat. Some 400,000 strong, the community inhabits some 160 villages in the vicinity of Ajmer and Beawar towns in Rajasthan's Ajmer district. The Cheeta and the Merat (also kown as Kathat) are two separate clans who intermarry with each other. Most of them are small peasants and landless labourers. They call themselves Chauhan Rajputs, and identify their religion variously as 'Hindu-Muslim', or either 'Hindu' or 'Muslim' or simply 'Cheeta-Merat'. In terms of dress, language and food habits there is little to distinguish the Cheeta-Merat from the other castes whom they live with. Their distinguishing feature, however, is their unique syncretic religious identity. Different stories are told about the origins of the Cheeta-Merat. Most of these stories are based on the claim of the community being supposedly descended from the clan of Prithviraj Chauhan, the last Chauhan Hindu ruler of Ajmer, who was killed while fighting the forces of Muhammad Ghori. This claim is not, however, widely accepted by the Hindu Rajputs and might well be a contrived means to claim a higher social status for the community, which, for centuries, roamed the Aravalli mountains, attacking and plundering trade caravans. According to one story, a conquering 'Muslim Sultan'gave one of the ancestors of the Cheeta-Merat, Har Raj, the choice of converting to Islam, death or having his womenfolk raped. Har Raj is said to have selected the first option, but, instead of fully converting to Islam, is said to have only accepted three things of Islam for himself and his descendants: male circumcision, eating meat slaughtered in the Muslim halal fashion and burial of the dead. This is why, according to this story, most Cheeta-Merat still follow only these three Islamic practices, while being almost indistinguishable from the other local Hindu castes in other respects. This theory appears to be a newly invented one, and does not find mention in reliable historical chronicles. It is, however, forcefully articulated today by Hindu groups active in the region, such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the RSS, who are trying to bring the Cheeta-Merat into the Hindu fold. The identity of the 'Muslim Sultan' in the story is confused: some name him as Aurangzeb, others as Mohammad Ghori, yet others as Mohammad Ghazni or Alauddin, Sultan of Malwa. Another theory about the Cheeta-Merat is that their ancestor Har Raj voluntarily converted to Islam at the hands of the renowned Sufi, Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer. This is why, it is argued, he is also known as Pir Har Raj, having received the honorific title of Pir, which is used for a Muslim saint. No surprisingly, this theory finds favour with Muslim groups active today among the Cheeta-Merats, who are seeking to provide them with a more distinctly Muslim identity. The Cheeta-Merats' identity as neither 'Hindu' nor 'Muslim', but perhaps a bit of both, came under increasing challenge from the early decades of the twentieth century. In the 1920s, the Arya Samaj launched efforts to bring into the Hindu fold various communities like the Cheeta-Merats who could not be easily classified as either 'Hindu' or 'Muslim', as the terms were conventionally understood. The powerful Rajput Sabha, allied to the Aryas, appealed to the Cheeta-Merats to abandon their Islamic practices and turn Hindu. Some Cheeta-Merats are said to have formally declared themselves as Hindus at this time. Yet, the vast majority of the community refused to budge, citing the promise that their ancestor, Pir Har Raj, is said to have made to the 'Muslim Sultan'. To abandon the Islamic customs that their ancestor had adopted, they believed, would be to go against his wishes. However, things began to change from the mid-1980s, when both Hindu and Muslim revivalist organizations entered the Cheeta-Merat belt in order to win the community to their respective folds. 'We say Ram-Ram to Hindus and salam to Muslims. We hold a laddu in each of our hands', says Salim Khan smilingly when I ask him how his community responds to the contradictory appeals of Hindu and Muslim revivalist groups competing with each other. 'Most of us do not know how to do intricate Brahminical pujas or say the Muslim namaz. We just bow our heads before temples, mosques and dargahs', he explains. He talks of how, over the years, his community is now being increasingly divided into two factions—one Hindu and the other Muslim. 'Inter-marriages still occur, but this is reducing', he laments. 'However', he stresses,'whether Hindu or Muslim, we all think of ourselves as brothers, descended from the same ancestors'. In some parts of Ajmer, particularly in the Merat belt around Beawar, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has been able to make numerous conversions. Many of these converts belong to the Gola sub-caste, who worked traditionally as servants of the Merats, who treated them with disdain as 'low' castes. Some other Cheetas and Merats have also now come under the influence of the Parishad, which, in order to spread its message, has set up a number of temples, schools and clinics in the area to attract the poverty-stricken community. The Parishad's claims that the Cheeta-Merat are descended from Prithiviraj Chauhan and that their ancestors were allegedly forcibly converted to Islam form the thrust of its missionary appeal. For some Cheeta-Merats a new, more distinct Hindu, particularly Rajput, identity is also a means for asserting a claim to upward social mobility and a quest to be more accepted by the surrounding Hindu community. Yet, it is said, there is strong resistance among large sections of the community to conversion to Hinduism (or 'home-coming' to Hinduism as the Parishad sees it) because it is felt that not only would this mean going against the 'promise' of their ancestor Pir Har Raj but also because even if they were to become Hindus, the other Hindus would still refuse to establish conjugal ties with them, seeing their Muslim association as having somehow 'tainted' or 'polluted' them. Stories are told of how some Cheetas refused to have their sons circumcised, hoping to provide them with a more clear 'Hindu' identity. However, when they grew to marriageable age they discovered that no Cheeta family was willing to give their daughters to them because they had transgressed the tradition of the caste. Hence, they were circumcised just before marriage and, despite considering themselves as 'Hindus', their marriages were solemnised through nikah in the Muslim fashion. Reports of mass conversions of Cheeta-Merats to Hinduism through shuddhi or 'purification' ceremonies that appear from time to time in the press are hotly contested. While advocates of Hindutva see these as brilliant victories, those Cheeta-Merats who wish to retain their centuries'-old identity dismiss this as cheap publicity gimmicks arranged to 'demoralise' the community. Islamic groups active in the region, particularly the Jamiat ul-Ulema-e Hind, the Tablighi Jamaat and the Hyderabad-based Tamir-e Millat, have set up numerous madrasas and mosques, and this has had a visible impact. Even critics of these groups admit that the last two decades have witnessed a considerable degree of Islamisation of the community, and this despite the opposition of Hindu groups and hostile elements in the government administration and the fact that Muslim groups have done little for the social and economic betterment of the community. Islamisation operates as alternate vehicle of upward social mobility for many Cheeta-Merats. Yet, even in villages where mosques and madrasas have come up and the Cheeta-Merats identify themselves as unambiguously 'Muslim', old practices die hard. Alcohol consumption is widespread and so are child-marriages, visits to temples and village ancestor shrines and the celebration of Hindu festivals. Maulvis (mainly from Mewat) stationed in the area complain that few Muslim Cheeta-Merats attend mosques or enroll their children in madrasas. In some places, Maulvis have been harassed and their efforts to set up madrasas or announce the azan through loudspeakers have been sought to be resisted, including by some Cheeta-Merats themselves. 'We are a unique community', says Rohan Singh, 'I don't think there is any other community like us in the whole of India'. His mother's brother, Buland Khan, nods in agreement. 'Our philosophy of life is to live and let live. People must be free to worship God in whatever way they like', he tells me. 'Some Cheeta-Merats', he confesses, 'feel ashamed about their identity'. 'Others mock them and say that they are confused and muddled-up and are trying to ride two boats of the same time'. 'But', he stresses, 'I think we are right. Some of us are Muslims and others are Hindus, like me and my nephew here. But still we live together in harmony. We interdine and we intermarry. Religion is a personal issue and does not affect our relations'. Rohan Singh, Buland Khan and their fellow Cheeta-Merats: May your tribe increase!
*The Mockingbirds of Gujarat , Jawed Naqvi, Dawn, 12 February, 2008 The Mockingbirds are best known for mimicking the songs of other birds, often loudly and in rapid succession. They symbolise both gay abandon and innate mirth. Harper Lee in a celebrated novel used the imagery to depict a black man as a veritable mockingbird in the racially segregated state of Alabama and his brush with death by an all-white kangaroo court on a false charge of rape. The unfortunate state of Gujarat has had its share of As with India 's other provinces, where music and art flourished under feudal patronage, the royal house of Baroda , now Vadodra, favoured the very best from across the country. Ustaad Karim Khan founded the Kirana Gharana of vocal musicians after coming here from Punjab . He married a Hindu princess of Baroda and settled down in Miraj where they produced the legendary singers Hirabai Barodekar, Saraswati Rane and Suresh Babu Mane. But this is a tribute to just four of Gujarat 's countless mockingbirds that were humiliated or killed by the people they sang for. Every year in February, when newspapers begin to chatter about the arriving budget, the memory of Rasoolan Bai, Fayyaz Khan, Ehsaan Jaafri and Wali Dakhani begin to haunt me. It was on a budget day when helpless women were being raped and murdered across Gujarat on Feb 28, 2002 , with the approval of the state. People have tried to explain the tragedy in the context of provocation and reaction, insisting that the murder of Hindu activists by a Muslim mob in a train in Godhra had provoked Hindu mobs to seek revenge on the Muslims. This is utter nonsense, all the more so because the same people had earlier justified the demolition of the 16th century mosque in Ayodhya in similar terms. Only, instead of Godhra, the alleged antics of a Mughal emperor were held accountable for the criminal violence unleashed by 'patriotic' and 'nationalist' Hindu groups in Dec 1992. The relevant question is: why did a mob burn down the house of Rasoolan Bai in Ahmedabad in 1969? There was no Godhra then for an excuse. So what could be the provocation for anyone to drive out an extremely gifted and popular Muslim singer from her adopted home in Gujarat ? After her trauma, Naina Devi, herself a Hindu princess and a much beloved patron saint of music and musicians, nursed Rasoolan Bai to health, but she never sang again. All the rioters and their neighbours can still hear Rasoolan's thumri in Raag Bhairavi on the web. Would you believe what the words are?
(O Krishna, please do not torment me any more with your mesmeric flute). "Ab naa baajaao Shyaam/ bansuriyaa naa baajaao Shyaam/ (e rii) vyaakul bhaayii brajabaalaa/ bansuriyaa naa baajaao Shyaam/ nit merii galiin men aayo naa/ aayo to chhup ke rahiyo/ bansii kii terii sunaaiyo naa"
In the 2002 violence, the mob in Ahmedabad destroyed the several centuries old grave of Wali Dakhani. The state government did one better. It flattened the grave to build a metalled road over it. Who was Wali Dakhani and why was his memory so viciously abused? The 17th century poet loved Gujarat and was an advocate of Hindu-Muslim cultural synthesis. Here's a small sample from this mockingbird's otherwise large repertoire, reflecting the earliest form of Urdu poetry. "Kuuchaa-e-yaa 'ain Kaasii hai/ Jogii-e-dil vahaan kaa baasii hai/ Pii ke bairaag kii udaasii suun/ Dil pe mere sadaa udaasii hai/ Zulf terii hai mauj Jamnaa kii/ Til nazik uske jyun sanaasii hai/” (Shah Abdus Salam translates it thus: "Beloved's lane is exactly like the holy city of Kashi/ My ascetic heart dwells therein/ Due to the sadness of the separation from the beloved/ My heart is always immersed in dejection/ Your tresses are the waves of Jamuna river/ And the mole next to the tresses is the ascetic on the bank). The mob also attacked the grave of Ustaad Fayyaz Khan, a scion of the Agra Gharana of musicians. The ustaad, honoured in the 1950s as Aftab-i-Mausiqi by popular consensus, had sung countless compositions to Krishna , the favourite icon of much of Gujarat and Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. "Manmohan Brij ko rasiya" an early morning composition in Raag Paraj, and "Vande Nand Kumaram", a late afternoon composition in Raag Kaafi, among other soul-searching bandishes were rendered as a full-throated celebration of Lord Krishna. Fayyaz Khan's grave in Baroda was razed unceremoniously during the fanatical mayhem. Now we can't just snuff out anyone's memory at will. People have a right to know the tradition Fayyaz Khan represented. Legend has it that it possibly goes back to the Mughal court in Agra . Emperors Akbar and Jehangir were both lovers of music. There were 36 musicians in Akbar's court including Tansen, Baiju Bawra and Guru Haridas, but Tansen alone was among the famous 'nine jewels' of the court. Ethnomusicologist Bonnie Wade says that to understand the place of music in the Mughal court one must not only 'see' miniatures but 'hear' them too. In her fascinating study, Imaging Sound, she shows how the depiction of musical instruments in Mughal paintings also reveals the cultural synthesis which was taking place in that era; how the synthesis of Hindu, Muslim, Sufi and Central and West Asian musical traditions led to the emergence of a north Indian classical musical culture. It is not clear when precisely the Agra Gharana came into being — whether its origin dates to the 13th century, or to Haji Sujaan Khan believed to have been a contemporary of Tansen and one of Akbar's durbar musicians, or to Ghagge Khudabaksh who also came to Agra from Gwalior about 150 years ago. Whatever the date of its origin, the Gharana represented a sound Indian tradition of open-minded synthesis and assimilation. Let me end this tribute to Gujarat 's lost mockingbirds with a note on Ehsaan Jaafri. He was brutally cut down by a mob along with several members of his family and neighbours who had tried to protect him. Jaafri was a communist trade union leader before he joined the Congress But it is his little known flair for Urdu poetry that gives an insight into the man's secular credentials far removed from the culprits of Godhra, the Hindutva mob, may have been hunting. Jaafri's book of verse is called Qandeel (Lamp). Published in 1994, it is a collection of his poems from the time of his association with progressive writers. It has a foreword by Majrooh Sultanpuri, himself a notable progressive poet. Here's an example of several in the book that reflects Jaafri's nation-loving personality, which only heightens the irony of his lynching: Geeton se teri zulfon ko meera ne sanwara/ Gautam ne sada di tujhe Nanak ne pukara/ Khusro ne kai rangon se daaman ko nikhara/ Har dil mein muhabbat ki ukhuwat ki lagan hai/ Ye mera watan mera watan mera watan hai. (Meera adorned your locks with her songs/ Gautam called you out, as did Nanak/ Khusro filled colours in your frills/ Every heart beats here for love and tolerance/ This is my homeland, this is it). Link to Peace and Harmony Stories 2007 |