One of the most important but undervalued events of India’s independence movement was the naval revolt of 1946, about which Indian historian Sumit Sarker wrote, “Had this insurrection succeeded, India’s struggle for freedom might have taken a different turn.” From February 18 to 23 that year, more than 20,000 ordinary sailors, known as ratings, and low-ranking officers of 74 warships and 20 installations took part in a strike, which was termed as a mutiny or rebellion.
After Bengal lost its independence at Palashi’s Mango grove in 1757, the British Raj in India faced two major armed revolts: the first one was exactly after one hundred years, the military revolt of 1857, and the second one was 189 years later, the naval mutiny. Both in 1757 and 1857, the freedom fighters were defeated by the arms and tactics of the British rulers, but the naval mutiny failed because of the politicians in India then. It was not only the ratings’ mutiny that the political leadership had decided not to support – the civilian uprising triggered by the naval mutiny, too, was condemned by them. The scale of the civilian uprising, if it happened in a post-colonial era, would have created a revolution or at least caused the fall of the government of the day.
Three days after the mutiny ended and the civilian uprising was crushed with brutal force, the then British Prime Minister Clement Atlee told the House of Commons on February 26, 1946, “I regret to inform the House that grievous loss of life, injury and destruction of property have resulted from all these disturbances. In Bombay, there have been 223 deaths and 1,037 persons have been injured. The total damage includes the looting or destruction of nine banks, 32 government grain and cloth shops which the public can ill-afford to lose, 30 other shops, 10 post offices, 10 police stations and 1,200 street lamps. The number of vehicles destroyed is not yet estimated. In Karachi, there have been seven deaths and 21 cases of injury. In Madras, up to last night, one person has been killed and another seriously injured” (Source: Hansard).
Mr Atlee in his statement said, “Both Congress and Muslim League leaders cooperated in condemning and attempting to stop the disturbances, but the Communist Party issued a manifesto at midnight on Thursday thanking the public for its support.” It perhaps explains why, to this day, the political classes of the three countries born from the partition of India are not willing to admit their failure and give those mutineers and civilian martyrs their due credit. Therefore, in 2021, there was no big event in the subcontinent to mark the 75th anniversary of the naval revolt.
Mohammad Dewan Ali Nazir, Royal Indian Navy, Index no: 34499.
On a personal level, it’s ironic that, despite studying history at the country’s two top universities, I, too, did not take much interest in it during my student life. When I first heard of the rebellion from a mutineer, I had already taken a job and started my professional journey devoid of in-depth history. The mutineer I am talking about was my father, who spoke about his role and feelings about the lost cause during one of my short home visits. My father, Mohammad Dewan Ali Nazir (Royal Indian Navy, RIN, Index no: 34499) was one of the last 3,500 sailors and 300 sepoys who refused to surrender until the last on board of HMIS Akbar.
They were detained after surrendering and were released in August of that year. The mediation and the assurances given by the leaders of both Congress and Muslim League turned out to be nothing but betrayal. Though the uprising was a challenge to the Empire, shaking up the British imperial order, the leaders of the nationalist movement waiting to form an interim government through negotiations were not ready to derail that prospect.
Newspaper clipping of the Evening News.
The leaders of the Congress and the Muslim League did not want a revolution – they wanted a peaceful transfer of power. Among the leading politicians, only Congress leader Aruna Asaf Ali extended her support to the ratings’ strike and tried to persuade her party leaders to take a stand in favour of the strikers, but failed in the face of opposition from Vallabhbhai Patel. On February 22, Vallabhbhai Patel sent a message to the rebels to surrender. Only the Communist Party of India came forward in support of the naval revolt and called a general strike. Reading the memoir of one of the key figures of the revolt, Balai Chand Dutt (BC Dutt), and a few other publications, one can easily imagine how much frustration and pain those mutineers felt because of the national leaders’ silence, which they saw as a betrayal. Perhaps it explains why my father, too, lost interest in politics and didn’t speak much about the heroic uprising that ended in a tragedy.
Those nationalist leaders, including Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, advised them “not to mix up ‘political demands along with service demands’; to ‘remain calm’ and to formulate to the naval authorities their service demands.”
But from the very beginning, those naval ratings were raising political demands – particularly, the Quit India slogan.
Their Charter of Demands asked for: 1. Release of all Indian political prisoners; 2. Release of all Indian National Army personnel unconditionally; 3. Withdrawal of all Indian troops from Indonesia and Egypt; 4. British nationals to leave India; 5. Actions against the commanding officer and signal bosonshead for rough treatment of the crew; 6. Release of all detainees (naval ratings); 7. Speedy demobilisation of the RIN ratings and officers; 8. Equal status with the British navy regarding pay, family allowances and other facilities; 9. Best class of Indian food; 10. No return of clothing kit after discharge from service; 11. Better treatment from officers to subordinates; and 12. Installation of Indian officers and supervisors. (Source: Meanings of Failed Action: A reassessment of the 1946 Royal Indian Navy uprising by Dr Valentina Vitali, University of East London, UK.)
Autobiographies of two rebels – BC Dutt and Biswanath Bose – suggest that the then (undivided) India could have been a different place if the revolt of that day had succeeded. The rise of communal politics, the division and instability that is spreading in the states and society, would not have happened.
BC Dutt was one of the organisers of the HMIS Talwar, the ship where the mutiny started. He was arrested and tried for writing a new slogan on a ship on February 1, three weeks before the start of the February 18 mutiny. His book, The Mutiny of the Innocents, contains details of how political literature and pro-independence activities were organised much before their strike.
Biswanath Bose’s RIN Mutiny, 1946 also gives detailed descriptions of how the revolt unfolded. But politicians argued that the revolt was mostly due to the resentment among Indian ratings over low wages, poor quality of food and housing, which was lower than that of the Whites, and racial discrimination.
After the mutiny of 1857, the British rulers banned the entry and discussion of political leaflets in all forces, but BC Dutt used to secretly discuss political documents in the ship HMIS Talwar. Two months before the mutiny, on the Naval Day on December 1, when it was open for public visit, they wrote various slogans, including “Quit India” and “Jai Hind” on the ship. Explaining the reason why the mutiny failed, BC Dutt wrote that while all Europeans and Indians were stunned by the course of events and wondering if it was a revolt, unfortunately the political parties had nothing to say. When it was time to lower the British Union Jack and fly the Indian flag, they felt unprepared.
Newspaper clipping of the Hindusthan Standard
On February 22, 1946, when the nationalist leaders were busy arranging the ratings’ surrender, Prime Minister Clement Attlee told the parliament that the sailors had given political slogans and demanded that a political leader be given a chance to speak. He also said in the statement that Congress had nothing to do with the insurgency, but the communists and leftists could try to exploit sympathy.
William Richardson, a British researcher, writes in The Society for Nautical Research that the political movement for India’s independence was at the root of the revolt (The Mutiny of the Royal Indian Navy at Bombay in February 1946, May 1993).
Author of the book 1946: The Unknown Mutiny, Promod Kapoor wrote that the navies fell between the two aspirations of the two rulers. One side wanted their impending departure not to be tarnished by the stigma of rebellion. On the other hand, when power was imminent, the other rulers were anxious to see if there were any signs of chaos in the armed forces. Because in the future, they would have to manage these forces.
Politicians assured that no one would be punished, no compensation would be paid, and steps would be taken to meet the demands. In reality, the opposite had happened. Rebel leaders were arrested, tried and punished. Other rebels were told to grab third-class train tickets to return home and to never return to Bombay again. Showing various excuses, deductions were made from salary arrears even for minor damages in their uniforms.
Biswanath Bose’s book gives a glimpse of how frustrated and angry these rebels became with the behaviour of the government and the breach of promises by the political leaders. He wrote, “If patriotism is a crime, then we must be criminals.” Expressing his frustration for not being reemployed in the Indian Navy, he wrote a letter to Prime Minister Nehru asking if there was any law banning his return to the force due to dismissal for taking part in the freedom movement, and how, as a leader of the Congress, Nehru could be the prime minister.
Nationalist leaders were so reluctant to give the mutineers their due credit, that the Indian government banned the Bangla play Kallol (Sound of the Wave), based on the mutiny, by playwright Utpal Dutt, and he was imprisoned. The play was first performed in 1965 in Calcutta at the Minerva Theatre and it drew large crowds.
At the beginning of the naval strike, a Central Strike Committee (NCSC) was formed by the representatives of the ships stationed in Bombay. The committee renamed the Royal Indian Navy as The Indian National Navy. The committee was chaired by Signalman MS Khan, and Madan Singh was the vice-president. One remarkable element of the naval rebellion was the unity of various faiths among both the naval force and the civilians who took to the street. They raised slogans “Hindu-Muslim unite” and “Inquilab Zindabad” on the streets of Bombay.
BC Dutt’s book also speaks of this communal harmony. He wrote, “We are from different regions, and from families of Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Buddhist, but after spending years in the Navy, we sailors have become Indians. The irony is that the politics of communal division and hatred is now intensifying across the subcontinent.
(After leaving the job of a naval instructor, my father joined the office of Indian Civil Supply, and after a short stay in Kolkata, he was transferred to East Bengal. He retired as a magistrate and died on August 29, 2001.)
Kamal Ahmed is an independent journalist and writes from London, UK. His Twitter handle is @ahmedka1
source: http://www.thedailystar.net / The Daily Star / Home> In Focus / by Kamal Ahmed / July 25th, 2022
The first phase civic body election results in Madhya Pradesh were declared on Sunday, while the counting of votes for the second phase of polling was held on Wednesday.
The three-tier urban civic body elections in MP for 347 municipal bodies, including 16 municipal corporations, 76 municipal councils and 255 Nagar Parishads, were held in two phases – on July 6 and 13. (ANI File Photo)
Bhopal:
Three candidates of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), a political wing of the Popular Front of India (PFI) won the councillor elections from Neemuch, which witnessed communal tension in May this year.
SDPI candidates Arbina Bi and Jafar Shah won from wards 10 and 11 of Rampur municipality of Neemuch district by defeating two BJP candidates while Jafar Shah won from wards no 11 of Manasa by defeating a Congress candidate.
PFI and SDPI have become active in a dozen districts of Madhya Pradesh over the past two years.
SDPI leader K Saleem from Indore said, “Congress leaders have asked us not to contest the election because it will help BJP like AIMIM. By defeating BJP candidates, we have proven that SDPI is fighting for the rights of people.”
In the run-up to the civic elections, state home minister Narottam Mishra had repeatedly targetted the SDPI, calling it anti-national.
Saleem attributed the party’s win to the goodwill for SDPI after its volunteers saved lives during the floods in the city two years ago.
BJP spokesperson Rajneesh Agrawal insisted that too much should not be read into the SDPI wins., “Many factors are involved in local bodies election so it is wrong to say that they (candidates) won because of SDPI.”
In May this year, communal violence erupted in Neemuch after some people tried to install a Lord Hanuman idol near a Muslim Shrine.
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Cities> Bhopal News / by Shruti Tomar / July 22nd, 2022
In the darkest hour of partition, when the whole of East Punjab was engulfed in a frenzy of communal violence, the town remained calm. And has stayed that way ever since.
Idgah, Malerkotla: a remembered history of co-existence. Credit: Mohd. Imran, GNU license
Ten years ago, my wife Amarinder and I moved to Bathinda, her home town, to manage a rural school started by her family. For me, a Tamil speaking person originally from Bangalore, it marked a sea change of place and culture. As I gradually acquainted myself with the new rhythms of everyday life in present-day Punjab, I came across sights such as abandoned monuments and ruins battling undergrowth and living Sufi dargahs (shrines) that spoke of the past in an intriguing manner.
It was the shrines that first caught my attention. During my travels in Punjab, I noticed Sufi shrines frequented by people from all communities, the famous Haji Ratan Dargah in Bathinda being one such example. If asked about any dargah dotting the local landscape, people would refer to its past and say that the Muslims who had looked after it originally had all left. In Bathinda itself, of the two schools that were well known before partition – the Khalsa School and Islamia School – the latter no longer exists, for the city has a minuscule Muslim population. In the erstwhile princely state of Kapurthala, the regal Moorish Mosque built in 1930 by Jagatjit Singh for his Muslim subjects – 60 % of the population then – is mostly deserted except for the odd tourist.
The overall demographic of Punjab in the pre- and post-partition period is revealing: Muslims comprise 1.9% of Punjab’s population today in contrast to 51% in undivided Punjab. The Muslim families that one came across in several villages of rural Punjab weren’t usually locals but migrants from Uttar Pradesh or Bihar. My curiosity about Punjabi Muslims remained unabated.
The inner courtyard of the Moorish Mosque, Kapurthala. Credit: Wikimapia
It was during a discussion with my wife’s late grandfather that I first heard the name of Malerkotla – Punjab’s only ‘Muslim pocket’ as he put it, located in Sangrur District. A princely state before Independence, in fact the only Muslim ruled state in erstwhile East Punjab, it was now the sole Muslim majority city in Punjab, he said. And then he told me something that left me stunned: In the darkest hour of partition, when the whole of East Punjab, including the princely states of Nabha, Jind and Patiala, was engulfed in a frenzy of communal violence, Malerkotla remained calm. Not just that, it became a life-saving refuge for Muslims on their way to Pakistan. Anybody I spoke to on this topic echoed the same sentiment.
Around that time I happened to watch Ajay Bhardwaj’s Punjabi documentary, Rabba Hun Ki Kariye (Thus Departed Our Neighbours), based on the memories of the partition generation. In the film, a resident of Malerkotla recounts how Muslims were chased by mobs till the borders of the state and no further, as if something stopped them from crossing the line.
What I gleaned from conversations, articles and scholarly writings was that even after independence, during several critical flash points in the history of the state and the nation, such as during the years of militancy in Punjab or the Ramjanambhoomi movement leading to the Babri Masjid demolition, Malerkotla remained committed to the spirit of communal harmony that has been a defining aspect of its history. An aspect all communities choose to remember as part of their local history, folk memory and heritage.
Not that this place has been in an eternally idyllic state. As scholar Anna Bigelow notes in an illuminating paper, the conditions that provide fodder for social conflict and make communities “riot-prone” in South Asia have existed in Malerkotla as well, be it flash points between religious groups or economic and political rivalries between communities. The difference, she emphasises, lies in the proactive intent of “local authorities and residents to make the unique history of the town a symbolically significant resource for community building and pluralism in the present.”
Living in times of increasing intolerance for the notion of pluralism, this aspect struck me as being of immense importance. Among the myriad strands that make up local histories and folk memory, some are positive and create common ground, while others are contentious. That the communities of a particular place should choose to recognise their shared history of mutual cooperation as their biggest strength and work towards resolving conflicts in the interests of mutual co-existence was incredible.
A 1911 map of Ludhiana District showing Malerkotla and the neighbouring princely states. Credit: Government of India
Unravelling the 500 year old skein of Malerkotla, ruled by nawabs of Afghan Pathan descent, was an instructive exercise. In 1454, the Maler settlement was granted to the Sufi saint Shaikh Sadruddin Sadar-i-Jahan, commonly known as Haider Shaikh, by the Lodis who preceded the Mughals in Delhi. The princely state of Malerkotla (the fortress city) came into being in 1657 when Haider Shaikh’s descendant, Bayzid Khan was given the title of nawab by the Mughals.
Thereafter, the fortunes of the tiny princely state kept see-sawing as it went through a series of alignments and realignments in a time of shifting politics common to the region in the 18th century – local kingdoms fought each other repeatedly in different permutations, sometimes on the say-so of more powerful powers, be it the Mughals, Marathas, invaders such as Ahmad Shah Abdali, or Maharaja Ranjit Singh. With the gradual waning of Mughal power after Aurangzeb, the nawabs sought to assert their independence – in the mid-18th century they supported Ahmad Shah Abdali. During the time of Ranjit Singh (1799 – 1839), they allied with the Sikh kingdoms of Nabha, Jind and Patiala to stay out of his grasp, ultimately accepting British protection in 1809. In January 1872, during the Kuka rebellion by the Namdharis, who were opposed to the British, 69 members of the sect, including some women and children, were strapped to a cannon and blown away on the orders of the British Resident. The nawab of the day was still a minor.
As independence brought British rule to an end and partition became a reality, Malerkotla, the sole Muslim ruled state in erstwhile East Punjab, found itself in a vulnerable position. Yet it survived virtually intact.
The most common explanation given by locals and people across Punjab is the role played by Malerkotla’s celebrated ruler, Nawab Sher Mohammad Khan (1672-1712), during a significant period of Sikh history. It was a time when the increasing following commanded by the Sikh gurus posed a serious challenge to Mughal authority. Although the nawab supported the Mughals in their campaigns against the Sikh gurus, he protested the decision of the Mughal governor to brick alive two sons of Guru Gobind Singh who were captured in Sirhind in 1705. In the nawab’s eyes, it was an un-Islamic act to punish the children when the battle was against their father.
Though this nuanced and principled stand fell on deaf ears, Malerkotla came to command a special place in the hearts of Sikhs. In the popular imagination, Guru Gobind Singh’s blessings ensured that the princely state remained virtually untouched by the communal violence that engulfed the neighbouring Sikh kingdoms. The protective power of saints across denominations, including figures such as Haider Shaikh, is also cited as one of the reasons for its good fortune.
Bigelow adds that the enlightened policies pursued by the Nawabs at critical junctures fostered the spirit of harmony and co-existence in the kingdom. For example, when Bayzid Khan established the foundation of Malerkotla, he summoned a Chishti Sufi saint, Shah Fazl, and a Bairagi Hindu saint, Baba Atma Ram, to bless the site, thereby declaring his faith in pluralism.
Nawab Sher Mohammad Institute of Advanced Studies in Urdu, Persian and Arabic, started in 1988. Credit: Abdur Punjabi/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
The princely state is a thing of the past, but Malerkotla continues to be in a league of its own even in democratic India (at the time of independence, it had a population of 85,000 in an area of 432 sq km). The fact that it has survived in its present demographic form is an indicator that the spirit of co-existence is still alive: as per the 2011 Census, Muslims, a minority in India and a tiny minority in Punjab, comprise 68% of the city’s population of 1.35 lakh; Hindus, the majority community across India, are placed at 20%, while Sikhs, who comprise the majority in Punjab, are only 10%. The current MLA, Farzana Alam (Akali Dal), has the distinction of being Punjab’s first non-Punjabi state legislator (she is originally from Uttar Pradesh).
Punjab has witnessed communal conflicts between Hindus and Muslims, and Sikhs and Muslims as well as between Hindus and Sikhs in more recent times during the days of militancy. Malerkotla has not been entirely free of flash points arising out of these developments.What sets it apart is that the focus of local authorities and community leaders at all times has been not only to defuse the situation but to approach it in a way as to foster greater solidarity, in keeping with its heritage.
Over a period of time, integrative practices like communal celebration of festivals, visits to each other’s sacred sites and mixed residential localities and joint businesses have helped immensely. Heritage organisations too have done their best to keep alive the memory of the city’s plural traditions. Bigelow cites two examples to illustrate how incidents threatening to upset the peace have been contained: In the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, some Muslim youths vandalised a Hindu temple and Jain Sabha hall. Local Muslim leaders promptly checked them; some Muslims came forward to pay for the damage, while the Muslim MLA ensured that funds from the state were used for the complete restoration of the damaged buildings. The local Hindus too opted to work with local peace committees. The final message that was sent out was that there was no place for such acts in Malerkotla.
In the other incident, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban in 2000 led to several anti-Muslim actions – in one place the Quran was burnt, at another place pig meat was hurled into a mosque. To protest the Bamiyan Buddhas’ destruction and the local acts against Muslims, the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs went on a general strike for a day. Says Bigelow, a potentially divisive issue was “transformed into an act of symbolic solidarity against a variety of injustices.”
In the ultimate analysis much of the credit goes to the general population which has proved to be far wiser than it is sometimes perceived to be. The lived reality of Punjab’s sole Muslim-majority city, echoing aspects of a Punjabiyat that once exemplified the region, is a pointer to the fact that pluralism is the strongest weave for a democracy like India, and the strongest antidote to the intolerance of majoritarianism.
Karthik Venkatesh runs a rural school in Bathinda, Punjab
source: http://www.thewire.in / The Wire / Home> Culture / by Karthik Venkatesh / January 16th, 2016
Madhya Pradesh local body elections: In the first phase of the local polls held on July 6, Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM won four seats.
Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM contested civic body polls in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh for the first time
Bhopal:
The All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) on Wednesday won three seats in the civic body elections in Madhya Pradesh, taking its overall tally in the local polls held earlier this month in the state to seven.
In the first phase of the local polls held on July 6, the Asaduddin Owaisi-led party had won four seats, while in the second phase conducted on July 13, the counting of votes for which is currently underway, it won three seats so far, officials said.
The Hyderabad-headquartered party won these three seats in the Khargone Municipal Council (KMC).
This is for the first time AIMIM contested civic body polls in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh.
AIMIM’s Aruna Bai won from ward number 2 of KMC by defeating her nearest rival and BJP candidate Sunita Devi by a margin of 31 votes.
Aruna Bai, who belongs to the Scheduled Castes (SC) community, said she joined AIMIM as she was influenced by Mr Owaisi’s views on Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.
Two other winners from the AIMIM are Shakeel Khan from ward 15 and Shabnam from ward 27 in KMC.
The BJP won 18 seats in the KMC, the Congress three and independent candidates eight.
In the first phase results on Sunday, the AIMIM won four seats – two in Jabalpur and one each in Burhanpur and Khandwa.
Mr Owaisi had addressed public meetings in Khandwa, Bhopal and Jabalpur to campaign for his party’s candidates for the polls held earlier this month.
The local body elections in Madhya Pradesh for 413 municipal bodies, including 16 municipal corporations, 99 municipal councils and 298 Nagar Parishads, were held in two phases – on July 6 and 13.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
source: http://www.ndtv.com / NDTV / Home> All Indian / by Press Trust of India / July 20th, 2022
Barely visible from across the new Errum Manzil metro and crushed between rows of commercial buildings, lies an abandoned citadel of knowledge: Idara-e Adabiyat-e-Urdu.
Once a core institution of the city for scholarship of the Deccan, this vast library and its museum, Aiwan-e Urdu – like much of Hyderabad’s heritage – exists in a state of disrepair. It is one of Hyderabad’s fast disappearing independent archival institutions connected to a time before – as ruins beneath the consumerist ravages of the new city. And yet, as we step inside, walk up the stairs to the library in its tower, rummage through dusty catalogues and forlorn books – it feels as though we have entered a magical portal into another world.
Established in 1931 by Syed Mohiuddin Qadri Zore (1905-1962), the most prolific scholar of the Deccan, and built upon lands donated by his wife, the illustrious poetess Tahniyatun-Nissa begum, the Idara houses a vast archival collection. That the library and museum continue to exist at all is due almost entirely to their 73-year-old son, Rafiuddin Qadri, who has devoted himself to managing this house of knowledge. Containing over fifty-thousand books and printed materials, including manuscripts and paintings and artefacts, the purpose of the Idara was to preserve the art, history, and multilingual Deccan literary cultures in Urdu Dakkhani, Persian, and Arabic.
At a cursory glance, the closed doors of the book shelves seem dense and inaccessible. But if one is willing to subject themself to the rigours of an erstwhile knowledge production circuit and has the patience to listen to its many stories rendered in multiple languages and idioms, these doors open up fascinating worlds.
Here, beneath dusty glass encasements, is an original eighteenth-century painting of warrior queen Chand Bibi of the Deccan, and a book about Deccan Radio. The museum is typically kept locked and desperately needs restoration. A dusty lithograph of sixteenth-century Qutb Shahi tughra emerges in fragile condition, alongside an original photograph of Kishen Pershad, an erstwhile prime minister of Hyderabad State under the Asaf Jah Nizams. The museum contains rare royal firmans, inscriptions, maps and genealogical trees, arms and weapons, coins, old garments and cloaks that are not available anywhere else.
Behind this seemingly random collection from the past is the erudite vision of Zore, who was not only a scholar himself but also carefully curated and fostered the production of knowledge.
Rafiuddin Qadri at Idara-e-adabiyat-e-Urdu.
Zore’s son Rafiuddin Qadri sits at a desk in the main hall, surrounded by construction workers, painters, and piles of decaying books and magazines. The sound of traffic on the main road tends to drown out his voice. He is the last of a generation to remember why institutions such as the Idara emerged in Hyderabad during the early to mid-twentieth century. He is soft-spoken, donning his characteristic vest and topi. He carries a dignified scholarly attitude resonant with an earlier time. Exceedingly generous and patient, Qadri carries on a legacy that no longer is valued by the current trends of historical knowledge production in India.
Archives and libraries everywhere in India are under threat of some kind, as history literally rots away . Hence, when serious historians come across independent archival institutions and archivists devoted to the preservation of historical knowledge – like Rafiuddin Qadri – it is worth telling their story.
Once a core institution of the city for scholarship of the Deccan, this vast library and its museum, Aiwan-e Urdu – like much of Hyderabad’s heritage – exists in a state of disrepair.
Descended from a Sufi family of Qandhar and North Deccan, Rafiuddin Qadri’s ancestors came to Hyderabad in the late nineteenth century. His father, Syed Mohiuddin Qadri Zore maintained close ties and commitments to Sufism, both in institutional ways regarding his familial lineage and his philosophical approaches in terms of the spiritual values attributed to seeking out knowledge. Sufi dargahs have traditionally been not only spiritual centres but also major arenas of producing knowledge. At the same time, Zore was a modern visionary, establishing a major institution of learning in Hyderabad, in keeping with the time. “The dawn of the twentieth century was an era of renaissance in the Deccan,” and “a number of institutions such as Asafia Library, Osmania University, Dairatul Maarif, Dar-ul-Tarjuma, Salar Jung Museum, were established which contributed immensely to the production of knowledge about the history and culture of Hyderabad.” Zore was not only a major scholar-administrator – publishing hundreds of books and editing the magazine Sab Ras – he was a key figure who brought together intellectuals while establishing and overseeing the Idara, with the help of his friends, ranging from scholars to local politicians and administrators. This spirit lives on in Rafiuddin Qadri.
Rafiuddin Qadri at the Idara Museum.
Schooled as we have been in the contemporary formalities of accessing archives, when we asked if there was a fee we ought to pay to access the library, Rafiuddin Qadri said, “No, not at all,” and then explained his father’s legacy. “Knowledge should be free”, is the principal hallmark of the Idara. “It is completely against my father’s ethics that one should charge money to scholars as this is a place for them to study and learn freely.” This ethics of scholarship and the writing of history is lost as a result of the commercialisation of intellectual production as well as the privatisation of education in India. “It was meant for the youth of Hyderabad,” says Rafiuddin Qadri, about one of the main purposes of establishing the Idara. “The youth were involved in the world of politics constantly, at a very turbulent time,” referring to the anti-colonial nationalist movements of the 1930s and 1940s. “A quiet space of inquiry was needed where they could go to do intellectual work and to study.” The Idara, then, is a physical space and has served as a much-needed refuge from the noise of the world’s polemics, to think, ponder, reflect, and read, without the constant interruptions of the fast-paced intensity of daily urban life in India, and its demands.
‘Scholars come from all over the world. They say, how did Zore know I would need this document so many years later! He had preserved it!’
The extraction of knowledge out of India and into the corridors of more powerful contexts of intellectual knowledge production – such as academia in the West – has contributed to diminishing the role of those who have cultivated the very libraries and institutions so central to academic research about India. It is often suggested that only British libraries and archives are worth perusing when it comes to various aspects of India’s past, given the colonial codification of Indian knowledge – brought there often by way of loot – were preserved there. Moreover, popular histories of the Deccan for a commercial market dominated by elites and their publishing houses tend to overlook vast swathes of historical knowledge produced in languages other than English, such as Urdu. Zore had been vital to Hyderabad in creating a space, a physical place, a free and open library – of which there are few and far between today. The very idea of a library – one of the few spaces which anyone can visit without having to spend money – is itself a revolutionary idea in contexts such as India. The institution Zore created is today preserved by Rafiuddin Qadri, who belongs to the last generation of living reposit.
The Idara Museum.
Rafiuddin devotedly handles the materials, and carefully walks the corridors he has seen during the many seasons of his life. His eyes light up when he narrates the stories of researchers: “Scholars come from all over the world. They say, ‘how did Zore know I would need this document so many years later! He had preserved it!’”, he muses.
Deccan: A region that resists categorisation
“Even though local Indian historians may know more about the Deccan, they won’t get published as easily as outsiders in the top international presses.”
“This is true. But I feel like we do the same thing unfortunately. Produce knowledge for the West.”
“History as a profession in India seems so dead. The assault is coming from all sides. The propagandistic writing to fit the current ruling ideology, the evisceration of educational spaces, the lack of care, no thought.”
“It’s so depressing.”
“So, how do we talk about the Deccan amidst all this? No one seems to care.”
“Just keep going to the archives and keep writing.”
“Yes, Rafi Sahb is waiting.”
“Is he there now?”
“Yes, he is.”
Calligraphy at the Idara-e-adabiyat-e-Urdu.
Rafiuddin Qadri points to the calligraphic poetry of Dakkhani Urdu gracing the high arches of the main hall of the Idara, with its main chandelier, overlooking what once was a clean and orderly library. “This place is not what it once was, there are very few people who are interested in doing serious work like this in Hyderabad,” he says. It is true. The archivists and knowledge-keepers of these earlier institutions are passing away while their knowledge is not being passed down. As we ask Qadri questions about our respective research projects, he says, “Did you ever meet Zia Shakeb?” We shake our heads. Qadri puts his hands to his head. “Oh, that is too bad. He knew so much. And now he is gone. So much is gone and lost.” In describing the history of the Idara-e-Urdu-e Adabiyat, Qadri also shares with us some old photographs detailing the networks of people instrumental to this library.
Zore imagined Idara, with a differently rooted aesthetic, as a space for people from different languages of the Deccan to work together, to have intellectual camaraderie without being subjected to the pressures of capitalist cycles of publish or perish production.
Qadri shuffles slowly between different rooms of the Idara, all under some kind of construction. He seemingly is displaced not only by time, but also between the once vibrant rooms of his family’s library. Over cups of chai, as we discuss historical research, he advises us about specific catalogues and indexes as he repeatedly issues unheeded calls for the library staff to retrieve particular titles.
What happens once these archives, knowledge, and the custodians of stories about the past are lost? One easy answer is that the region takes on a new identity, more sectarian, more oppressive and discriminatory, built around invented histories that weaponise pasts as archives diminish. Perhaps, a more creative and bolder answer would be, that we increasingly become a society alienated from oneself, lost and rootless – our understanding of history diminished by corporate and profit-making knowledge enclaves such as within the dystopia of a hi-tech city and financial district, Hyderabad’s rapidly developing new urban core. It is the responsibility of professional historians to keep stories of the past in circulation, in the hope that they might make us more empathetic, caring and humane.
Although Qadri claims his memory is fading and not what it once was, we marvel at his ability to recall catalogues, titles, essays, authors, scholars, poets, and multiple editions of books and magazines, produced about the Deccan between the 1930s and 1960s. This earlier period of scholarship about Dakhaniyat is largely ignored, as knowledge produced in the languages of this region, such as Urdu, is not considered as worthy as compared to knowledge produced in English.
The Deccan has long been configured as a region of hope in history, offering alternative ways of belonging, those that do not fit within the nationalist frames of India and Southasia overall.
It is in response to European dominance over the circuits of knowledge about India, that Zore imagined Idara, with a differently rooted aesthetic, as a space for people from different languages of the Deccan to work together, to have intellectual camaraderie without being subjected to the pressures of capitalist cycles of publish or perish production. Accessing the Idara today is not just about mechanically sifting through catalogues until you find what you need, and extracting it – but more about setting the pressures of clock-time aside and the arrogance of earned professional degrees aside, to learn from a life-long archivist. It means opening one’s self up to the humbling, slow and feeble processes of identifying voices in history, which are increasingly lost in the maddening clamour of the market and the deafening contours of nationalist totalitarianisms and fascisms of today.
Interest about the Deccan is growing in India, and new works of popular history have emerged in recent years. There has been some recent acknowledgement that the history of the Deccan has been marginalised, and as one headline pronounced, “Indian history without the Deccan is like European history minus France” for it seems that comparisons to Europe must be made, if Southasian regions are to exist at all within the historical imagination or reading public. Overall, it is the north-centric perspective of India’s historical narratives that continue to dominate Southasia’s study of the past. This is a perspective that largely ignores the Deccan region – today, home to the four linguistically organised states of Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka. Southasian historians continue to favour and focus upon Punjab, Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh. Meanwhile, it is the Mughal era that dominates scholarship on Southasian Islam when turning to India’s medieval and early modern past. Turning to the Deccan region thus challenges the north-centric perspective of Mughal imperial development that dominates histories of India’s Persianate past.
Syed Mohiuddin Qadri Zore (1905 – 1962).
And yet, it is impossible for any serious scholar or historian undertaking research about Deccan or about Hyderabad – once India’s largest and wealthiest princely state – without coming across the legacy of Syed Mohiuddin Qadri Zore.
Rafiuddin Qadri points out a special issue in Sab Ras about his father in which the author points out that, “Dr. Zore gave voice to the Deccan,” during a period of time in India’s history when communal tensions were on the rise. His was a utopian project of “knowledge for the people,” about a region of Southasia with its own distinct role and shared pasts that cut across religious, linguistic, and communitarian identities. It is to Zore’s credit that the Deccan was situated at all in the historiography of the subcontinent, being one the first scholars to research and write seriously about this region. Zore’s legacy is astounding, and he is, in fact, a key figure in India’s intellectual history. Yet, he has been ignored by historians of India. To write about him means having to situate oneself between the missing pages of Southasian historiography and history, between emphasising the importance of ethical citational practices amidst fast disappearing archives.
The Deccan has long been configured as a region of hope in history, offering alternative ways of belonging, those that do not fit within the nationalist frames of India and Southasia overall. Nawab Ali Yavar Jung, the Vice-Chancellor of Osmania University in the first session of the Deccan History Conference held in April 1945, which was sponsored by Zore said “…the history of the Deccan is, in miniature, the history of India. It mirrors all the great reflexes of Indian History and throws its own reflection back on that larger screen…. Separateness in the midst of geographical unity, isolation in the midst of invasion, such have been its characteristics. The resistance of the south to northern pressure provides an instance of the centrifugal forces which baffled successive efforts to establish one and the same rule over the length and breadth of India…” The region carries the spirit of sovereignty and diversity and this was championed by Idara and Zore. Though not like what it once was, in Hyderabad Deccan there still continues the intermingling of the languages of Telugu, Urdu, and English, with a sprinkling of Marathi, Kannada and Tamil.
Archival image of Aiwan-e-Urdu.
The pluralism and cosmopolitanism of the Deccan is reflected in the physical building of the Idara itself, whose construction occurred in 1955, with the patronage of the Government of India, the Nizam Trust, and several other entities in and outside of Hyderabad, from the state of Andhra Pradesh to Kashmir – where Zore was eventually laid to rest. The Indo-Islamic architecture and designs are inspired by Qutb Shahi domes, Indic lotuses of Hindu mythology, Bahmani latticework, flowering buds of the Egyptian Nile, and Spanish minarets and arches, with a main front door meant to represent the gates and doorways of so many forts of India.
Not only was Zore among the chief intellectual architects of Dakhaniyat, he was responsible for building several educational institutions and was at the helm of vast intellectual production. His entire education through his Masters degree was completed in Hyderabad. Born in 1905, Zore was educated in a primary school in a Kayasth Pathshala, where he learned English, and where his fondness grew for poetry, public speaking and debate. By high school he had not only already established a debate society but also a small library. He later joined Darul Uloom and City College and ultimately the College of Arts and Social Sciences at Osmania University.
Descended from a Sufi family of Qandhar and North Deccan, Rafiuddin Qadri’s ancestors came to Hyderabad in the late nineteenth century.
Osmania University is the first university in India to introduce a vernacular language (Urdu) as the medium of instruction. It aimed, among other things, to translate knowledge, including science textbooks into Urdu, which was a remarkable project, and contributed to a cosmopolitan ‘worlding of the Deccan.’ There, Zore eventually became Head of the Department of Urdu, where he was a founding member of ‘Mujalla-e Osmania’, the first Bilingual English-Urdu magazine at Osmania University. He was the first to work seriously on Urdu-Hindi linguistics and phonetics, and later published a book called Ruh-e-Tanqid, which was one of the earliest works of Urdu literary criticism. Widely travelled, journeying to London, Paris, as well as to Germany – where he learned French and German and translated Dakkhani Urdu poetry into European languages – Zore also travelled extensively within India, and to Kashmir and wrote the first book about Dakhaniyat. A polyglot, linguist, and philologist par excellence, Zore had studied Sanskrit and Gujarati as well.
During the mid-1930s, he embarked upon a project to prepare an encyclopedia in Urdu, inviting Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Sarojini Naidu, and Jawaharlal Nehru to write for it – many of whom had met with Zore. Though the encyclopedia project itself was not realised, the attempt signalled the yearning to produce knowledge about the world for citizens of Hyderabad, to bring in a perspective from the Deccan and its relationship to the wider world. And yet, his legacy is in danger of being forgotten, as Zore’s understanding of the Deccan has never been included in the story of India. The Idara-e-Urdu-e Adabiyat and the Aiwan-e Urdu are institutions that themselves could form the subject of an entire PhD dissertation as well as serious scholarship about Hyderabad’s institutions.
Erasures: The city and the politics of historical memory
Hyderabad’s past is rendered almost invisible: over the past 75 years, there has been tremendous upheaval: from a former Muslim princely kingdom – capital of the Asaf Jahi dynasty – to its violent annexation by the Indian state and army in 1948; and then its incorporation into the state of Andhra Pradesh in 1956; its land reallocations by the linguistic state in the 1970s and 1980s; the neoliberal economic reforms of the 1990s; and then being cast as the capital of the new Telangana state in 2014, the same year India was met with the political triumph of Hindu nationalism. And, it is not only upheavals.
Hyderabad’s history is also marginalised by most historians of India, who have simply not paid close enough attention to this city and its past. Then, there is the fact that popular historians write of Hyderabad’s history in romanticised ways, subjecting its past to their own perspectives, whether nationalist or colonialist, while Hyderabad’s elites produce accounts imbued with relentless nostalgia. Since 1948, there has been a steady demolition of Hyderabad’s historical pasts, inaugurated by the Indian state as well as by a combination of other factors – including the increasing out-migration of the city’s elites who were once patrons of major institutions. They have been replaced by a new elite who care more for malls, sports cars, and bars – and see no value in patronage or cultivation of the arts, cultural activities, or historical knowledge.
Today, the erasure of Hyderabad’s pluralist past is occurring at a resounding pace. The assault upon this city’s history and the shared heritages of its people is tremendous. Buildings torn down, monuments subject to land-grabs by the state or by private entities, and the city’s heritage continues to be destroyed by new capitalist ventures, as the old sixteenth century urban core and the modernising reforms of the Nizams in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is decimated by hyper-development, political expediency, and the corrupt scions of progress.
Yet, at the same time, there do exist responses to these assaults by Hyderabad’s numerous heritage activist groups and citizen historians, who daily record, bear witness to, and struggle against the demolition of monuments. While they are few and far between, they frequently lack political backing. There are organisations and individuals on the ground in Hyderabad who are constantly challenging the assaults on Hyderabad’s heritage. Local heritage activists and citizen historians, to several social media groups which have cropped up in recent years, are imbued with a very strong historical consciousness – doing everything from pleading with authorities to preserve heritage, leading heritage walks, to writing extensively about it in newspapers, such as The Siasat Daily – which regularly contains articles about Hyderabad’s heritage. One has only to bend one’s ear and take the time to listen.
Existing alongside these erasures of Hyderabad, is the continued persistence of historical memory among the people of the region. They consistently recall the shared past of the city across different communities and frequently invoke history. Even such mundane activities as providing directions in Hyderabad, constitutes broken maps of history. Directions include not only present landmarks, but also the names of people, properties, and heritages that existed in those same places of an earlier time, for Hyderabad once had the characteristics more akin to small town life – rather than the megapolis it is today. The lanes of Hyderabad are full of oracles who narrate the past. One octogenarian asks, “in the Nizam’s rule, Hindus worked as prime ministers, can Muslims now even be peons of government offices?” voicing some facets of changes the city and the nation have seen. Once the Muslim elites’ lands were confiscated and thoroughly eviscerated by the state, through their displacement as well as their own migrations to the Global North, the past few decades have witnessed the arrival of a set of new elites to the city. They are all too happy to culturally appropriate the memory of the Nizam, while at the same time encroaching on lands in celebration of an “India Shining” with its new temples rooted in the free-market economy – just one endless shopping centre–part of a larger drive that is flattening and homogenising India.
Meanwhile, the politics of the memory of Hyderabad are complicated and are constantly reframed, sometimes they take the shape of the claiming of a shared “Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb” (Hindu-Muslim culture or harmony), at other times, equating the entire Nizam period with communal rule. What is lost here in the polemics is the complexity of the Deccan, and the region’s capacity to uphold diversity and resist totalitarianism. Qadri’s and Zore’s Idara, and vanishing documents enable us to tell these stories of defiance in the face of erasure.
Women in history, women doing history
The role that women have played in the production of historical knowledge tends to be cast aside in the writing of institutional histories of India – where they are frequently rendered into a separate category of appraisal. In the anthology of poetry produced by Tahniyatun-Nissa begum (1911-1994), who donated her lands so that the Idara could be established, the poetess writes, “bahut baatein hain yun tou tahniyat dunya mein karne ki / hum apne shauq ki apni lagan kii baat karte hain,” “There are many things celebrated for discussion in this world/I follow my own desires, and speak of things which are close to me.” The couplet is an apt reminder of following one’s own individual path amidst that world’s demands for conformity. A devout woman, who was linked on her maternal side to the respected ‘ulema [religious scholars] of Firangi Mahal in Lucknow, Tahniyatun-Nissa begum was educated at Mahboobia Girls High School and went on to pass Senior Cambridge exams in the late 1920s. At the time, for Muslim women to be formally educated at this level, was itself a significant achievement.
Tahniyatun-Nissa begum wrote a great deal of poetry, her specialisation was in ‘Naat’, a genre of Urdu poetry in praise of the Prophet Muhammad. She is reputed to be among the first female poets to have a collection of published works in the Naat genre. There are at least three collections of her poetry, including Zikr-o-Fikr (1955), Sabr-o Shukr (1956), and Tasleem-o Raza (1959). Aside from her poetry, Tahniyatun-Nissa begum was devoted to sustaining the inner everyday workings of the library and museum. Qadri speaks of his mother fondly, recalling how the Idara was managed not by Zore alone, but with the magnanimity of Tahniyatun-Nissa begum. Her existence graces these halls, as he points to where she would organise gatherings for women who were scholars and writers in their own right, and even acknowledging the steps from which she once had a fall.
The Idara initially was a male space, but it was not long before the library began to open its doors to women. Qadri discusses how it was important to his parents that a place and space be made for women scholars. “Today, it seems that it is mainly women scholars who come to seek knowledge here,” he says, reflecting on the irony.
Hyderabad’s history is also marginalised by most historians of India, who have simply not paid close enough attention to this city and its past.
As Qadri unlocks the museum, hidden at the top of the tower of the Idara, it is the portraits of women that are most immediately noticeable, gracing the walls above the filigreed and cobweb-covered windows. They include notable women of Hyderabad State, such as Mah Laqa Bai Chanda, the 18th-century poetess of Urdu, and frequently known as the earliest major female poet of Urdu – though there were others before her. There are at least two portraits of her on the walls – she was a high-ranking court noble of the Asaf Jah state, talented in music, the arts, dance, as well as poetry and hunting. Her devotion to Maula Ali is evident by her mausoleum near the Maula Ali Dargah in the city.
There are paintings and sketches of Premamathi and Taramati – a kuchipudi dancer and the courtesans of the Quli Qutb Shah dynasty from the sixteenth century.
There exists today a serai (caravan station), named after one of them, the Taramati Baradari, built under the reign of Ibrahim Quli Qutub Shah. According to local legends, the sultan was awed by her voice when she sang for the weary travellers and the sounds of her song were carried by the breeze all the way to Golconda Fort.
At a short distance away, there is a mosque of Premamati – and both dancers are buried in the Qutb Shah mausoleum, north of the serai. There is also a portrait of Bhagmati, a legendary courtesan (and later queen of Muhammed Quli Qutb Shah, the founder of Hyderabad city in 1591). Bhagmati’s very existence, or lack thereof, is today the source of considerable controversy.
There is too, a rare portrait of the sixteenth-century warrior queen Chand Bibi, a regent of two Deccan Sultanates.
About Chand Bibi, Zore was critical of how she was dismissed by scholars of his time, writing in 1938 that the “king’s birth, pedigree and influence of Chand Sultana of Ahmadnagar who was his aunt should have been dealt with in a detailed manner…it was she who made him a man of letters, a broad-minded gentleman, generous king, and valiant warrior.” That there was an entire section dedicated to the women of the Deccan, during the early twentieth century – when there is yet to be any serious scholarly books today in English focused upon women and female power within the Deccan – itself indicates attempts for inclusivity within the imagination of the Idara.
Yet, beyond these more well-known names, the Idara itself opened its doors to female scholars and poets of the twentieth century. Qadri tells us the story of how women scholars were patronised by the Idara, and that the institution accommodated them as “gosha-purdah” women would come here to study and research. At the time, this was a novelty, signalling new forms of educational possibilities for women. Today, almost one hundred years later since the conception of the Idara, the historical profession in India continues to be dominated by men, who in turn, continue to produce visions of the past in which women do not exist, with the frequent claim that obtaining records of their existence is next to impossible. It is perhaps not a coincidence that today, we are two women inviting some reflection and further research about the Idara, with a reminder that the legacies and the lineages of the past continue into the present.
***
It is 8pm in the evening and we have finally found a quiet spot in the city. We have taken the steps up to Maula Ali pahaar, at the top of which is an old Shia shrine. We take our place upon an expansive rock formation, offering its vast open natural space to us, with some quiet space all around, and stare out to the city of lights below. As we dream and talk about the need to create and preserve spaces of plurality, free inquiry, openness, and camaraderie, the historical city of Hyderabad vanishes beneath us.
*** SARAH WAHEEN AND YAMINI KRISHNA
Sarah Waheed is Assistant Professor of History at University of South Carolina. She is the author of Hidden Histories of Pakistan: Censorship, Literature, and Secular Nationalism in Late Colonial India. She is a Fulbright Scholar writing her second book, about Chand Bibi and women of the Deccan: The Warrior Queen Who Died Thrice: Gender, Sovereignty and Islam in Premodern India. She can be reached at sarah.f.waheed@gmail.com.
C Yamini Krishna works on film history and urban history. Her work has been published in South Asia, Historical Journal of Film Radio Television, Widescreen, South Asian Popular Culture, The news minute, Caravan and Scroll. She currently teaches at FLAME University. She can be reached at yaminkrishn@gmail.com.
source: http://www.himalmag.com / Himal South Asian / Home>Commentary> Culture> India / by Sarah Waheed and Yamini Krishna / July 19th, 2022
Steering clear of the actor’s controversial life, a new biography focuses on India’s notion of stardom and celebrity instead
A recent bout of illness and feeling all round wretched had me turning to my favourite comfort food — Hindi movies (I refuse to call them Bollywood movies) from the 1990s. That I was simultaneously reading Devapriya Sanyal’s Salman Khan The Man The Actor The Legend, a deconstruction of bhai’s celebrity, proved an adequate road map to my film choices…
Rather than start with Salman Khan’s big, fat blockbuster, Maine Pyaar Kiya (1989), I chose Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994), also directed by Sooraj Barjatya (who had made his directorial debut with Maine Pyaar Kiya). The film, which cemented Khan as a bonafide star, actually gave his co-star, Madhuri Dixit, higher billing, a fact which Sanyal’s book mentions.
Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! unlike that other game-changer of the ‘90s, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), has not aged well, Dixit’s phulkari-inspired jacket notwithstanding. The film plays out like a loosely strung together series of incidents, songs and comic interludes. How is a dog playing an umpire at a cricket match supposed to be funny is one of those unsolved mysteries. And while we are on the topic, hope Tuffy, the dog, was treated right on set.
Defence of toxicity
Sanyal’s book mostly steers clear of all the scandals and controversies that followed Khan like faithful shadows. While there is mention of the 2002 hit-and-run case, his tumultuous relationship with Aishwarya Rai and its fallout, and the blackbuck hunting and Arms Act violations cases, the book focuses on decoding Khan and India’s notion of stardom and celebrity through his career.
What little we glimpse of Khan is through his good friend Kailash Surendranath’s reminiscences. Surendranath, who knew Khan from his days as an eager 15-year-old getting his first break in modelling for Campa Cola (remember?) to his decade-spanning superstardom, remembers Khan dropping by for late night paratha-bhurji (scrambled eggs) and his motto for working on his body — “When you have no work, work on yourself.”
An introduction sets out what Sanyal intends to do through the book in great detail. The shortest chapter is the one called ‘With Human Failings’, which lists Khan’s headline-grabbing misbehaviour. His public brawls and brushes with the law are explained away as the cost of celebrity, which does not cut much ice as one cannot sweep bad and outright criminal behaviour under the carpet of “boys will be boys”. The book is at its weakest when trying to defend Khan’s toxicity.
An engaging journey
On the other hand, Sanyal’s book is its most engaging when deconstructing Khan through his roles especially in the chapter, ‘The Journey from Prem to Chulbul Pandey’. The chapter introduces the concept of the Emploi, “a theoretical framework as developed by Erving Goffman in his book, Frame Analysis.” The emploi, Sanyal posits “is a category that accounts for the close interaction between performance and reception.”
Just as Amitabh Bachchan’s angry young man was invariably called Vijay (is his Jai in Sholay a diminutive for Vijay?) and Shah Rukh Khan’s many versions of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’s Raj went towards building an on-screen persona, so too does Salman’s Prem emploi create a film version of Salman Khan.
Sanyal traces Khan’s development through his 15 different portrayals of Prem. From the slender, doe-eyed Prem of Maine Pyar Kiya, the naughty ‘devar’ Prem in Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!, the Prem who sets things right in Hum Saath-Saath Hain (1999) and the slightly dim-witted Prem of Andaz Apna Apna (1994), who nevertheless gets the girl to the tongue-in-cheek narrator Prem of Ready (2011), the cheating-on-his wife Prem of No Entry (2005), the dating guru Prem of Partner (2007) and the travelling theatre artiste Prem of Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015), in his fourth collaboration with Barjatya.
Since the chapter details Khan’s journey from Prem to Chulbul Pandey, there is an analysis of the characters he played who are not named Prem, including Akash in that slightly cringy but melodious triangle Saajan (1991), Sameer in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s exotically colourful Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), the obsessed lover, Radhe Mohan in Tere Naam (2003), the tapori Radhe in Wanted (2009), Devil in Kick (2014), Bajrangi in Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) and Tiger in Ek Tha Tiger (2012) and Tiger Zinda Hai (2017), Laxman in Tubelight (2017) Sultan in and as Sultan (2021), and of course the corrupt but loveable cop Chulbul Pandey in the Dabangg movies.
Sanyal, who teaches English literature at the University of Delhi, has written a thesis on the anatomy of fame with academic rigour— right down to how Khan’s perfect body also contributes to his iconography. Wish the book was better proofed as there are silly errors that grate coming on the back of such a well-researched book.
All looking for salacious details of Khan’s life will be disappointed while those seeking the magic in the bottle of stardom will not. And I am going back to watching Khan fight off the evil Crime Master Gogo in the delightful Andaz Apna Apna.
Salman Khan The Man The Actor The Legend; Devapriya Sanyal, Bloomsbury, ₹699.
mini.chhibber@thehindu.co.in
source: http://www.thehindu.com/ The Hindu / Home> Books> Review / by Mini Anthikad Chhibber / July 22nd, 2022
‘RISING BEYOND THE CEILING’ releases list of Seventy Inspiring Muslim Women of Kerala
Nagma Mallick(L), Shabana Faizal(M) and Sara Aboobacker(R)
Kerala:
‘Rising Beyond the Ceiling’ (RBTC), an initiative born out of the need to change the stereotypical narrative about Muslim women in India has released its list of seventy Inspiring Muslim Women of Kerala. The list includes names like Shabana Faisal, Nagma Mohamed Mallick, Sara Aboobacker, and others.
“The seventy RBTC Honorees from Kerala celebrated in this book have displayed exemplary accomplishments in various fields. They are flying planes, serving as Civil Police Officers in the state, joining the national Indian Police Service, and leading as District Police Chief. They are contributing to nation-building in the Indian Foreign Service, Indian Administrative Service, and Indian Information Service and as Education Administrators, Directors of Departments of Industry.” RBTC said in its statement.
“They are contributing in leadership positions as managing directors, CEO, vice-chairperson, founders. They are influencers and singers, having an individual social media following of over 1 million and have been recognized in international and national awards including YouTube’s Golden Play Button,” it further added.
Global Inspiration Shabana Faizal:
Shabana Faizal, Chief Corporate Officer (CCO) and Vice-Chairperson of KEF Holdings UAE has been listed in the category of ‘Global Inspirations’.
“Shabana started her entrepreneurial career in 1995, when she set up Sophiya’s World – luxury and special items studio – in Calicut, following her marriage to Faizal E Kottikollon, chairman of KEF Holdings.” RBTC wrote about Shabana.
“Shabana has a driving passion to make a difference in the lives of the underprivileged, which led to the setting up of the Faizal and Shabana Foundation. The Foundation carries out campaigns to improve education, healthcare, sustainable livelihood, humanitarian assistance, youth development, and housing in India and the UAE. Her most recent passion project was the revamp and enhancement of the GVHSS in Nadakkavu, Kerala which has empowered more than 2,400 young girls to believe in themselves and their dreams and impacted the lives of more than 69,000 students across 65 schools in Kerala.” It further added.
Shabana is the daughter of a well-known entrepreneur and philanthropist late B.Ahmed Haji Mohiuddeen from Thumbay, Mangalore.
Impassioned author and writer Sara Aboobacker:
Kannada fiction writer Sara Aboobacker has been listed in the category of ‘Impassioned authors and writers’ adding that her stories narrate Muslim lives in the areas bordering Karnataka and Kerala, focusing on the inequities and injustices meted out to women by the male society.
“Aboobacker’s books largely focus on the lives of Muslim women living in the Kasaragod region, bordering the Indian states of Kerala and Karnataka. She focuses on issues of equality and injustice within her community, critiquing patriarchal systems within religious and familial groups. Her writing style is direct and simple, and she has stated that she prefers a realist approach to literature, prioritizing the expression of social concerns over stylistic embellishments. Her books have dealt with complex subjects such as marital rape, communal and religious violence, and individual autonomy.” RBTC wrote about Aboobacker.
Sara Aboobacker has received many prestigious literary awards, such as the Karnataka Sahitya Akademi Award, 1984; Anupama Niranjan Award, 1987; Rathnamma Heggade Mahila Sahitya Award, 1996, etc. She has seven novels, four collections of short stories, and one collection of essays to her credit. The Library of Congress has acquired eight of her works.
Leader in Administration Nagma Mohamed Mallick:
First Muslim woman in Indian Foreign Service (IFS) Nagma Mallick who is currently serving as Additional Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, has been named in the category ‘Leadership in Administration’ for contributing to nation-building in the Indian Foreign Service.
“An IFS officer of the 1991 batch, Nagma Mallick has served as the High Commissioner of India to Brunei from 2015 to 2018, and as India’s Ambassador to Tunisia between 2012 to 2015. Earlier she served as a staff officer to Prime Minister I.K. Gujral, then served as the first woman Deputy Chief of Protocol (Ceremonial). During her career in the IFS, Ms. Mallick has also served in France, Middle East, Sri Lanka, and Nepal.” It wrote about Nagma.
The list features a total of seventy Muslim women from Kerala and their stereotype-shattering stories of courage hard work and resilience. The list includes names like Airline pilot Afra Abdullah, IAS Officer Adeela Abdullah, Student Activist Aysha Renna, Life Coach Sahla Parveen and others.
About RBTC:
Rising Beyond The Ceiling (RBTC) is an initiative born out of the need to change the stereotypical narrative about Muslim women in India. It is a celebration of the achievement, endeavor, and diversity of Indian Muslim women. RBTC shines a spotlight on Muslim women’s contributions to nation-building in a variety of ways and professions. Founded in April 2020 by Dr. Farah K. Usmani, this initiative aims to make Muslim women’s stories more visible, provide positive role models for future generations, nurturing young women’s confidence and ambition in all spheres. RBTC works across various platforms- the website, publications, multimedia as well as an outreach young women’s mentorship programme.
RBTC is putting together inspiring profiles from fourteen states in India that are home to nearly eighty percent of the country’s hundred million Muslim women population. Besides state and national levels, there is also an RBTC 100 list under finalization of Global Inspirations which includes women who have done their initial studies in Indian institutions and are now making their mark in countries across the globe. A compendium of Inspirations from the Past compendium of those amazing Muslim women who are not with us now, but on whose shoulders we stand today. We are also excited about our amazing Under-30 Youth Inspirations list. RBTC will continue to institute annual Muslim women honorees lists to share the stories of achievements, courage and resilience.
source: http://www.english.varthabharati.in / Vartha Bharati / Home> India / by Rising Beyound the Ceiling / January 30th, 2022
The unit is being run under medical supervision of Dr Shoeb Ali Khan, leading consultant nephrologist and a kidney transplant surgeon.
A patient undergoes dialysis at the unit
Hyderabad :
Probably for the first time in the world, a mosque in Hyderabad has allotted space on its premises for establishing a full-fledged haemodialysis unit. Masjid-e-Mohammadia, located in Langar Houz area now houses a state-of-the-art free dialysis centre that mainly caters to the weaker sections of the society, regardless of caste and creed.
The centre, set up by two NGOs – Helping Hand Foundation and SEED US, has five latest Fresenius brand machines and will acquire five more machines in the next three months. The swanky centre, designed like a corporate hospital, has a separate access for dialysis patients and it is equipped with high quality equipment, clinical care as well as facility to manage onsite emergencies.
The unit is being run under medical supervision of Dr Shoeb Ali Khan, leading consultant nephrologist and a kidney transplant surgeon.A medical doctor, ANMs, dialysis technicians and an ambulance will be available at the centre from 8 am to 8 pm on any given day. “We have invested about Rs 45 lakh for the initial setup of this unit. About Rs 2 lakh per month will be managed by Helping Hand Foundation,” said Mazhar Hussaini of SEED.
To register for free dialysis, one can call Ph: 9603540864.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Good News / by Express News Service / July 22nd, 2022
Nai Manzil gives school-dropouts from minority communities a second chance to complete their education and learn a marketable skill.
Sameera was just 14 years old when she dropped out of school. Soon afterwards, her impoverished parents arranged her marriage, after which she stayed at home to cook and clean for her husband’s family, like all the other women in her small fishing community in Kerala’s Malappuram district.
When the Government of India’s Nai Manzil – New Horizons – program came calling, offering school-dropouts from minority communities a second chance to complete their education and learn a marketable skill, her husband let her join.
A year and a half later, Sameera, along with three other women from the program set up Bismil Tailoring, a home-based venture that took in sewing assignments from the community. “Our customers appreciated our work, and we were earning good money,” recalled Sameera.
However, barely a few months after they had started, a lockdown was imposed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Orders dried up, taking a heavy toll on the nascent enterprise.
A tailoring unit run by women from the Nai Manzil program in Malappuram, Kerala.
The women’s earnings help their families weather the crisis
When we spoke to Sameera four months later, we were naturally surprised to hear an optimistic young voice at the other end of the line. Confidence bubbled out of her, and although not everyone in her unit was able to resume work, they had received several orders for masks, and she was sure that their tiny unit would bounce back as soon as the lockdown was lifted.
Her education and training, as well as her exposure to the outside world, had instilled in her a new self-assurance that she could make a go of things, despite the temporary setback. This was bolstered by the fact that she was able to keep her small family afloat during the crisis, even though her fisherman husband had been unable to go out to sea since the pandemic started.
Sameera’s story is echoed in 32-year old Kausar Jahan, mother of three, who lives with nine other family members in the eastern city of Hyderabad. Although Kausar was just 17 years old when she got married and had to drop out of school. Nai Manzil’s training enabled her to get a job at a government hospital providing bed-side care to patients.
Today, while millions of lives and livelihoods have been severely impacted by the pandemic, Kauser is able to help support her family with the Rs 4,000 she still receives, even though her employers have asked her to stay at home until the worst is over. While this is just half her earlier salary, it has proved to be a lifeline for her 9-member household, more so since her electrician husband has been unable to get work during the crisis.
Kausar is now using her training to provide free health services to her community in the old city of Hyderabad, administering injections and checking blood pressure.
Both women look at the plight of others in their communities and shudder to think what would have become of their families had they not received Nai Manzil’s life-changing education and training.
And, it’s not just their families who have benefitted. Kausar is now using her training to provide free health services to her community in the old city of Hyderabad, administering injections, checking blood pressure, interpreting test reports, and nudging those who are seriously unwell to visit a doctor.
Sameera too is deeply involved in promoting the welfare of her small fishing community in Kerala. She is also supporting the wider population by helping with the common kitchen that has been set up to feed out-of-work migrants and other poor individuals affected by the pandemic.
A woman trained by Nai Manzil providing health care in Hyderabad.
Education, skills and exposure brings life-changing empowerment
Having seen her peers transform into co-founders of their tailoring unit – many of whom had never stepped out of their homes before or were the regular victims of domestic abuse – Sameera firmly believes that education, skills and exposure can herald life-changing empowerment, enabling the women to blossom and bring out their full potential.
While Sameera plans to study further and become a better entrepreneur, she wants the other women to grow along with her. Aware that not all her peers enjoy the same level of family support that she is fortunate to have received, she believes that religious leaders – who wield great influence within her community – can be a powerful force for change. In fact, it was these religious leaders who inaugurated the classes she attended.
More than half of Nai Manzil’s beneficiaries are women, with Muslim women constituting the majority. The first batch of beneficiaries completed their training in 2017, after which many have moved on to salaried jobs or self-employment. So far, more than 50,700 minority women have benefited from the educational and skilling provided by the program.
More than half of Nai Manzil’s beneficiaries are women, with Muslim women constituting the majority.
India’s Ministry of Minority Affairs is now hard at work to reduce the impact of the pandemic on minority communities across the country by expanding their opportunities for education and employment.
Over the last five years we have repeatedly witnessed the game changing nature of the Nai Manzil program. Given the huge demand for platforms that integrate education and skilling, the program marks the start of something truly transformational for minority communities across the country.
The World Bank is supporting the Nai Manzil program run by India’s Ministry of Minority Affairs, with a loan of $50 million. The program provides school dropouts from minority communities in 26 states and 3 union territories with six months of education and three months of skills training, followed by a further six months of support to help them establish themselves.
source: http://www.blogs.worldbank.org / World Bank Blogs / Home> Covid 19 / by Marguerite Clarke & Pradyumna Bhattacharjee / August 21st, 2020
A community historically considered to be “half Hindu” and “half Muslim” has lost its vibrant tradition in the city of Amritsar.
Matam in Amritsar on September 10, 2019. Photo: Nonica Datta
Amritsar :
As battle lines are being redrawn and strengthened over borders, many shared and eclectic cultural practices and spaces in the subcontinent are forgotten. Certain stories are being gradually erased from the shards of memory and history.
In the month of Muharram this year, on the day of Ashura, I decided to recover the lost narrative of Hussaini Brahmins – also known as Dutt/Datt/Datta Brahmins – and their intimate connection with the taziya procession in the city of Amritsar. In the pre-Partition days here, the taziya juloos, a grand public commemoration, would not start without the presence and participation of Hussaini Brahmins.
Before 1947, my grandfather, Padma Shri Brahm Nath Datta ‘Qasir’, a Hussaini Brahmin and a well-known Urdu-Persian poet, would initiate the taziya procession in Farid Chowk, in Katra Sher Singh, in his beloved city of Amritsar. There was a prominent Shia mosque in the area from where the taziyas were commenced and brought to the historic Farid Chowk.
The grand procession would then move towards the Imambara and Karbala maidan, near the Kutchery, which was a meeting point for all the processions coming from several imambaras. The final convergence of the taziyas was momentous. It is believed that this was close to the pivotal site, known as Ghoda pir, where the legendary steed, Zuljanah, of Imam Husain was said to have been buried.
Hussaini Brahmins: bringing two cultures together
In pre-Partition Amritsar, the taziya procession would start only after the Hussaini Dutt Brahmins lent their shoulder to carry the taziyas forward through the city. In 1942, Dr Ghulam Nabi, a prominent dentist of the city who had a clinic in Hall Bazar, rushed to the first floor of my grandfather’s house in Katra Sher Singh at Farid Chowk. He was from the Shia community and a close friend of my grandfather. He said with urgency, “Dutt Sahib, we are all waiting. Aap kandha doge tab taziya uthengee.”
A community which was historically considered to be “half Hindu” and “half Muslim”, the Hussaini Brahmins traditionally brought two cultures together. Often referred to as either Shia Brahmins or Hussaini Brahmins, phrases such as “Wah Dutt Sultan, Hindu ka dharm, Mussalman ka iman’; and ‘Dutt Sultan na Hindu na Mussalman” became a part of folklore.
Mohammad Mujeeb, the distinguished historian writes, “they [Hussaini Brahmins] were not really converts to Islam, but had adopted such Islamic beliefs and practices as were not deemed contrary to the Hindu faith.” Family narratives reveal that the name of Imam Husain was recited during mundans of young Dutt Brahmin boys, and halwa was cooked in the name of bade (Imam Husain) at weddings. Until the Partition in 1947, the Dutts were commonly called Sultans in different parts of the subcontinent.
Ashura in Amritsar on September 10, 2019. Photo: Nonica Datta
The genealogical map of Hussaini Brahmins covers their settlements in Kufa in Iraq around the time of the historic Battle of Karbala (680 A.D.), and later in Balakh, Bokhara, Sindh, Kandahar, Kabul and Punjab. Their scribal and military traditions and commercial and marriage networks attached them to regional courts during the 17th and 18th centuries and they were mostly found in Gujarat, Sindh, Punjab and Northwest Frontier.
It was in this context that many Hussaini Dutt Brahmins expanded their influence into the city of Amritsar. For instance, historical evidence testifies that before the accession of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Mai Karmon Dattani, the wife of a leading Dutt, was appointed the ruler of Katra Ghanaiyan in Amritsar. She was reputed to have presided over her court, dispensing even-handed justice at a public place which has been immortalised by her name, and is known as Mai Karmun ki Deohri, later a prominent bazar (known as Karmon Deori) in the city. She is remembered as the “Joan of Arc” of Amritsar.
However, what is most remembered in history is the historic link of the Hussaini Brahmins with Karbala in Iraq, as underscored by British ethnologist Denzil Ibbetson. T. P. Russell Stracey in 1911 provides a fascinating account:
“From the Kavits of the clan, it is evident that the ancestors of the Datts were once in Arabia. They participated in the Karbala War between the descendants and followers of Hazrat Ali and Yazid Sultan, the son of Amir Muaviya. They were friends of Hasan and Hussain, the martyred grandsons of the Prophet, the incidents connected with which furnish the material for the passion play of the Shias at every Muharrum.
When these princes fell, a brave warrior of the Datts named Rahib, resolutely but unsuccessfully defended the survivors. The slaughter of his band, however, compelled him and the small remnant to retire to India through Persia and Kandahar.”
Legend has it that on his return from Arabia, Rahib Dutt brought with him the Prophet’s hair, which is kept in the Hazratbal shrine in Kashmir. Nohas and Kavits, recorded in local vernacular histories, oral narratives and British ethnographic literature, endorse the glorious appeal of Karbala and Muharram among Hussaini Brahmins:
“Laryo Datt [Dutt] dal khet ji tin lok shaka parhyo Charhyo Datt dal gah ji Garh Kufa ja luttyo.”
(The Datt warrior alone fought bravely in the field, and plundered the fort of Kufa.)
“Baje bhir ko chot fateh maidan jo pai Badla liya Husain, dhan dhan kare lukai.”
(When they won the field, the drum was beaten; Husain was avenged and the people shouted “bravo”, “bravo”.)
“Rahib ki jo jadd nasal Husain jo ai Diye sat farzand bhai qabul kamai.”
(The seven sons of Rahib (Datt) throwing in their lot With the faithful few on hapless Husain’s side, Died as Datts fighting, deeming their death But friendship’s welcome sacrifice.)
Finally:
“Jo Husain ki jadd hai Datt nam sab dhiyayo, Arab shahr ke bich men Rahib takht bathayo.”
(Off-spring of Husain! forget not thy father’s friend Rahib, once enthroned in Arabia’s city ere thy father’s end. Wherefore the name of Datt recite In thy prayers to Allah, at morn and night.)
Muharram as late as the 1940s was a moment to commemorate the sacrifice of the sons of Rahib Dutt for Imam Husain. The Hussaini Brahmin was an indispensable presence on such a sombre occasion of collective and shared mourning. Partition sealed the fate of this community, as they were left abandoned on both sides of Punjab.
In Pakistan Punjab, they were seen as non-Muslims, in Indian Punjab they were perceived as being closer to Muslims. The horrific politics of the border entered the portals of my ancestral home, too. Brahm Nath Datta Qasir’s house at Katra Sher Singh in Farid Chowk, Amritsar, was set on fire by Hindu fanatic groups in 1947.
It seems there was no Muharram procession in Amritsar in 1947. At least, it didn’t happen in Farid Chowk. In the tragic transformation of Amritsar as a border city, Hussaini Dutt Brahmins were amongst its worst victims. Their fluid identity came under siege as the politics of aggressive religious identities shattered their porous cultural world.
The Dutts’ enduring link with Imam Husain, Karbala and Muharram came under threat. But all was not lost. Some of them did openly identify with their Hussaini Brahmin heritage.
Not very long ago, Indian actor Sunil Dutt, while making a donation in the Shaukat Khanum Hospital in Lahore, recorded his commitment to Karbala and said :
“For Lahore, like my elders, I will shed every drop of blood and give any donation asked for, just as my ancestors did when they laid down their lives at Karbala for Hazrat Imam Husain.”
Needless to say that Sunil Dutt was intimately connected with the cultural landscape of Amritsar too.
Ashura in Amritsar
I reached Amritsar early on the morning of Ashura, on September 10. My first instinct was to visit the Imambara at Farid Chowk in Katra Sher Singh and to trace some crucial sites connecting the gaps between Hussaini Brahmins and Amritsar. This was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
However, I was lucky to find locals who knew about the city’s pluralistic culture and gladly directed me to a lone surviving Imambara, Anjuman-e-Yadgaar Husain, in Lohgarh, just about five minutes away from Farid Chowk. Currently known as the Kashmiri Imambara, it stands on Gali Zainab (named after Imam Husain’s sister), and now renamed as Gali Badran.
As I walked into this self-enclosed, small inconspicuous structure, which houses the Raza Mosque inside its precincts, I saw a large number of policemen and the Rapid Reaction Force.
I was warmly welcomed by the caretaker of the Imambara, Syed Abdullah Rizvi, popularly called Abbuji. He told me that the structure is nearly 110 years old, and was built by Syed Nathu Shah and was regularly maintained by local Shia and Hussaini Brahmin families of Amritsar before 1947.
Abbuji was touched to meet me as a Hussaini Brahmin in the majlis. He enquired whether I had a mark of a cut on my throat (in folklore, the Hussaini Brahmins are known to have a faint line across their throats as a symbol of having sacrificed their lives for Imam Husain). The story of Dutt Brahmins was shared in the assembly (majlis):
“It was Rahib’s mother, who instructed him to sacrifice his seven sons for Imam Husain. Rahib’s mother had been blessed with seven boys by Imam Husain. As a token of her gratitude to Maula Husain, she implored Rahib to sacrifice his own sons. So he did.”
A mourner, Amit Malang, told me, “Unfortunately, Hussaini Brahmins left for Delhi and Bombay. What did they do for Amritsar?” He said sarcastically, “Aj kisi Hussaini Brahmin ki himmat hai ki voh haath kharha kare (Can any Hussaini Brahmin dare to raise his hand today?).”
His angst was shared by many who felt that the community which could have probably preserved the vibrant tradition of the city had abandoned them. Abbuji, a cementing force, a favourite amongst Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in the congregation, said, “Imam Husain means haq (rights) and aman (peace). We want to convey this message to Amritsar.”
I then awaited the taziya procession.
Muharram within the four walls at Imambara Amritsar on September 10, 2019. Photo: Nonica Datta
A lost narrative of Juloos-e-Ashura
“Ab koi juloos nahi nikalta. Juloos-e-Ashura Imambare ke andar hi hota hai. Muharram yahin Imambara ki chardiwari mein hota hai (Now there is no procession. Muharram is confined to the four walls of the Imambara),” Abbuji said. Zaheer Abbas, a Shia from Lucknow who has been living in Amritsar since 1980, added: “The grand shared tradition of Muharram in Amritsar was destroyed by successive wars: 1947, 1965, 1971. Partition didn’t end in 1947.”
Abbas said that the Shia mosque in Farid Chowk had been razed to the ground in 1948-49. Almost all the imambaras, over a hundred in number, were taken over (kabza) or dismantled. Abbuji added:
“Although the government took over the Karbala maidan, until recently the most prominent route for the Muharram procession was via the famous Sikri Banda Bazar to the present Imambara; taziya and alam would be brought there with much passion. But Bajrang Dal stopped it. Sunnis also didn’t support us. Now there is no procession: Ab ham darwaze diware band karke matam karte hain (Now we perform the mourning ceremony by shutting the doors and walls).”
Farhat, a sole Punjabi Muslim mourner, said that with the exodus of Hussaini Brahmins and Shias, the matam had lost its Punjabi flavour.
Abbuji asked me to write about the lost narrative of Hussaini Brahmins in Amritsar.
The openly public commemoration of Muharram in Delhi, Lucknow, Saharanpur, and even in nearby Malerkotla, Patiala, Jullundur and Jammu contrasts sharply with the slow erasure of this inclusive tradition in Amritsar. A city where Muharram was associated with the sacred geography of Imam Husain and Shia beliefs, such as Ghoda pir, Hussainpura, Gali Zainab and Yadgaar-e-Husain Imambara, the marginalisation of this vibrant cultural practice is heartbreaking.
I was shocked to see that the performance of Muharram and carrying of taziyas was confined to the four walls of a tiny Imambara under the watchful eye of the police. Perhaps, if the Hussaini Brahmins had stayed on, this would not have happened!
Around 5 pm, after “Alvida Ya Husain”, and a solemn meal of masar dal and rice – no meat is served on the day of martyrdom– I left the Imambara, lost in thoughts. I wanted to revisit Farid Chowk in remembrance of my grandfather and the eclectic community forged via the taziya procession that has now disappeared from the open spaces of the city.
I stood on the edge of Farid Chowk in Katra Sher Singh. Karmon Deori was close by; a street named after the famed warrior woman, from the Hussaini Dutt Brahmin clan, in 18th-century Amritsar, and a significant route for the pre-Partition Muharram juloos. There was no sign of any commemoration whatsoever.
As I returned to Delhi, leaving behind the taziyas and alam in the Yadgaar-e-Husain Imambara, the lament of the community of mourners almost crying for the shoulder of the Hussaini Brahmins continues to haunt me.
The reality is that the community, whose ancestors are believed to have sacrificed their seven sons for Imam Husain, has migrated to different parts of the world as global citizens. Many have simply discarded their Hussaini Brahmin identity and started to represent themselves as “Brahmins” – a construct that is miles away from what the community originally represented.
Nonica Datta teaches history at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
source: http://www.thewire.in / The Wire / Home> Religion> Culture> History / by Nonica Datta / September 30th, 2019
