Dr.Mazhar Naqvi
If barring few pockets, Muharram is no longer a
grand affair and devoid of participation of Hindus in rest of Punjab,it is
mainly because of the emergence of two reformists group known as Arya Samaj and
Takht Khalsa much before the partition. In the late nineteenth century, the
shared culture became the target of the members of the twin outfits, giving a
severe jolt to the practice of commemorating Muharram together. The shared
practices had developed through a process of religious and cultural synthesis
resulting from the historic encounters between the Islamic, Hindu and Sikh
traditions in Punjab. This cultural synthesis was unacceptable to reformers who
were concerned with the clear definition and defense of religious boundaries.
Consequently, they launched a vigorous attack on all practices that seemed to
blur religious boundaries and dilute distinctive religious traditions.
The Tat Khalsa reformers, for instance,
attempted to establish a normative Sikh tradition and do away with the
plurality within Sikhism. Their energies were directed at establishing a
separation between the Hindu and Sikh cultural universe and constructing a set
of life cycle rituals and cultural practices that marked out the Sikh community
as distinct. Consequently, they discouraged Sikh participation in festivals
such as Holi, condemned Sikh veneration of Sakhi Sarwar and Guga Pir, and
censured the undertaking of pilgrimages to non-Sikh shrines. Gyani Dit Singh, a
prolific pamphleteer of the Tat Khalsa, wrote tirelessly to condemn the popular
religious practices of Punjabis, both because he considered them superstitious
and because they resulted in the intermixing of religions and castes. Bhai Vir
Singh, a supporter of the Singh Sabha movement also condemned popular religion,
and was particularly critical of Sikh women. In his novel Sundari,
he accused them of turning away from the ‘true gurus’ and teaching ‘someone
else’s religion’ to their offspring. ‘Your children will grow up to be half
baked like you Sikh on the head, Brahmin around the neck and Muslim
below the waist’, he informed them.
The propaganda of the urban reformers did have
an impact on Sikh mentalities. Anil Sethi’s research demonstrates that many who
had Sarwar as a family saint joined the Khalsa. On the eve of the 1911 census,
Sikh newspapers instructed the Sikhs not to return themselves as Sultanis or as
Sultani Sikhs. In their view, ‘Sultani Sikh’ was a ‘meaningless phrase’, a
contradiction in terms since the former appellation denoted an Islamic identity
and Sikhs could not be Muslims.
The Arya Samajis also condemned what they saw as
superstitious and immoral practices within Hinduism. Letters written to the
Arya Patrika often raised the issue of Hindus attending Muslim shrines. They
emphasised the need to ‘convince our Hindu brethren that it is repugnant to
their religious doctrines and authorities nay it is a sin to pay
homage at [Muslim] tombs and shrines’.
Religious controversy and competition in urban
Punjab is a familiar and well documented story. The Arya Samaj and the Tat
Khalsa reformers used newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, bazaar sermons and
public debates to popularize their version of ‘Hindu’ and ‘Sikh’ tradition, and
condemn all practices that ran counter to their idealized view of community and
culture. The urban ulema also sought to purge Sufism of
‘un-Islamic’ elements, and conjured up visions of a golden age when Islam was
unsullied by syncretic practices. Religious controversy and an increased
communal awareness was only intensified by the British understanding of Punjabi
society through religious categories. The atmosphere of communal hostility was
characterized by the occurrence of fifteen major riots between 1883 and 1891
over cow slaughter, and controversies arising due to the coinciding of the
Hindu festivals of Ram Lila and Muharram. The shuddhi or
‘reconversion’ campaigns of the Arya Samaj, specifically attacked luminal groups. This also
added to the atmosphere of communal tension.
Clearly, by the early part of the twentieth
century the articulation of group identities in Punjab had gained a new
stridency and force. Along with this came a stronger articulation and policing
of community boundaries. Much work has been done to document these new
fractures in Punjabi society. However, there were also continuities in religion
and culture and not all trends in Punjabi society pointed towards increasing
polarization and division. At the political level, the continuing popularity of
the Unionist Party in the vast rural tracts of Punjab indicates that it was
still possible, well into the 1940s, for Punjabi politicians to ally without
regard for communal identities. Khizr Tiwana, a leading Unionist, dismissed the
Congress and the Muslim League as being ‘predominantly Hindu’ and ‘entirely
Muslim’ respectively, and projected the Unionist Party as representing the
common interests of Punjabis irrespective of community. Their rhetoric emphasizing
the shared political interests of Punjabis was coupled with a commitment to the
shared cultural values of rural Punjab and a commitment to the pluralism of
rural culture.
But how far was this true in
the realm of culture? How successful were attempts of socio-religious
reformers to manipulate popular religion and culture, and replace traditions
that served to bring communities together with practices that served to
distinguish communities from one another and mark clear boundaries between
them? Did the practices and traditions that contributed to the ‘composite’
culture of Punjab disappear or is there evidence to show that there was no
complete cultural transformation in Punjab?
There are no easy answers to these questions.
Trying to recover evidence for the resilience of Punjabis’ composite culture
and traditions is no simple task. However, it is evident that not all Punjabis
perceived themselves in the religious categories of ‘Muslim’, ‘Hindu’ and
‘Sikh’ and even many of those who did so, held on to older, shared practices
and customs. The continuing worship of Sufi pirs and saints
was one aspect of the enduring hold of shared practices. But their worship was
also attacked by reformists although the latter’s propaganda was not entirely
successful in driving out these practices. In the 1911 Census after three
decades of the Singh Sabha attack on Sakhi Sarwar, 79,085 Sikhs returned
themselves as followers of the Pir and in the section titled ‘Hindu
Sects Worshipping Muslim saints in addition to their own gods’ the 1921 Census
enumerated 88,837 worshippers of the Pir. The resilience of the
belief of some Punjabis in Sakhi Sarwar becomes even more clear on reading an
article titled ‘A Panjab Saint’ written in 1934 by a lawyer from Lahore. The
lawyer gives a detailed description of the continuing popularity of the Sakhi
Sarwar cult and the ‘extensive’ following it has across Punjab. He documents
that the ‘shrines are visited and offerings are made by Hindus, Sikhs and
Musalmans alike and the Majawars or the Pujaris who accept these offerings are
also Hindus, Sikhs and Musalmans’ For the Lahori lawyer, the worship of Sakhi
Sarwar was politically significant and he described the worshippers of
the pir as forming ‘a fraternity and model society, while retaining their own creeds, they pass as
associates and brethren’, and suggested that it is on ‘principles like these
that the foundations of the great Indian nation are to be laid’.
The reformers also failed to ensure that people
participated in only the festivals of their particular religious grouping.
There had been a persistent campaign against Sikh participation in festivals
like Holi and Diwali. But people refused to abandon festivities linked to the
agrarian cycle, much to the ire of reformers who filled newspapers with letters
condemning the continuing participation of Sikhs in Holi, and of Hindus in
Muharram processions. Scholars have documented the incidence of communal
violence due to conflict over festival processions and public space. However,
festivals were also an opportunity for religious communities to demonstrate a
commitment to coexistence and cooperation in an atmosphere rife with controversy and confrontation.
In 1898 a Muharram procession in Multan became
the occasion for riots between members of the Hindu and Muslim communities. In
the same year however, in Lahore, Delhi and Ludhiana, Hindus and Muslims
participated in each other’s festivals. The Civil and Military News in
Ludhiana reported the ‘ with a feeling of sincerity and cordiality the Hindus
joined the Muhammadans in observing Muharram… it seems have taught both
communities that the éclat of the national festival depends, not only on living
peacefully together, but also on joining each other in celebrating their
festivals’. Such expressions of inter-community solidarity even in urban spaces
which are usually seen as dominated by competition and conflict between
religious groupings, are extremely significant. There is a need to document how
far such practices continue, and whether or not they had all but disappeared by
the 1940s.
David Gilmartin has documented the role played
by the Sufi sheikhs of rural Punjab in spreading and popularizing the Muslim
League’s Pakistan demand in the 1940s. Richard Eaton’s work on the shrine of
Baba Farid at Pakpattan describes the shrine as playing a very different
role one that incorporated non-Muslims into its sacred landscape.
From the point of view of the present enquiry, it is interesting that until the
late 1930s, the shrine continued to integrate people of various castes and
creeds into its activities. Many Hindu civic leaders and merchants attended
the dastarbandi ceremony held in 1938 to mark the installation
of a new Diwan at the shrine. Ganpat Rai, a businesman and representative of a
large market in Pakpattan, offered nazranas on behalf of the mandi (market).
Many Khatris were also in attendance at the ceremony and made offerings to the
new Diwan. Clearly, when non-Muslims offered nazrana at the
shrine, they might not have subscribed entirely to the Islamic conceptual
structure of the shrine. However, their doing so is no less significant because
of this, and was probably inspired not only by a belief in the charismatic
powers of the shrine, but also out of respect for a local institution and out
of a sense of civic responsibility.
These examples of continuing co-existence and
overlap across religious boundaries testify to the fact that developments in
Punjabi history did not all flow inexorably towards Partition and division. At
the level of culture and religion, new definitions of what it meant to be
Hindu, Sikh and Muslim emerged owing to the efforts of reformers and the
institutions introduced by the colonial state. However, older attachments to
shrines and saints, ballads and poetry, and popular festivals allowed people to
transcend the new boundaries that were being drawn. Sometimes this was done
consciously as a political statement and sometimes because it had always been
so.
Ironically, what Tat Khalsa and Arya Samaj could
not achieve for decades? Partition did overnight. Muslims who dominated Punjab
were reduced to the status of insignificant minority. Observance of Muharram
with participation of Hindus and Sikhs became almost non-existent. The
tradition survives to an extent in Malerkotla presently, thanks to the amnesty
granted by a Sikh Guru to Muslims of the erstwhile princely state for trying to
oppose the killing of his sons by Mughal Governor of Sirhind.
But Jalandhar, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Patiala and
many other cities, towns and villages of Punjab famous for Muharram processions
were not so lucky. They had to leave Punjab and with their departure and
hostility developed among Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus in the aftermath of holocaust
witnessed at the time of 1947 left Muharram ceremonies without sheen.
Like other parts of India, Muharam practices
were introduced in Punjab by Sufi Saints like Baba Farid,Sakhi Sarwar and many
others with Hussaini Brahamins also contributing in urban centers. After 1947.everythimng
changed. Hindus and Sikhs lost interest in observance of Muharram in the
absence of Muslims. For centuries, they had lent support to Muslims and were
not keen on taking up the responsibility with scars of partition itched in
their memory. Nahan however proved to be an exception. Its residents took the
responsibility of observing Muharram in 1947 itself after coming to know that
all Shias had migrated to Pakistan and there was no one to keep Tazia and
observe Muharram.
After
1984,Sikhs renewed their interest in Muharram and Sufi shrines.the community
had found Muslims to be helpful and members of the majority community turning
blind eye to their massacres recorded in the city of Delhi, Kanpur and Bokaro. The
change in attitude led to the revival of Muharram ceremonies in Patiala and Jullandur.
The increase in the Shia population in Chandigarh. Ludhiana and other
industrial hubs of the state has resulted in the increased popularity of
Muharram in the past few decades.
Source:
Based on inputs from a doctoral study. References available on request.
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