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Anna Bigelow is Associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at University of North Carolina. Her doctoral research project was on inter-community relations in Malerkotla, the only town in Indian Punjab which still has a sizeable Muslim population. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand, she speaks about her research and her findings.
What made you decide to work on Malerkotla for your doctoral thesis?
My first trip to India was in 1992, when I visited Bihar as part of a Buddhist Studies programme. That was when the Babri mosque was destroyed, which was followed by widespread killings in large parts of India. I was in Bodh Gaya at that time, and it struck me how and why in that town there was absolutely no violence, and local Hindus and Muslims continued to interact more or less as before. So, I got interested in the simple fact that in certain places, there are obviously community mechanisms that prevent violence from happening. It struck me how much of the research that is done in India, focuses on violence, but not the fact of the absence of violence in some places, the question of how communities manage not to breakdown fighting each other. I felt that Malerkotla would be an ideal place to research this question. It has a Muslim majority of around 70 per cent, with a sizeable Sikh and Hindu population, but has never witnessed a single riot since 1947. It is a Muslim majority town in a Sikh majority state in a Hindu majority country, which makes it unique in some senses. The choice of Malerkotla was crucial in another sense, because South Asian studies and Indology have become so Sanskrit-centric or Hindu-centric that the Muslims are generally ignored, or looked at simply in terms of what is wrongly called the ‘Muslim period’. The assumption in much of South Asian studies seems to be that India is synonymous with Hinduism, which, in turn, is somehow equated with the Vedic, Sanskritic or Brahminical tradition. On the other hand, Islamic Studies departments tend to focus on the Arabs or the Middle-East. Consequently, the Indian Muslims are generally left ignored and are grossly under-studied.
What exactly did you look at in your study of Malerkotla?
My thesis was titled ‘Sharing Saints and Stories: Practising Pluralism in North India’. The research was, broadly, at two levels. Firstly, ethnographic—meeting people of the different communities in Malerkotla and visiting shared shrines in the town and elsewhere in Punjab and other states for points of comparison. Secondly, archival—looking for historical references to Malerkotla. The main focus of my research was on the shared links, including shared sacred spaces, between the Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus of Malerkotla, which help explain, in large measure, the fact that there has never been any communal violence in the town since 1947. I wanted to show how and why the Muslim community managed to stay on in 1947, while Muslims from the rest of east Punjab were either killed or fled en masse to Pakistan.
Could you describe some of the shared religious spaces in Malerkotla?
As in several other parts of India, there are numerous shrines in and around Malerkotla, principally Sufi dargahs, that are visited and revered by people of different communities. One of these is the shrine of the 15th century Haider Shaikh, also known as Sadruddin Sadru Jahan, who was a Suhrwardy Sufi. He was a Pathan from what is now Afghanistan and is said to have founded the town of Malerkotla. The local legend has it that Bahlol Lodi, who later became the Sultan of Delhi, once witnessed a miracle. A storm blew away all the tents of his army, and when he came out, he saw that only one structure remained—a small hut. He approached the hut and discovered Haider Shah sitting inside the tent, calmly reading the Qur’an in front of an unwavering candle. He took Haider Shah to be a ‘wali’ or a man of God, and asked him for a boon. Haider Shah is said to have blessed him and to have prayed to God that one day he would become the Sultan of Delhi, which he later did. In gratitude, Bahlol Lodi granted Haider Shah the jagir of Malerkotla and gave him one of his daughters in marriage. Haider Shah is also said to have had a Rajput wife, from whom the erstwhile ruling family of Malerkotla, some of whose descendants still live in the town, claim descent. Now, this shrine occupies a central position in people’s understanding of the history of Malerkotla because Haider Shah is believed to have founded the town. It forms a central component of the identity of the Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims of Malerkotla.
So, are you suggesting that the existence of these shared shrines is a guarantee against communal violence?
Not at all. The mere fact of people of different communities coming together in a shared sacred space is not a guarantor for communal amity. For this, the sort of interactions that take place in the shared shrine would need to powerfully resonate outside the boundaries of the shrine, to the wider community. In the case of Malerkotla, this is supplemented by another popular story that almost everyone in the town is familiar with. When Guru Gobind Singh’s sons were captured by Wazir Khan, the Mughal governor of Sirhind, and were given the choice of conversion to Islam or death, they refused, and the governor ordered them to be bricked up alive. When Sher Muhammad Khan, the Muslim Nawab of Malerkotla, and descendant of Haider Shah, heard of this, he protested, insisting that it was against Islam to kill innocent people. Later, when the Guru heard about the Nawab’s protest, he blessed the house of Malerkotla, saying that its ‘roots must forever be green’. That is why, when in 1947 the rest of Punjab was burning, Malerkotla was not touched. In fact, the town became a sanctuary for Muslims from other parts of eastern Punjab fleeing Sikh and Hindu mobs. The moment they stepped inside Malerkotla territory, they were safe. When Sikhs refer to the Nawab, they see him as how a proper Muslim should be, in some ways similar to the Muslim mystic Baba Farid, whose verses are found in the Guru Granth Sahib.
Besides the shared sacred spaces, what other ties bind the different communities in Malerkotla together?
There are, in addition to the shared shrines and religious traditions, a host of economic ties and civic organisations as well. Many charitable, business, cultural and political organisations in Malerkotla have members from the different communities. Those that are community- or religion-based also try to make efforts to reach out to the other communities. Thus, for instance, on the Hindu festival of Dusshera, Muslim community organisations arrange for get-togethers. Likewise, Hindu and Sikh organisations reciprocate on Muslim festivals. So, in this way, a sort of ecumenism is sought to be manifested in the public sphere.
(Anna Bigelow can be reached at anna_bigelow@ncsu.edu)
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