By Ishtiaq Ahmed

Date:20-06-06

Source: Daily Times

The emergence of revivalist religious movements in the early 20th century as a reaction to the proselytising activities of Christian missionaries resulted in the establishment of community schools and colleges as well as newspapers and magazines by Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. These developments helped promote a more exclusive and puritanical religious identity

Much has been written on the question of Punjabi identity but as yet the scholars are not agreed on whether such an identity was important in the lives of the Punjabi-speaking people or that religion, caste, biradari (kinship lineage) or sect played a greater role in creating networks and solidarity groups. I think the notion of a composite Punjab in which all Punjabis shared a strong sense of solidarity, derived from their common culture; as well as the one that religious differences make for a permanent conflict among Punjabis are exaggerated — each of these is an oversimplification of reality.

Pre-colonial Punjab had been under Muslim rule for several centuries till Maharaja Ranjit Singh established his kingdom at Lahore in 1799. Ranjit Singh initially used overwhelming force to pacify the Muslim ruling class of the Punjab, but once he consolidated his power he ruled in the traditional manner — as a patron of all communities. The three main communities of the Punjab — Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs — were represented at his court and held positions of authority in the state. After the British annexed the Punjab in 1849 by defeating the Sikh armies in a number of battles they continued with a tolerant approach to religion.

Prakash Tandon, whose Punjabi century 1857-1947 (of 90 years!), is a classic account of the pre-partition Punjab notes that Brahmins were not a privileged class among Punjabi Hindus. As was common elsewhere in India, Punjabi Muslims and non-Muslims did not eat together and marriage between them was taboo. Hindu eating habits were governed by rules of pollution and were also applied by the superior castes against lower ones.

Dietary rules were so elaborate (and absurd) that even Brahmins and Khatris could not eat together. Hindus and Sikhs, of the same caste, on the other hand, could eat together and even inter-marry. Cross-community marriages took place especially among the trading castes of Khatris and Aroras.

Some villages and areas were entirely Muslim or Hindu-Sikh but there were mixed villages and urban localities too. Sikh and Hindu landowners and cultivators employed Muslim tenant cultivators, artisans and the lower service castes. Similarly Hindu service castes served in pre-dominantly Muslim villages. There were some villages in which both Muslim and Hindu landowning and cultivating castes lived together. Sir Denzil Ibbetson notes in his famous Punjab Castes that the agricultural castes of the Punjab identified among Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs shared the same gotras (kinship lineages). Conversions from the Hindu trading castes and Brahmins to Islam were few.

However, changes in social structure and communal organisation began to take place after the British established modern education institutions and a capitalist economy. Muslim aversion to British rule prevailed even in the Punjab. In fact during the 19th century Wahhabis had gained influence in the Punjab as a result of the jihad movement launched by Syed Ahmed Shahid Brelvi. Moreover, modern banking and investment procedures introduced by the British were unacceptable to the Muslims. Due to such factors Hindus and Sikhs left Muslims behind in educational and economic terms.

The stratum that gained most from the opportunities created by the colonial order was the Hindu trading castes of Khatris and Aroras and Sikhs of the same stock. Hindus and Sikhs were the first to take to modern education and establish modern businesses and enterprises. From the beginning of the 20th century urban Hindus and Sikhs established a firm hold over the modern economy. Hindu-Sikh partnerships and joint business ventures were noteworthy but Muslims were almost invariably excluded.

The emergence of revivalist religious movements in the early 20th century as a reaction to the proselytising activities of Christian missionaries resulted in the establishment of community schools and colleges as well as newspapers and magazines by Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. These developments helped promote a more exclusive and puritanical religious identity. Moreover, while all three communities spoke Punjabi at home, Muslims began to declare Urdu their mother tongue in the census records, Hindus identified themselves with Hindi, and Sikhs with Punjabi. These processes were certainly accentuated in the new colonies where in upwardly mobile Hindu families while the educated men progressively liberalised their social attitudes the women continued to represent traditional puritanical values.

Som Anand the author of, Lahore: Portrait of a Lost City, provides insight in how upwardly mobile Hindu Khatri families continued to practise the pollution code against Muslims:

“To keep themselves away from the Muslims’ ‘polluting touch’, the Hindus had set-up many barriers in their daily life. My mother, for example, would never allow any Muslim to enter her kitchen. No cooked food was accepted from them. I remember how, if any of our Muslim neighbours even sent any special dish for my father, it never went beyond the dining table, a place where she did not take her own food. While eating she would never allow any of her Muslim friends or neighbours to touch her. During my childhood such inhibitions were generally not observed by male members of educated Hindu families. (Women have always been more conservative in these matters.) Some decades earlier these rules formed a strict code of conduct for all, no matter how educated or enlightened a person might be.

“The absurdities of such Hindu restrictions notwithstanding, the Muslims had come to accept them as a law of nature. Their older generation knew the limits of a relationship with the Hindus and considered it improper even to offer them drinking water from their utensils.... The Hindus have always complained of Muslim fanaticism but they have never understood that the walls they raised around themselves could have not resulted in any other attitude....

“It took many centuries for the Hindus of Punjab to realise how absurd and harmful their anti-Muslim prejudices were. In this respect the first current of change was felt during the Khilafat movement in the early twenties. Though the spirit of Hindu-Muslim amity received many reverses in later years, at the social level the urban elite had changed its code of conduct for the better. This was due, in part, [to] Western education. What this change meant was evident in my father’s attitude. When he was young, my mother used to recall, he would come back to change his clothes if a Muslim had touched him while walking in the bazaar; but during my childhood in Model Town, father had several Muslim friends and he considered my mother’s inhibitions a sign of backwardness.”

The author is an associate professor of political science at Stockholm University. He is the author of two books. His email address is Ishtiaq.Ahmed@statsvet.su.se