Was there indeed a shared identity that united Muslims and Sikhs of PunjabIJ Rajmohan Gandhi thinks so. In an interaction with Utpal Kumar, he bemoans the loss of Punjabiyat in India and Pakistan, and why it failed to withstand the horrors of Partition
Punjab
Author: Rajmohan Gandhi
Publisher: Aleph, Rs 695
Want to understand India and PakistanIJ “Read the history of Punjab,” says Rajmohan Gandhi, in a way justifying his latest book, Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten. He, however, has one more reason to write this book. “No history of Punjab has been written in the past 125 years,” says Gandhi. So much has been written on Sikh history and Partition, he affirms, but Punjab remains an ignored bystander.
Gandhi’s decision, however, to start the history of Punjab with the death of Aurangzeb is contestable. After all, the the process of Punjabiyat, which he so fondly remembers, began with the advent of Islam in the region. It was the result of constant interactions — at times harmonious but often violent — between Hinduism and Islam. The decline of the Mughals could only ensure the rise of political Punjab.
That apart, the book is a product of labour and love. And of course nostalgia. Ask him about Punjabiyat, and he says with a tinge of sadness: “It hardly exists today. I often visit Pakistan and in cities like lahore very few people remember those good old days. The younger generation is completely oblivious of this past. But why just lahore, people in cities like Amritsar don’t know that not very long ago a large population of Muslims used to reside there.”
In an interaction with Agenda, Gandhi talks about the book and its principal protagonists. Excerpts:
What encouraged you to write this book on PunjabIJ
This has been a semi-conscious wish for a long time. The seed was sown in my boyhood when I was growing up in Delhi. Before Independence, Punjabi elements were hardly noticeable there. Partition changed it all. So, the desire to write about Punjab was there for long. Moreover, I believe you cannot understand modern India and Pakistan without understanding the history and culture of Punjab. Also, I was provoked to write this book because very few, if any, histories of undivided Punjab have been written so far. One may find excellent books on Sikh history, but these largely leave out Punjabi Muslims, who are three times the population of Sikhs. It’s my humble attempt to fill this gap.
Why does the book start with the death of Aurangzeb and end with lord MountbattenIJ
With the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the glory of the Mughal empire ended, and with Mountbatten the British empire bade a goodbye to the subcontinent. In between existed — and thrived — the Sikh kingdom. This explains why the book begins and ends the way it does. If Akbar has been seen as a paragon of virtue, Aurangzeb is painted in a villainous light. This book adopts a more balanced approached...Aurangzeb is not a central character in this book. But since the book starts with his death in 1707, I wanted to present a complete picture of him, not in black and white. No doubt, he was a fanatic, but there was more to him than his fanaticism.
You have written that the Muslim majority of Punjab failed to fill the vacuum after the Mughal decline. What made you think thisIJ
After the decline of the Mughals, Sikhs across Punjab had a common purpose. They had sorted out the issue of social hierarchy. They became not just single people but also equal people. Muslims in Punjab, on the other hand, saw themselves as belonging to a clan, tribe, locality, etc. They did not come together even when they faced a common enemy. These two factors led to the rise of Ranjit Singh. It was the first time since the arrival of Muslims in the region more than 800 years ago that Punjab was ruled by one of its own. This also meant that for the first time in several centuries, Punjab’s Muslims were being governed by a non-Muslim establishment led by Jat Sikhs.
Tell us about Ranjit Singh and how he helped create Punjabiyat.
Sikhs had filled the political vacuum before Ranjit Singh came to power. Already there were Sikh chiefs in different pockets of Punjab. Ranjit Singh unified them all. While the Khalsa Sarkar, as his administration was called then, bore a clear Sikh-Hindu imprint (in those times Sikhs and Hindus were mostly seen as one), Ranjit Singh desired Muslim loyalty as well. During his first takeover of lahore, Ranjit Singh’s earliest public acts had been to pay homage to two mosques — the Badshahi Mosque, which Aurangzeb had built, and the Wazir Khan Mosque, constructed by one of Shahjahan’s generals. Also, he made a Muslim, Imam Baksh, the city’s kotwal, along with a few others in the affairs of administration.
Yet, Muslims did not have much say in the kingdom’s management. The Maharaja’s favourite officers were Dogras, Sikhs and Brahmins. Also, the kingdom was not entirely free of religious tension. Bans on slaughter of cows and restrictions on public calls for the Islamic prayer (azaan) were imposed in many places. Even the Badshahi Mosque was later turned into a storeroom for keeping arms.
These restrictions apart, the fact remains that there was a fair amount of tolerance and freedom, and people of all faiths were, on the whole, free to do whatever they wanted to do. This is evident from the fact that many descendants of Ranjit Singh’s Muslim officers were in prominent positions during Partition. The ancestors of Sir Khizar Hayat Tiwana, Premier of Punjab between 1942 and 1947, had served Ranjit Singh. So were the forebears of Sir Fazli Husain, a prominent Punjab politician of the 1920s. Had Ranjit Singh been deeply anti-Muslim, then these officers wouldn’t have become what they eventually became.
I find a bit of contradiction in the book. You have mentioned how “not a single Muslim chief of standing” in Punjab didn’t support the jihad of a Barelvi ideologue from the United Provinces against the Sikh kingdom. Yet, when British came, most leading Muslim families of West Punjab supported the East India Company. How do you explain thisIJ
What appears as contradiction at the first sight is actually a complexity of the situation. We need to understand that Muslims in Punjab had some sort of restrictions, and they were not very happy with the situation. Yet, when a Muslim ideologue issued a call for jihad against the Sikh kingdom, it failed to inspire Muslims in the region. It’s because even if they had succeeded in uprooting the Sikh kingdom, there was no viable alternative available to replace it. People, thus, preferred the safety of the Sikh kingdom rather than the uncertainty of a post-jihad scenario. But when the British emerged in the Indian political horizon, things became different. Here was an alternative to the Sikh rule and so most leading Muslim families supported the British.
During the 1857 mutiny, we find Punjabis helping the British subdue what they called poorbiya troops. It’s understandable why Sikhs joined hands with British as they were uneasy about the rise of the Mughals. But why were Punjabi Muslims indifferent to the revoltIJ
This proves that people don’t always see themselves as Hindus and Muslims. This also explains that Islam isn’t one-dimensional, as some of us would like to believe. We need to understand that the Mughals were perceived as outsiders in Punjab. Even Punjabi Muslims didn’t like them much, as they had disrupted lives in the region. Also, Muslims were grateful to the British for dislodging the Sikh rule in Punjab. The memory of the Badshahi Mosque not being a mosque, ban on azaan and cow slaughter, etc, was still fresh in their minds.
How do you explain the rise of the Unionist Party in PunjabIJ
The Unionist Party was an interesting phenomenon. True, it was a feudal party, but it had one good thing: It was not confined to a particular religion and had Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs as its members. This was not true of other political parties, including the Congress, which was largely seen as a Hindu party in Punjab. The Unionist Party was against Partition, but the Congress refused to deal with it. Agreed, the Congress had fundamental differences with the Unionist Party (the latter supported the Raj, while the former opposed it; the latter was a landlord’s party, while the former believed in land reforms), yet the two should have joined hands for the sake of bigger causes like Partition. The Congress should have engaged a lot more vigorously with the Unionist Party. Sadly, this didn’t happen.
The idea of Punjabiyat, which you espouse so intensely in the book, failed at the very sight of Partition. Why did this happenIJ
The seeds of discord were sowed by the British empire, which emphasised on creating good relations with Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs on a one-to-one basis. The British dealt with them separately and, thus, prevented any meaningful Hindu, Muslim, Sikh dialogue to take place. This explains why the concept of Punjabiyat couldn’t withstand the horrors of Partition.
Partition is a fiercely debated subject with some blaming the Congress, others the Muslim league, and a few questioning the role of the British. How do you see this tragic eventIJ
It was a collective failure. The Congress failed to engage with the Unionist Party, thus providing the Muslim league a chance to sneak away with its sinister design. The British were responsible for following the divide-and-rule policy. For me, however, it was the local leadership of Punjab that disappointed the most. They were mostly looking towards london and Delhi for orders, or Mahatma Gandhi or Mohammed Ali Jinnah for guidance. Punjabiyat failed because of the failure of the Punjabi leadership.
