People’s history of the Punjab: Caste oppression,
conversions and Sufism
Manzur Ejaz
The enigma of the ruled converting en masse to the religion of the rulers is best depicted by the following joke: in the last days of British rule, after a demonstration in Lahore, a desi garbage handling lady, Laveezan, asked her friend Mary what the demonstration was all about. Mary replied, “They are demanding freedom from us.”
Like Laveezan and Mary, Punjabi Muslims identify themselves with the Islamic rulers of India : being followers of the same religion as the ruling community, they consider
themselves a part of it. However, the economic status of lower-caste converts
to Islam remained the same throughout the nine centuries of Muslim rule in India . The same holds true for the British period: converts to Christianity didn’t find themselves any better for it.
Conversions to Islam in India have been the subject of furious debate. Hindu fundamentalists assert that the conversions were obtained by force, while many Muslims argue that they were voluntary; that lower-caste Hindus were attracted to Islam by the Sufis of Punjab. The truth probably lies somewhere in between these two extreme views.
The controversy however makes the examination of the dynamics which made Muslims a majority in Punjab no less important.
The origins of Muslim Punjab can be traced back to the tenth century. From
medieval times to 1947, the bulk of Punjabi Muslims comprised peasants,
artisans, workers, and feudal lords. There was no sizable middle class engaged
in trade or white collar professions. The status of Muslim converts was not
much better than the status of other lower castes in Punjab .
Therefore, it is important to see what the caste and class of the converted was
before they embraced Islam.
Like the rest of India , the caste system was very stringent in the Punjab . The segregation of the four castes i.e. Brahman, Kashatriya, Vaisyaand Sudra was a big factor in the lives of the common folk. Below the Sudars were two categories of people belonging to some crafts and ‘menial’ professions. The first category was called Antyaja and included shoemakers, jugglers, basket and shield makers, sailors, fishermen, hunters of wild animals and birds, and weavers. These eight professions were recognized as guilds.
Below the Sudars were the Handis, that included sub-groups like Doma, Chandala
and Badhatau, who were not included in any caste or guild. They performed
menial tasks in villages, and were considered equal to the rank of illegitimate
children. It was assumed that they were cursed, because the union of a Sudra
father and Brahmin mother was the biggest crime in a society organised around
the caste system.
From the demographic composition of Punjabi Muslims, it is easy to infer that the majority converted from Sudra, Antyaja and Handi castes. Most of the Muslim artisans and workers ordinarily belonged to the Antyaja and Handi groups who were below the four castes in social order and respectability. It is believed that a majority of the Muslim peasantry probably belonged to the Sudra, or in some cases, the Vaisya classes. In such a milieu, the caste system played a significant role in the conversion of the Hindu underclass to Islam. These
oppressed castes gained hope for social mobility and cooperation with each
other, in addition to not having to pay Jaziya
and other taxes imposed on non-Muslims by the Muslim ruling classes.
To appreciate the caste-based conversion phenomenon, let’s look closely at some of the massive restrictions that the caste system imposed on the lower classes. All people below the Sudra caste were not allowed to live in the vicinity of the city. Sudras were supposed to be content by living on the outskirts: they could not enter the city after day time, during the day Sudras could not deliver goods and services. People from different castes were not
even allowed to take agni (fire) together, let alone share meals. In some places, the caste-system was so rigid that something as slight as the shadow of a Sudra mingling with the shadow of a Brahman was cause enough for a Brahman to return home immediately, and bathe. Consequently, in segregated areas, the Sudra and non-caste people would have to
walk close to walls! Thus it makes perfect sense for such marginalised groups to have embraced Islam, which, in principle, recognises equality among all human beings.
The powerful Muslim feudal lords were largely immigrants from Northern and Central Asia . In some cases, they assimilated in the converted Kashatriya Rajput clans and some ruling Jatt families, the communities that constituted Punjab ’s ruling elite prior to Muslim rule. The presence of so many feudal Syed families, from Jhang to Multan (Gilanis, Qureshis, Makhdums etc.) shows the continuation of the foreign elites’ domination. As a matter of fact, the situation in non-colonised jatka Punjab was worse because the indigenous people or aborigines such as Khoja and Mussali among others, were enslaved either by the foreign elite or the newly formed upper castes. The natives lived like serfs, or bound labour till quite recently, perhaps some still live in abysmal conditions even today. These
wretched of the earth did not even receive marginal benefits that the urban
lower and non-caste groups and peasantry from the non-feudal belt would have
received by converting.
The duration of Muslim rule in Punjab also boosted the number of converts:
Punjab and Sindh came under Muslim rule long before the rest of India . The
length of their rule correlates with the extent of conversion to Islam. People
are inclined towards the rulers’ religion and culture, even if they were
indifferent to religious considerations. For example, when Maharaja Ranjit
Singh took the reins of the Punjab there were only 70,000 Sikhs in the entire province of Punjab . But when he died, after ruling
for forty years, the Sikh population had multiplied manifold. But Ranjit Singh
had always been indifferent to religion. Had Sikh rule lasted another two
hundred years, who knows what the religious preferences of the Punjab might have been?
Not all, but some progressive Sufi orders provided an alternative ideology for
lay men and women. Like earlier progressive ideological movements (such as
Buddhism), Sufism had a profound effect on the Punjab . Two major Sufi schools, Chishtia and Suharwardia prospered in the Punjab more than anywhere elsethe Suharwardias had only one main centre in Multan , but the Chishtias had a significant presence throughout North India . While the Chishtia were anti-establishment, the Suharwardia were closely associated with the Delhi court: Sultan Altumash appointed Bahauddin Zakaria Multani – the founder of the Suharwardia order in Multan – as Sheikh-al-Islam (or leader of the faith).
There were fundamental differences between the two orders. The Suharwardia were
more separatist, shunning non-Muslims and indigenous culture, whereas the
Chishtia were open to people of all religions and embraced and enhanced the
people’s culture. Suharwardis lived like royalty while Chishtis believed in not even ‘hoarding’ food for the next day. Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi is reported to have remarked that the day when there was salt in boiled dailas (a wild berry of Punjab ) at Baba Farid’s dargah, it would seem like an Eid feast.
More importantly, the leadership of the Suharwardia was hereditary, while
Chishti heads nominated their heir on merit: for the Suharwardia order, the
leadership remained in Bahauddin Zakaria Multani’s own family. No
Chishtia leader was related to another. Khawaja Nasiruddin Mahmood Chiragh
Delhi, the fifth head of the Chishtis, did not nominate anyone, since in his
view no one was competent “to bear the burden of the people.” The
main Chishtia school closed at that point, though regional Khalifas continued
the movement, or simply their businesses, in many cases. Later on, the Chishtia
tradition was carried on by another order, the Qadiria, which produced great
poets like Waris Shah and Bulleh Shah. In short, there were conservative pro-establishment Sufis like Suharwardis, who were successful in effecting conversions to Islam in the elite Hindu classes, while the progressive Sufis of the Chishtia and Qadiria orders had an impact on the masses. In post-Partition Pakistan , the Qureshi descendants of the Suharwardia Bahauddin Zakaria have been prominent rulers eg Makhdum Sajjad Hussain Qureshi, Sadiq Hussain Qureshi and now Makhdum Shah Mahmud Qureshi.
The Chishtis incorporated the Indian cultural dimension into Islam, making it
more compatible with the indigenous population. They also stood in opposition
to formal religion, priestly establishments and the ruling classes. In the
process of this ideological struggle, the Chishtis adopted and enhanced
indigenous languages and culture. The embracing of mass languages and dialects
by the Chishtis in contrast to formal Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic reflected a
deep commitment to the downtrodden. Most Chishti leaders, like Baba Farid
Ganj-e-Shakar, were renowned scholars in Persian and Arabic, and they could
have lived in comfort, but chose the people’s way of life. It can be
inferred that Sufis like the Chishtis endeared themselves to the Punjabi masses
and contributed towards the conversion of lower castes to Islam, or at least
provided the converted Muslims with an alternative ideology that could sustain them
spiritually and culturally.
In conclusion, most of the converted Punjabi Muslims belonged to lower and
non-caste groups of a stratified Hindu society. The long duration of Muslim
rule, the tradition of embracing new ideologies; and Sufi teachings were the
main factors behind large scale conversions to Islam in the Punjab .
Dr Manzur Ejaz taught at the Punjab University, Lahore, for
many years and now lives in Virginia