THE civilization of India has been characterised by a uniquely vigorous and ingenious celebration of human life in complete compatibility with all the attendant elements of nature, more particularly the cycle of seasons with the most merciful 'Monsoon Rains' in the prominent focus. The ancient traditions of religious and spiritual domain; long linkages of mysteries of history and mythology; conflicts and co-operation of divides communities; process of continuity and renewal in the realm of folk music & dance; popular entertainments and pastimes in their ever transforming modes including technological developments; the folk fast foods; apparels proclaiming people and commercial wares in their infinite varieties - folk fairs & festivals of India have always encapsulated them all! If the fair of Pushkar attracts people in hundreds of thousands in a rainbow extravaganza amidst the grandeur of beauty of a vast desert, the 12 yearly Maha Kumbh at the civilizational confluence of the trio of sacred rivers has the distinction of being the largest congregation of people for a festival on the planet!
MY search for answers & explanations to, 'India's Muslim Questions' had, as if, begun very early in life. I can recall, with all the profound innocence of a four years old, the strange atmosphere of the summer of 1947. The red covered 'Vahi', also called 'Chaupatta', i.e. the double-folded long-paper-sheets, family-record-book, confirms, "July 26: Rs 7/- spent on the materials for 'Amrit-paan', i.e. the Sikh Baptism ceremony". The partaker was my father who had added, 'Singh' to the given family name and also started sporting the Sikh 'Kachhehra', i.e. long pair of breeches extending up to knees instead of Dhoti. He also gave up sharing the 'Hookah', i.e. the traditional 'hubble bubble' with his grandfather. He was exactly 27 year old at that time, well read and well travelled, his spiritual journey from from a 'Sahajdhari' to 'Amritdhari', I may now say, reflected the spirit - 'Garam Hawa' - of the fast changing Time! The 'Vahi' has also on record that my great grandfather, a renowned physician-scholar and Guru of my father, passed away on 19th October - a day after the death of long ruling popular Nawab Ahmed Ali of Maler Kotla, the only Muslim state in the east of Sutluj.
It was in the above background that the title, 'Muslims in Indian Economy' First Edition, September 2006, caught my attention at the book sale counter on 1st January 2009 at the annual day long cultural congregation organised in memory of playwright political activist Safdar Hashmi 'martyred by hooligans of Congress Party in 1989'. The book has been published by Three Essays Collective in its series focusing on 'issues of contemporary concern ... to familiarise readers with current debates ... '. The reference to the similar questions above by my school teacher - debated during the decade following the adoption of the Resolution of 'Sampooran Swaraj' i.e. Complete Independence on 26th January 1929 and preceding 'The Resolution of Pakistan' on 21st March 1940 in the same city on the Banks of river Ravi. This comparatively slimmer paperback - 240 pages, Rs 275 (India) elsewhere $15 - volume by Omar Khalidi, 'an independent scholar and a staff member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology' poses all the relevant questions in the Introduction of the book, "What is the economic condition of the Indian Muslims at the dawn of the twenty first century? ... How does the economic profile of the Muslims compare with the majority Hindus, Dalits, and minorities like Christians, Sikhs & Parsis? ... Does Islam, or Islam as interpreted or lived, have anything to do with it? ... What is the record of the post-independence central and state governments? ...". Prof. Khalidi rightly points out that 'answers to these questions require a dispassionate reading of contemporary history ... it is also necessary for the appropriate corrective measure that need to be taken, both by the community leadership and by the state'.
'Iman bhi hai khatme nabuwwat pe hamara
Mehsoos bhi karten hein payambar ki zaroorat.'
Believers we are in the finality of Prophets
Also we feel the necessity of a (new) Messenger!
Falsehood gets dissipated, O Nanak,
And, Truth ultimately prevails.
- Guru Nanak, Ramkali Var,13.2 Shri Guru Granth Sahib, p. 953
I have narrated in the previous column how I had undertaken my maiden journey to the capital of India in June 1969 primarily to equip myself for the preparation of Indian Administrative Service Etc., Examination, now more popularly called the Civil Services Examinations. While going around in Delhi, I 'discovered' that the route to the realization of the IAS Dream was physically located via Shahjahan Road, one of the eleven roads terminating at (or emanating from) the outer circle of India Gate.
"I can tell you that there is as much to love about the city as there is to loathe."
Yeh To Sach Hai Kar Guzarta Hai, Jo Dil Mein Than Le
Kya Ghalat Hai, Log 'Gar Zaidi Ko Diwana Kahein.
It is indeed true that he does accomplish, whatever he determines to
The people are not wrong if they call Zaidi a crazy fellow!
Raasta Naapne Wale To Bahut Hain, Lakin
Inmein, Dekhein To Zara, Aabla Paa Kitnein Hain!
The surveyors of path are many
Look, how many of them have blisters under their feet!
On my first looking into Jagrup’s ‘Impressive Poetic-income Statement’ :
My heart with joy dances and hoops At his soul’s wealth and contentment.
It was indeed a rare ‘poetic encounter’ when my friend of about three decades – albeit a maiden meeting - Sardar Jagrup Singh, a very senior officer of the Indian Revenue Service, came to meet me on a pleasant afternoon of Sunday, November 18, 2006 at my ‘nest’ i.e. apartment in Mayur Vihar (literally the colony of the Peacocks) located not far from the legendary Yamuna, presently in the painful process of withering in the jungle of concrete pollutants. We were meeting each other after too brief an encounter in 1978 in the newly established Govt. Degree college, Karamser, situated in the refreshing green environs on the bank of the Sirhind Canal, where Jagrup had speedily emerged a popular youthful lecturer in Physics.
I had expectedly prepared myself to listen from Jagrup many a subtle and funny anecdotes of the tricks played by the ‘money-driven rich and powerful’ in concealing their wealth and dodging taxes by hook or crook – and running into ‘bloodless’ battles of wits with the ‘principled and rule-driven tax collectors’ like Jagrup Singh! Having been a tax-payer ever since I joined my first job as a lecturer on a ‘princely’ salary of Rs. 555/- per month in September 1967, I have developed a somewhat dim view of the life and pastimes of the tax collectors in India whose job is to peep into the ‘dirty-linen’ i.e. the artistically fake and meticulously false account books of the business people. I may state that the bright students of my generation were assiduously tutored by teachers to disdain money and prepare themselves for a career of ‘simple living and high thinking’. The most favoured quote from Gurubani was –
‘Papan Banjh Na Kathi Howe
Moian Saath Na Jawe!’
‘One could never accumulate big money without resorting to sinful ways
every one, however, departs from the world with empty hands’.
I vividly recall how quite a very senior cousin of mine who had done M.A. in English in 1954 and after a short stint as lecturer had joined the Indian Revenue Service, when asked about any continuity of his literary interests had quoted to me (in the summer of 1972) the lines of Mizaz Lakhnavi,
‘jaise mullah ka imama,
jaise Baniye ki kitab’
invoking the simlies of ‘the puffed up turban of the mullah and the worn out account book of the petty trader’ as the most repulsive symbols for the poetic imagination!’ My surprise and dilemma – and profound elation - can be well-imagined when Jagrup Singh presented to me a neat yellowish cover containing - wait, wait, and look : 123 of his poems, in English!
Having been a student of literature and always keen to retain and nourish my deeper interest in the literary endeavours of mankind, I was indeed overwhelmed by ‘the Poetic Income Returns’ presented to me for a ‘friendly scrutiny’ by Jagrup Singh. I must admit that I take any literary effort very seriously and have always believed that there must be a genuinely compulsive and impulsive ‘inner implosion’ of poetry - the words, the thought, the imagination, the rhythm and musical cadence must be magical enough to overpower and captivate the reader. It has been said that, ‘Poetry is the chiseled marble of language; it’s a paint-spattered canvas – but the poet uses words instead of paint, and the canvas is you.’ I have also strongly felt that the authentic poetic experience is possible only in the mother tongue – Rabindranath Tagore had been able to persuade scores of writers to express their creative urges in the language having the sanctity and the purity of the mother’s milk. I was glad to note that Jagrup Singh has indeed sharpened his pen by firstly writing in the mother tongue and later turning to ‘the national tongue of modern India’. I utilized my considerable advantage of firstly reading Jagrup’s poetry in Punjabi and then going through his first collection of poems in English titled ‘Solitude of Mud Palace’. Here, I also feel tempted to quote poet Kamala Das :
Don’t write in English, they said,
English is not your mother-tongue. Why not leave
Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins…
…The language I speak
Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses,
All mine, mine alone. It is half English, half
Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,
It is as human as I am human…
I have indeed enjoyed going through this beautiful of poems penned by Jagrup in his hours of inspiration during the last two years. He has chosen in his poems to comment on injustice, hypocrisy, oppression and indifference prevailing in our society and has also touched upon his personal encounters with nature and people found fit for poetic expression. The poems in the collection, I am confident would shake the sense of inertia and indifference of the readers towards the vital issues confronting us. I wish the tribe of poets like Jagrup to increase – India sorely needs them to put the various issues in their proper poetic, i.e., just perspectives!
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