Punjab is a rogues’ gallery when it comes to history. Every Pundit dealing with the subject has his own version, sectarian and parochial. Such a fallout is an outcome of an approach that picks and chooses facts which promotes a particular community’s constructed narrative and panders to the biases transmitted to it from generation to generation. All this generally emanates from what protrudes from the surface; the complex phenomenon of diversity, natural and evolved.
Natural diversity in Punjab can be seen in its topography and landscape; it is bestowed with fertile plains, bird-friendly valleys, green plateau, icy hills and sizzling hot deserts. The evolved diversity is represented by different communities that inhabit Punjab. Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian communities despite their relative homogeneity, ethnic and cultural sharing have sub-identities/faith-based identities which at times prove overwhelmingly more powerful that their shared common identity. Natural diversity never threatens society the way the evolved one does. The evolved identity mainly rests on bedrock of religious belief which differentiates between those who follow it and those who don’t. On the substrate of faith nothing grows that can bring people with different religious persuasions together with a view to create a cementing human bond. On the contrary it emphasises separation and exclusivity preparing ground for creating the ‘other’. What separates religion from science is the former’s firm conviction of its self-righteousness and unwavering assertion to be a receptacle of absolute truth that would remain unchanged till the end of time.
Each religion accepts nothing but its own truth which for it is the truth. Its exclusive claim to truth is its sole raison de’tre. So a religion conceding the truth of another religion would self-negate. Doing so would be tantamount to abandoning monopoly over truth. Fear of losing monopoly over truth, a barely concealed power, is what historically makes the modus vivendi between different religions extremely difficult if not impossible. Conflict is what keeps a religion on the boil, ever ready to burst and drown the competing faith(s) in its lava.
Among the four faith communities — Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian — first is the ancient most and flaunts its faith [Sanatan Dharam] with a revivalist fervour after a long foreign rule by Arab and Central Asian Muslims, and British colonialists that ended in the mid twentieth century. Its hardliners resent and revile Muslims more because apart from a small number of alien settlers, a sizable chunk of its own different castes converted to Islam making the Muslims a majority in Punjab, the cradle of what is called Indian civilisation. Castigating Muslims as aliens, they conveniently forget that their community itself way back at one of time entered the urbanised Punjab as nomadic aliens. More importantly, they deliberately refuse to differentiate between Muslin invaders and ordinary Muslims who suffered under the foreign rule as much as their Hindu compatriots. Painting with the same brush is what the revivalist historians relish doing in their communal effort to re-write history. In retaliation ideologically motivated Muslim historians demonise Hindus and belittle the shared glorious intellectual and cultural achievements of pre-Muslim era of India. The role of Hindu community as custodian of our ancient traditions is rarely appreciated by narrow-minded Muslim historians.
Sikhs comprising heavily taxed and impoverished peasants and a segment of trading class were the most persecuted community in the Mughal era in Punjab and elsewhere. There came a time when Sikhs by a royal decree became game for anyone and everyone. Every Sikh head carried prize money on it during the stint of Mir Mannu as the governor of Lahore. An adage became popular with every Sikh; ‘[Mannuasandi daatri, asamMannu de soye, jeonjeonMannuwadhda, asin dun sawayehoye [Mannu is the sickle / we are the fodder/ the more he cuts us, the more we grow]’ Thus Sikhs were hunted for money if for nothing else. How Gurus and their offspring were tortured and killed by Mughal emperors and officials is excruciatingly painful story everybody is familiar with. The rise of Sikhs was proportionate to persecution they suffered at the hand of foreign Muslim officials.
Communal divide between Muslims and Hindus was the thin end of the wedge when out of sheer Mughal’s political stupidity chasm between Muslims and Sikhs, who were mostly from the same stock, turned into a gaping wound. Nobody bothered to understand that Sikh community represented robust patriotism combined with social egalitarianism inspired by Islamic vision.
Christian community began taking shape at the onset of colonialism. Segments from the most oppressed castes at the lowest rung of social hierarchy embraced Christianity with a hope of better material and social life. But even after their conversion they could not get rid of caste choke-hold, the bane of the subcontinent. But it goes to their credit that they were the people who proved pioneers in the sectors of modern education and health in Punjab. Punjab’s Christians have been and still are healers and teachers.
‘Murder of history’, to borrow a phrase from historian K.K. Aziz, resulted in manufacturing competing communal narratives at the cost of obfuscating historical facts and social realities. Ignoring the class perspective in particular had consequences which still haunt us. Communalising history not only muddied our past but also dimmed our hope for less bleak future. Let’s remember; the simmering hostility between Hindus and Muslims eventually led to the Partition of India. Open animosity between Muslims and Sikhs caused the division of Punjab. The outcome was horrendous, rather ghoulish: 15 million crossed the borders, 1.5 million were cold bloodedly slaughtered and more than seventy thousands innocent girls and women got gang-raped. Murder of history led to the history of mass murder. Nobody can wash away the blood stains of the innocent killed for no guilt of theirs. Misreading the past makes the future dangerously unpredictable and umbra filled. Since Punjab’s historians couldn’t read history objectively, the only recourse we are left with is to go to wise men in the streets called ‘organic intellectuals’ by Antonio Gramsci who being nonpareil raconteurs remember what has been orally transmitted. They can tell what happened to our people in their torturous historical trajectory. But at the same time we shouldn’t give up the dream of creating an ideal situation where we have historians and wise men playing their roles to create a contrapuntal harmony. — soofi01@hotmail.com
Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2018
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