There is no doubt that the idea of theological equality of human beings came to the subcontinent through Islam; that it helped create an egalitarian social order is however a myth. As elsewhere, Muslims of foreign origin or who claimed foreign forbears kept a social distance from the local converts. The high-born ashraf and ordinary Muslims lived virtually separate lives

The oldest description of what we now know as the Punjab is the Rigvedic Sapta Sindhu, or ‘land of seven rivers’. Of the seven, River Indus was the most important. One of those rivers, the Ghaggar, also known as the Sarasvati, dried up long ago. It still flows as a seasonal river originating in Himachal Pradesh, flowing through Haryana and Punjab and into the Rann of Kutch.

The popular theory is that ‘Punj-aab’ is a Persian reference to the five rivers — Ravi, Sutlej, Beas, Chenab and Jhelum. The name was first used by the Mughals for their possessions in the five interfluvian zones. Maharajah Ranjit Singh considered his kingdom to include Punjab as well as Multan in the south and Kashmir in the north. The British extended the boundaries of their Punjab province in the east to the banks of the Yamuna.

The aboriginal proto-Australoids, and later the Dravidians, are believed to have been present at the time of the influx of the Indo-Europeans or Indo-Aryans from around 1500 to 1000 BC. The revisionist Sangh parivar theory, that the Aryans are indigenous, is discounted by serious research.

The Hindu four-fold varna or caste system, as it has come to be known, comprising Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Sudra took shape after the Indo-Europeans defeated the local people. The so-called Untouchables were defeated tribes and peoples — proto-Australoids and Dravidians that did not flee southwards and were forced into performing unclean tasks.

However, in the beginning the caste system was not rigid or watertight and Greeks, Scythians, Huns, Shakas, Kushanas and other groups which entered the subcontinent after the early Indo-Europeans were absorbed into it. Most of the current inhabitants of the Punjab are progeny of those tribes and local people mixing over generations. Arabs had been settled in Multan and the adjoining areas since the early 8th century. In the 11th century Turco-Afghans started invading the subcontinent from the north-western mountain passes. Mahmud of Ghazni annexed Lahore in 1021 AD. From that time onwards, a Muslim presence in this region became permanent.

The rise of Buddhism, in the period between the pre-eminence of orthodox Hinduism and the advent of Islam, had mellowed the harsh features of the caste system; indeed roving monks, carrying the ideas of service to humanity that the Buddha had taught his disciples, made headway in the Punjab and the rest of the Indus valley.

In the Punjab a synthesis between Hinduism and Buddhism was worked out by Gorakhnatha, who was probably born in this region between the 10th and 13th century AD. The Gorakhnathi yogis or wandering sages retained features of the Shaivite Hindu cult while accepting monotheism and Buddhist and Islamic influences. They were opposed to caste distinctions and ritual purity. Muslims were also attracted to their syncretism. The classic example of this is Ranjha, the lover of Heer, having his ears pierced, donning a saffron robe and joining the order of the Gorakhnathis.

A controversy has always existed about the nature of conversions to Islam in India in general and the Punjab in particular. I checked the census records from 1881 to 1941 for the whole of Punjab, including the British territories and the princely states, and found that Muslims did not become a majority until 1911 (51.1 percent).

It stands to reason that excessive force the Sangh Parivar alleges Muslims used to convert people is a gross exaggeration. Had excessive force been used not a single Hindu would have been left around. The most likely process was as follows: first Muslim rule was established and consolidated through military victory. Then the Sufis began preaching conversion to Islam. They adapted their missionary inputs to local customs and traditions so that the local people were not alienated from their roots.

There is no doubt that the idea of theological equality of human beings came to the subcontinent through Islam; that it helped create an egalitarian social order is however a myth. As elsewhere, Muslims of foreign origin or who claimed foreign forbears kept a social distance from the local converts. The high-born ashraf and ordinary Muslims lived virtually separate lives.

The example of famous Sufi, Bulleh Shah (1680-1758), illustrates this point. A Syed (putative descendant of the Prophet peace be upon him), he became a disciple of Shah Inayat Qadri who was not a Syed but an Arain and a gardener by profession. Bulleh’s family protested but he would not listen; instead he sang praise for his guide and master. This story is well known and my old friend and now distinguished playwright, Shahid Mahmood Nadeem, has very successfully presented it in his play, Bullha, which has been shown all over East Punjab and I believe West Punjab. (I am a proud recipient of that play on CD from him via the Punjabi writer, Ninder Gill, who lives in Stockholm and met Shahid in India.)

What is less known, however, is that no match could be found as a consequence for Bulleh Shah’s sister who remained unmarried, because no Syed would marry into a family that had reversed the order of master and disciple: it seems a Syed taking lessons in spirituality from a non-Syed was considered improper. Thus a modified caste system (ideas of the polluting touch of inferior human beings or separate dietary codes for separate sections of Muslims have never been a part of Islamic theology) permeated Islam with the claimants to foreign blood asserting superiority over Muslims belonging to local tribes and castes. To this day, putative Syeds are most reluctant to give their daughters in marriage to non-Syeds.

So, from where has come the idea that Islam stands for complete equality of all human beings or at least all believers? I believe that it was in the wake of the French Revolution, which proclaimed the novel idea that all human beings are not only equal and free but should also enjoy equal rights (and not simply theological equality) that Muslim intellectuals began to emphasise Islam’s egalitarianism. The second influence, and perhaps the more profound, was that of the Russian Revolution of 1917. A third source was the Turkish war of independence led by Atatürk which resulted in the establishment of a modern republic in 1924.

Prior to that, the ulema mainly emphasised monotheism in opposition to idol worship and polytheism. Unfortunately with the rise of Wahhabism in the 1970s, the monotheistic aspect of Islam gained the upper hand and the Iranian Revolution of 1979 added a fanatical character to political Islam. Consequently egalitarianism has been reduced to merely romanticising Islam of the time of the Prophet (PBUH) and his pious successors or the time only of Hazrat Ali (656-661).

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

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