Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T19:45:29.810Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Pre-history of ‘;Communalism’? Religious Conflict in India, 1700–1860

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

C. A. Bayly
C. A. Bayly
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Current events are always likely to turn academic and public interest back to the well-worn topic of conflict between members of India's major religions. The manner in which antagonism between Bengali immigrants and local people in Assam has taken on the form of a strife between communities, the revival of Sikh militancy, even the film ‘Gandhi’-all these will keep the issue on the boil. There are more scholarly reasons for awakened interest also. The rapid expansion of work on Indian Islam pioneered by scholars such as S. A. A. Rizvi, Imtiaz Ahmed and Barbara Metcalf has given us a new awareness of the structure and attitudes of Indian Muslim learned classes and sufis which inevitably reopens questions about the ideological component in communal consciousness. Nearer the theme of this paper, the work of Dr Sandria Freitag has provided valuable new insight into the popular mentalities which informed Hindu and Muslim behaviour in cases where violence occurred as a result of clashing religious festivals in Indian cities.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , April 1985 , pp. 177 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Rizvi, S. A. A., Shah Wali-Allah and his Times (Canberra, 1980)Google Scholar; Shah 'Abd al- 'Aziz. Puritanism, Sectarian Polemics and Jihad (Canberra, 1982)Google Scholar; also, Ahmed, Qeyamudin, The Wahabi Movement (Karachi, 1963).Google Scholar

2 Ahmed, Imtiaz (ed.), Ritual and Religion among Muslims in India (Delhi, 1981).Google Scholar

3 Metcalf, Barbara D., Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband 1860–1900 (Princeton, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Freitag, Sandria B., ‘Community and competition in religious festivals: the north Indian prelude’, unpubl, paper; ‘Sacred symbol as mobilising ideology: the north Indian search for a Hindu “community”’. Comparative Studies in Society and History, xxii (1980), 597–625CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also her University of California, Berkeley Ph.D. dissertation, ‘Religious rites and riots’.Google Scholar

5 Hardy, Peter, The Muslims of British India (Cambridge, 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Ahmed, Rafiuddin, The Bengal Muslims, 1871–1906: A Quest for Identity (Delhi, 1980).Google Scholar

6 Robinson, F. C. R., Separatism among Indian Muslims (Cambridge, 1974).Google Scholar

7 Rizvi, , Shah 'Abd al-'AzizGoogle Scholar; Metcalf, , Islamic Revival.Google Scholar

8 Nizami, F. A., ‘Madrasahs, schools and saints: The Muslim response to the British presence in Delhi and the Upper Doab, 1803–57’, Oxford D.Phil, dissertation, 1983.Google Scholar

9 Pandey, G., ‘The bigoted julaha’, Economic and Political Weekly, xviii, 5 (01 1983).Google Scholar

10 For the Ramanandis see the discussion by Hamilton Buchanan partially reproduced by Montgomery Martin, The History, Antiquities, Topography and Statistics of Eastern India, ii (London, 1838), pp. 485–7Google Scholar; Crooke, W., The North-Western Provinces of India (London, 1897), p. 255.Google Scholar Dr Richard Burghart of S.O.A.S. is working on this sect.

11 Issues such as this are considered in Hasan, Mushirul (ed.), Communal and Pan-Islamic Trends in Colonial India (Delhi, 1981).Google Scholar

12 Gupta, Narayani, Delhi between Two Empires (Delhi, 1980).Google Scholar

13 Grewal, J. S., ‘J. D. Cunningham and his British predecessors on the Sikhs’, Bengal Past and Present, 83 (1964), 101–14.Google Scholar

14 Broughton, T. D., Letters from a Mahratta Camp (London, 1813), pp. 129, 239–40.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., p. 191.

16 Ibid., pp. 173, 240.

17 Banga, Indu, The Agrarian System of the Sikhs: Late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries (Delhi, 1978).Google Scholar

18 Murray, William, ‘Historical and political memoir of transactions in the Punjab’ (c. 1830) in Bhatia, H. S. (ed.), Rare Documents on the Sikhs and their Rule in the Punjab (Delhi, 1981), p. 86.Google Scholar

19 Nath, Dewan Umer, ‘Memoir of the reign of Runjeet Singh’ (Calcutta Review, 1858)Google Scholar, ibid., pp. 149–50.

20 Barnett, R., North India between Empires (California, 1980).Google Scholar

21 Badley, B. H., ‘Jagjivan Das, the Hindu reformer’, Indian Antiquary, viii (1879), 289Google Scholar; cf. note 10 above for patronage of Ramanandis by the Awadh nawabs; also Goswamy, B. and Grewal, J., The Mughals and the Sikh Rulers and the Vaishnavas of Pindori (Simla, 1969).Google Scholar

22 Hasan, Burhan Ibn, Tuzak-i-Wallajahi (trans, and ed.) Nainar, S. Muhammad Husayn, Sources of the History of the Nawwabs of the Carnatic: Madras Islamic Series, 4 (Madras, 1956), 244Google Scholar; cf. Bayly, Susan, ‘South Indian Islam: Purist or Syncretic?’ in Kolff, D. H. A. (ed.), Colonial India and Indonesia (Comparative Studies in Overseas History) (Leiden, forthcoming).Google Scholar

23 Kolff, D. H. A., ‘Soldiering in India’Google Scholar, unpubl. MSS in possession of the author.

24 Archaeological Survey of India: List of Muhammadan and Hindu Monuments of Delhi, i, Shahjahanabad (Delhi, 1907), ‘Jain Urdu Temple’.Google Scholar

25 For the legend see Wilks, M., Historical Sketches of the South of India (reprint, 2 vols, Mysore, 1930)Google Scholar, and Kirkpatrick, William, Select Letters of Tipoo Sultan to Various Public Functionaries (London, 1811)Google Scholar; a balanced modern account is Hasan, Mohibbul, History of Tipu Sultan (Calcutta, 1971).Google Scholar

26 Hamilton-Buchanan, Francis, A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar (London, 1811), i, 47.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., i, 178–9; cf. Nanjudayya, H. and Iyer, L. Ananthakrishna, Mysore Tribes and Castes, ii (Mysore, 1928), 198 ff.Google Scholar

28 Fisher, M., ‘The Mughal court and the province’, PhD. dissertation, Chicago, 1978.Google Scholar

29 Mr Juan Cole of the University of California, Berkeley, is now working on the role of Shias in Awadh under the Nawabi.

30 Rizvi, , Shah 'Abd al-'Aziz, p. 256.Google Scholar

31 Gazetteer of the Province of Awadh (Allahabad, 1877), iii, 8.Google Scholar

32 Here it must be noted that British intervention in Awadh's terminal political crisis formed an equally important context for the latter incident when large bodies of Muslims assembled with the intention of demolishing the Hanumangarhi temple at Ajodhia. See Azhar, Mirza Ali, King Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh (Karachi, 1982), pp. 374 ffGoogle Scholar, based largely on Rampuri, Najmul Ghani, Tarikh-i-Awadh (Lucknow, 1919), pt v.Google Scholar

33 Cf. Appadurai, A., Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule: A South Indian Case (Cambridge, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 Derrett, J. D. M., Essays in Classical and Modern Hindu Law (Leiden, 1975), ii, 25, 45.Google Scholar

35 Cited in Sardesai, G., A New History of the Marathas (Bombay, 1948), ii, 541.Google Scholar

36 In Benares similarly the new Bhumihar rulers banned the slaughter of cattle within the holiest parts of the city.

37 Murray, W. in Bhatia, (ed.), Rare Documents, p. 137, n. 4.Google Scholar

38 Gupta, Hari Ram, History of the Sikhs (Delhi, 1980), iii, 168–9Google Scholar (the account is based on Calcutta Foreign Department despatches, Delhi chronicles and indigenous histories).

39 Ibid., iii, 169–70.

40 Limited and localized examples of ‘communal’ behaviour are, however, revealed; e.g. attacks by Akalis on Muslim rites. Bhatia, , Rare Documents, p. 80Google Scholar; Sikhs deplore obsequious conduct to Muslims, ibid., p. 177; the call of operating against ‘Turks’ in Amritsar enthuses Sikh war leaders, ibid., p. 68.

41 Siddiqi, M. Zameeruddin, ‘The resurgence of the Chishti Silsilah in the Punjab during the 18th century’. Indian Hist. Cong. Procs. 1970 (Delhi, 1971), pp. 408–20.Google Scholar

42 Bayly, , Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion (Cambridge, 1983), ch. 9.Google Scholar

43 Alam, M., ‘Some aspects of the changes in the position of madad-i-maash holders in Awadh, 1676–1772’. Ind. Hist. Cong. Procs. 1974 (Delhi, 1975), pp. 199–203.Google Scholar

44 Clerical families could thus advantage each other in the recording of land rights, etc.

45 Alam, M., ‘Aspects of agrarian disturbances in north India in the early 18th century’, unpubl. MSS, p. 8.Google Scholar

46 Mahzar of village Ahror, 3rd regnal year of Farruksiyar, Central Record Office, Allahabad, trans, in Rashid, S. A. (ed.), U.P. Records Series: Calendar of Oriental Records, iii (Allahabad, 1959), 8–9.Google Scholar

47 See e.g., Alam, M., ‘Sikh uprising under Banda Bahadur’, Studies in History, i, 2 (1979), 204.Google Scholar

48 Gupta, , Sikhs, iii, 78–9Google Scholar; cf. Williams, C., Calcutta Review, 1875, pp. 27–9.Google Scholar

49 Gupta, , Sikhs, iii, 78–9.Google Scholar

50 Siddiqi, , ‘Chishti revival’, 4.Google Scholar

51 Dale, , Islamic Frontier.Google Scholar

52 Ahmed, Rafiuddin, Bengal Muslims, ch. 1.Google Scholar

53 Bayly, , Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, pp. 325–8.Google Scholar

54 Rizvi, , Wali-Allah, p. 197Google Scholar; Khan, Khafi, Muntakhabul Lubab, ii, 755Google Scholar, trans. Elliot, H. and Dowson, J., The History of India as Told by its Own Historians, vii (London, 1877), p. 455.Google Scholar

55 Rizvi, , Wali-Allah, p. 201.Google Scholar

56 Sadatullah Khan, ‘Gulistan-i-Rehmat’, trans. Elliot, and Dowson, , History of India, viii, 311.Google Scholar

57 Bayly, , Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, pp. 325–7.Google Scholar

58 Aligarh Magistrate to Chief Secretary to Government, 18 Oct. 1820, Bengal Criminal Judicial Oct. 1820, Range 134/44, IOL.

59 Khan, Sayyid Ahmed, Tarikh-i Sarkashiy Zillah Bijnaur, trans. Malik, H. and Bembo, M., Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan's History of the Bijnor Rebellion (East Lancing, 1972), p. 16.Google Scholar

60 Rizvi, , Wali-Allah, p. 197.Google Scholar

61 Ibid., p. 201; cf. Khafi Khan on Kashmir disturbances, Elliot, and Dowson, , History, vii, 493.Google Scholar

62 Srivastava, A. L., Shuja-ud-Daulah (Delhi, 1961), i, 27–31Google Scholar; cf. Gyanbaffee Mosque File, Benares Collectorate Records, Central Records Office, Allahabad.

63 Report of the Allahabad Magistrate, 1 Sept. 1814, Home Miscellaneous Series, 776, IOL.

64 Commissioner Moradabad to Government, 20 Aug. 1833, Bengal Criminal Judicial Procs., November 1833, 140/43, IOL.

65 Rizvi, , Wali-Allah, pp. 197Google Scholar (the case of Kapur Chand), 198 (Ratan Chand), 200 (Jawhari Bazaar).

66 Das Gupta, A., Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, 1700–50 (Wiesbaden, 1979), p. 277.Google ScholarSee also Subramanian's, Lakshmi article, below, pp. 205–37.Google Scholar

67 Calcutta Gazette, 9 04 1784.Google Scholar

68 Mukherjee, S., Calcutta. Myths and History (Calcutta, 1977), p. 101.Google Scholar

69 Bayly, , Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, pp. 337–8.Google Scholar

70 Rizvi, , Shah 'Aba al-'Aziz, p. 534.Google Scholar

71 But see also Pandey, , ‘The bigoted julahah’.Google Scholar

72 Bayly, , Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, p. 364.Google Scholar

73 Briggs, H. G., The Cities of Gujarashtra (Bombay, 1849), p. 314.Google Scholar