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| Edited By: Team JBM |Source: DNA |Updated: Nov 18, 2018, 06:00 AM IST
"Sooner or later, if man is ever to be worthy of his destiny, we must fill our hearts with tolerance" – Stan Lee, Co-creator, Marvel Comics
As you walk towards music composer Pyarelal's home, you can hear the maestro playing Mann Tarpat Hari Darshan Ko Aaj – a track that has not lost appeal since it was composed by legend Naushad Ali for Baiju Bawra (1952). "That's because this is not music but divinity itself," says Pyarelal, who played the mandolin and violin for Naushad when starting out as a musician. "This bhajan that captures the ethos of Hindu devotion has been created by three Muslims. This song in the Malkauns raga was written Shakeel Badayuni, composed by Naushad saab and rendered by Mohammed Rafi." He insists this was possible because music goes beyond religious divisions.
Barely a kilometre uphill, Mother Mary smiles down from her pedestal at the Mount. The religious divide that Pyarelal speaks of are blurred here too, as Sunny and Hina Deo from Versova's Koli community are busy making offerings to the presiding deity, who they call Mot Mauli (the Mother who wears pearls). "Though we're Hindus and worship goddesses Ekveera and Hinglai, we've been raised to believe Mot Mauli is their sister," says Sunny, an IT engineer.
Wife Hina says the Koli fisherfolk quietly go about their business knowing that the divine sisters – Mot Mauli (Mt Mary), Mahimchi Mauli (St Micheal Church, Mahim), Sitaladevi, Mahalakshmi and Mumba Devi – watch over them. "During the Bandra Fair that often coincides with Ganesh Chaturthi, women in the family come here in traditional finery and offer lugda (nine-yard sari) and khann (blouse piece), green bangles, a coconut, rice, betel leaf and supari to Mot Mauli. Just what we offer Ekveera and Hinglai Devi."
Many dargahs in the city are also melting pots of religion. The iconic Haji Ali dargah off Worli, central Mumbai's Mahim dargah, the Pedru Shah Baba dargah at CSMT, the Hazrat Peer Baba Syed Sharfuddin Shah Baba dargah off Liberty Cinema, and Haji Malang in the distant northern suburb of Kalyan among others, always had a large Hindu following.
Narayan Ketkar, the current Hindu caretaker of Haji Malang, says, "Devotees of both communities have come here for 300 years. They first go to the temple on the way to offer their obesiance before trekking the 975 metre-high hillock to the dargah."
From Maharashtra as we move north-west to Rajasathan, syncreticism marks the bedrock of the cultural heritage. This is most obvious in the performance repertoires of the Manganiyars and Langas whose music creates an amalgamation of Hinduism and Islam. All practising Muslims themselves, these communities have been singing devotional Hindu songs for seven generations. While the Langas have Sindhi Sipahis as patrons, the Manganiyars have Rajputs.
Mame Khan, who has brought Manganiyar music to Bollywood, explains that their community acted as record-keepers for patrons. After Independence, when states, districts and villages got divided, the Manganiyar musicians dispersed along with their Rajput patrons. Since their patrons were Hindu Rajputs, they would prefer songs about their own faith. In return, they kept folk music of the Manganiyars alive by repaying musicians with food, clothing, camels, horses, etc. "Since childhood, we are all brought up with a sense of brotherhood. A cow is just as much of a sacred symbol for us as it is for them," says Khan.
A believer in all faiths, Khan celebrates Diwali, Eid and Christmas with equal fervour. "I have a Mata Rani Bhatiyani temple at home. I also pray during azaan, keep a fast during Ramzan and celebrate Eid."
He also believes music has no boundaries, regional or religious, citing his latest Rajasthani folk single Lal Peeli Ankhiya. "The creative director is Christian, the videographer is Rajput, the arranger is Hindu and the singers are Muslims. The audience is only concerned whether it's a good song, not if its Mame Khan or Mame Ram playing."
Illustration- Gajanan Nirphale
This reminds one of the 15-century mystic-poet Kabir, who lived in Varanasi, as the very symbol of syncretic. The adopted son of a poor Muslim weaver family, he was initiated into devotional philosophy by a Hindu guru, Ramananda, and wrote dohas (couplets) freely praising Rama/Hari:
Baahir bhitar ram hai, nainan ka abhiram /Jit dekhun tit ram hain, ram bina nahin tham (Ram is inside me, and he is outside, he is the apple of my eye. He is everywhere I look, there is no place without him.)
He was critical of the mullahs and Brahmins about their views on how people should worship: Kankar patthar jodi ke masjid leyi banaye / Ta chadhi mulla bang de, ta bohra hua khudayi (They built mosques with pebbles and stones and the Mullah climbs up to shout the prayers – do they think Allah is deaf?)
Kabir is now celebrated for his iconoclasm, but had he lived today would the religious dogmatists have allowed him to get away with it?
Another instance of religious tolerance is the Phool Walon Ki Sair (annual procession of florists) or in Delhi, begun by Mughal ruler Akbar Shah II over 200 years ago. Symbolise the harmonious relations between the city's Hindus and Muslims, the festival was held last week. Originally, flower-sellers from across Delhi would carry floral pankhas in processions through the city. They offer floral chaddar and pankha at the dargah of Khwaja Bakhtiar Kaki and a pankha and chhatra (canopy) at the Yogmaya Temple, both situated in Mehrauli in south-west Delhi. It is now organised by the Anjuman Sair-e-Gul Faroshan, which revived the festival in 1962 after it nearly died owing to restrictions during the British rule. Events around the festival include wrestling, Sufi music, Qawwali and performances by other cultural tropes across India.
But can it only be all about celebrating oases of harmony in these polarised times or should the fight for tolerance take it right to enemy camp? In The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Raimund Popper mentions this paradox of tolerance. "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
This is exactly what human rights activist Harsh Mander set out to do with Karwan-e-Mohabbat (Caravan of Love), along with a group of writers, journalists, photographers, social workers, students and lawyers. Last September, they embarked on a journey of atonement, solidarity, healing and justice with people who had been targets of hate attacks across India. "Globally, we are seeing a rise in right-wing bigotry against minorities. Lynching, however, is not happening anywhere else in the world [like it is in India – the extent, the instances, and even the ignorance]. In the last one year of the Karwaan, we have been successful in making people understand that these are not random accidents, but executed attacks. This pattern of violence targeting specific people, usually by mobs, often with active or passive support from local police, needed to be addressed in a number of ways. Our primary objective was to show solidarity to those families who had lost their loved ones to hate crimes in different parts of the country." The Karwaan travelled the states of Assam, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Delhi, Western Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Gujarat extending not just solidarity but also practical help. "We visited the homes of victims of hate violence, sat with the families, let them know that we cared and seeked forgiveness on behalf of society for what they had suffered. Also to inquire how they are surviving, their fight for legal justice, and in some cases even helped organising this."
Back in Maharashtra activist Meena Seshu, has been fighting for the rights of women in sex work. Tolerance, here, has been an easy rung to climb for the assertive sex workers' communities. "The real battle is acceptance since tolerance is still a top-down idea," she avers, but says sex workers are willing to fight to the end, and this is showing results. "This was evident when the District Legal Services Authority, Sangli Secretary, Vishwas S Mane recently visited. He interacted freely with even the kothi sex workers, who put up a lavni performance for him."
This is worldview finds resonance in the resistance by Magsaysay awardee and Carnatic vocalist TM Krishna against a troll army targetting him for his views on majoritarianism, caste and socio-cultural hegemonies. The latest such campaign allegedly forced the calling off of a Delhi concert by the vocalist on Saturday, organised by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the cultural body, SPIC-MACAY. Despite the barrage of troll tweets which panned him for "singing about Jesus and Allah," called him "anti-India," and "a converted bigot" and "urban Naxal," among other things, an unfazed Krishna, insisted he would perform: "All I need is a stage anywhere in Delhi on November 17, I'll come and sing. We cannot get cowed down by such threats."
