 |
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
Issue 29 Vol II, December 15, 2006 |
|
H I S T O R Y
Punjabi
Muslims and Creation of Pakistan - I
Ranjit Singh’s attitude towards Islam and the Muslims was respectful and accommodating. The revenue-free grants of the Mughal times were confirmed and new grants were given to individual Muslims and institutions. The court of the qazi was not wound up. Muslim poets were patronized. Some of them expressed themselves in favour of the Punjabi language, the Punjab region, and the Punjabi people. It is not surprising that Shah Muhammad identified himself with the Punjab against its opponents. However, in the fields of civil administration and commerce, Muslims in the Punjab stood outdistanced by Hindus in the early nineteenth century. The Sikh rulers even before Ranjit Singh had patronized the Persian-knowing Khatris. Under Ranjit Singh they received greater patronage than ever before. In the field of trade the Muslim Khojas and Prachas (who themselves were Khatri or Arora converts to Islam) were no match for the Hindu Khatris and Aroras of the Punjab (who had taken to trade and shop-keeping in a big way even before the Mughals appeared on the Indian scene). Under the British, the Khatris and Aroras, together with the Brahmans, took to English education much earlier than the Shaikhs and Sayyids and rich landowners among the Muslims. The British economic policy in the Punjab worked to the advantage of the Khatri and Arora traders more than any other section of the Punjabi society. They began to dominate education, the professions, socio-religious reform and politics as well as commerce. The late nineteenth century can be seen as an unplanned collaboration between the new rulers of the Punjab and its trading communities. The numerical, economic and political strength of the Muslims lay in villages rather than in towns and cities. Influential in the countryside, were traditional clan leaders, large landholders, and well established families of Pirs. From the very beginning, the British rulers had started recruiting Muslims for the army and the police. However, the Muslims were slow to respond to the new conditions created by the colonial rule. The leaders of religious reform in the nineteenth century were members of the traditional middle class, like the Ahl-i Hadis, who looked to the past for religious regeneration. This backward look was shared with them by the founder of the Ahmadiya movement, with the difference that he entered into polemics with Hindus, Sikhs and Christian missionaries. He ended up evolving a creed which was regarded by the Sunni and Shia Muslims of the Punjab as patently heterodox, if not heretical. More acceptable to the majority of the Muslims of the province was the message of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, particularly for social reform through Western education, use of the print media, and good working relationship with the British rulers. Scores of Muslim associations sprang up in the Punjab. Consequently, only a few of the Punjabi Muslim leaders participated in the activities of the Indian Association founded at Lahore in the 1870s, or in the deliberations of the Indian National Congress founded in 1885. |
|
|
IN the
kingdom of Ranjit Singh in the early nineteenth century, individual Muslims
and tribal leaders became co-sharers of power and economic advantages at
subordinate levels. The case of the Fakir Brothers is well known. Artillery
Generals like Sultan Mahmud and Ilahi Bakhsh enjoyed large jagirs. The
Tiwana horsemen formed the nucleus of Ranjit Singh’s impressive
cavalry. Many of the former Muslim potentates accepted jagirs from Ranjit
Singh either as pension or for service.