Image credit:  Haroon Khalid

The turquoise dome of a mausoleum rises from the middle of a congested market in Lahore, its octagonal white building lost among the cycle and cloth shops. This is the shrine of the 16th century Sufi saint Sheikh Abdul Razzaq. Not far from here is the final resting place of Qutb al-Din Aibak, who was sold as a slave but went on to found the Mamluk Dynasty and rule the Delhi Sultanate in medieval India.

Aibak’s mausoleum is a modest structure, a small building at the centre of which is the grave of the king. Across the turquoise dome are the remnants of colonial Lahore – the King Edward Medical University and the Mayo Hospital, named after Lord Mayo who was the Viceroy of India from 1869 to 1872 – in what is known as the Mall area. On the other side of the road are two premium Pakistani universities, also set up by the British: Punjab University and National College of Arts, earlier known as the Mayo School of Industrial Arts.
 

Qutb al-Din Aibak's mausoleum, via Wikimedia Commons

Almost prophetically, at the centre of these colonial symbols is the recently renovated Pak Tea House, once the hub of intellectual and Leftist activists in the city. Even before Pakistan was partitioned from India in 1947, the cafeteria used to entertain intellectuals and activists from surrounding universities. Liberal and progressive ideas, critical of the colonial state, were discussed here.

After Partition, as the State began clamping down on cultural and political activities in the name of nation-building, the meeting place, now re-christened Pak Tea House, once again became the forefront of anti-authoritarianism. But with the decline of Lahore’s opposition to hegemony and of intellectual and cultural activities in the city, the tea house too began to fade away. Brought by a car tyre wholesaler and stuffed with tyres, it was salvaged in 2013 after the intervention of the Punjab Government, renovated, and opened to people.

Temple in the midst

A few km from here is the mausoleum of Anarkali, from where an intriguing story emerges. Believed to be a concubine of Emperor Akbar, Anarkali fell in love with Prince Salim. Legend has it that she was buried alive in a wall when the emperor found out about her trespass. Later, when the prince became Emperor Jahangir, he constructed a splendid mausoleum to honour his beloved. It is a typical Mughal mausoleum, octagonal with a large dome on the top. The grave, which is surprisingly not at the centre but at one end of the complex, has geometrical patterns carved into it.
 

Wikimedia Commons

The area surrounding the tomb also came to be called Anarkali. The Anarkali bazaar here is one of the largest and oldest markets in the city. Next to this is the Neela Gumbad market (or blue dome market), which is seen as an extension of the Anarkali bazaar. This part of the market is dominated by cloth, bicycle and car-tyre vendors. Thousands of people converge here every day, making it one of the busiest areas of the city. The name of this market comes from the turquoise dome of the Sufi saint Sheikh Abdul Razzaq.

It’s almost impossible to find in this hubbub, but this market is home to one of only two Hindu functional temples in the city. The Neela Gumbad Valmiki Mandir is located in a small alley next to a big tyre shop. Its small metal door is like that of any other house in the area. The small saffron flag hoisted at the entrance is the only thing that marks it out.

The inside of the temple as well is like that of a house, with a vast courtyard, at one end of which are two rooms, one dedicated to Lord Valmiki and the second to other Hindu deities. In the verandah outside the temple is a large mural of Lord Valmiki, with his disciples Lava and Kush, a snapshot of the mythological origins of Lahore. It is believed that Lava, the son of Lord Rama and the disciple of Valmiki, who is believed to have written the Ramayana, founded Lahore while Kush founded the twin city of Kasur.

A cross on the opposite wall reflects the relatively recent syncretic nature of this temple, one it it had to unwittingly adopt after Partition. Many followers of Lord Valmiki converted to Christianity following Partition to avoid the discrimination that Hindus were subjected to in the newly created country. Most of them, however, retained retained their Valmiki identity along with a new Christian identity, adopting two names – one Hindu and the other Christian. They also started celebrating Christian festivals, along with traditional Hindu festivals.

In October end, as the Hindu festival of Diwali went nearly unnoticed in Pakistan, a few 100 devotees gathered at the courtyard of this temple to light lamps and sing bhajans celebrating the return of Lord Ram and Sita to their Kingdom of Ayodhya after 14 years in exile. In a few days from now, this courtyard will be lit up once again, this time celebrating the birth of Jesus on Christmas. A cradle will be placed in the verandah and female devotees will dote over on baby Jesus, in a tradition reminiscent of Krishna Janmashtami, or the birth of Lord Krishna, which too is celebrated at this temple. Incidentally, the same cradle is used for both celebrations.
Even as Pakistan continues its sprint towards religious fundamentalism, this small temple at the heart of conservative Lahore continues to serve as an example of religious tolerance. All year round, dozens of religious festivals are celebrated at this temple, some events going on into the night.

Tenuous peace

There have been quite a few examples of hostile neighbors turning against religious minorities in their midst, particularly the Ahmadiyya community. Just last week, a mob besieged an Ahmadi place of worship (it would be illegal to call it a mosque according to the laws of Pakistan, as Ahmadis are not recognised as Muslims), to try and bring it down. Similarly a few years ago, another mob gathered outside another Ahmadi place of worship in Rawalpindi, demanding that it be shut down. And in May 2010, close to 100 people were killed after two Ahmadi places of worship in Lahore were attacked during Friday prayers. In most of these cases, the state sides with the mob, leaving the persecuted minorities in the wilderness.

But at Neela Gumbad, for many years now, there has not been a single untoward incident. It is for this reason that the Valmiki community of the city feels empowered. Religious festivals which were jettisoned after Partition have once again been adopted by the community, as it feels that those around it have become more tolerant towards their practices.

However, this was not always the case. In 1992, a day after the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, was demolished by Hindu Kar Sevaks on December 6, a mob broke into the temple. While some attacked the, others destroyed idols of Valmiki and Krishna. Even personal items of the devotees were not spared. After taking out valuable items from the temple, and allowing the handful of Valmiki devotees to leave the premises, the temple was set on fire.

For almost six months after the attack, the temple remained desolate as Valmiki devotees remained hidden in their homes, afraid of what might happen next. Gradually, the community got together and rebuilt the temple of their ancestors. More than 24 years since that fateful day, both communities at Neela Gumbad have moved on. However, peace is always fragile as far as India and Pakistan are concerned. Any act of intolerance across the border will be retaliated against here. And so, the Valmikis of Lahore know their peaceful and neighbours can once again become hostile in the blink of eye.

Haroon Khalid is the author of the booksWalking with Nanak, In Search of Shiva and A White Trail.

Courtesy: Scroll.in.
 

The post Burnt After Babri Attack, This Pakistani Temple Now Celebrates Christmas With As Much Joy As Diwali appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On 5 January 2002, the Concerned Citizens Forum held a seminar in Lahore’s Al-Hamra hall on the topic What kind of Pakistan do we want? The main speaker was ex-foreign secretary Mr Iqbal Akhund. One thought that the subject was not open for discussion, unless you take the title of the seminar to mean improvements in the running of the various state institutions. What kind of state do we want? can be answered by: ideological; and what kind of ideology? can be answered by Islamic; and what kind of Islamic state do we want? can be answered by: that which enforces the shariah.

I thought all these answers were in the Constitution and no one demanded anything else in Pakistan. Nor could anyone want it because there is a section in the Penal Code punishing anyone who speaks against the ideology of Pakistan with a long sentence behind the bars. That’s probably why at least one Urdu newspaper condemned what was said at the seminar.

Can you improve upon ideology? Yes, but not by watering it down, but by making it more hard–line and stringent. When Gorbachev wanted to make communism ‘loose’ (glasnost) and ‘reconstructed’ (perestroika), there was a coup against him. The communist state had to collapse and make way for Yeltsin’s capitalist order. Ideology brooks no revisionism.

In Pakistan too, every time it is felt that the ideology is not delivering there are prescriptions for further strengthening of the shariah. Therefore, it is no use recommending that we want a Pakistan where the ideology is either not there or is watered down.

Needless to say, anyone recommending that the ideological state be undone is committing heresy and could be punished under law. On the other hand, there are many institutions and personalities in Pakistan who answer the question What kind Pakistan do we want? by putting forth concrete steps to harden the ideology.

Hardening as answer to demands of reform:

The clergy is constantly demanding the enforcement of the shariah in answer to the question that the seminar asked. The Council for Islamic Ideology (CII) is busy on a daily basis to put forth its proposals for the conversion of the Pakistani state into a utopia of Islamic dreams.

Can we want a Pakistan different from the one we have? The answer is no.

The Ministry for Religious Affairs has already sent to the cabinet of General Musharraf a full–fledged programme for converting Pakistan into an ideal state. (The proposal has been shelved by a scared government). We have reached this stage in a gradual fashion, where these state institutions have become directly responsible for encouraging extremism even as President Musharraf takes steps to rein in the extremists.

In 1947, just before Pakistan came into being, the founder of the state, the Quaid–e–Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, made a formal statement which answered the question What kind of Pakistan do we want? He told his countrymen that he wanted a secular state. If earlier he had made ambivalent Islamic statements to woo the Muslim community, he now wanted to put them on notice that Pakistan would not be religious state.

(As the seminar of the Concerned Citizens opened, Pakistan’s well-known nationalist historian Safdar Mahmood had finished his four–part journalistic assault on those who thought that Jinnah was secular.)

In 1948, Pakistan signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after joining the United Nations. The Declaration contains articles ensuring freedom of religious worship. Therefore in 1949 when Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan and his cabinet decided to table the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly, they were self–conscious about not infringing the rights of the non-Muslims in Pakistan.

This was Pakistan’s second answer to the question What kind of Pakistan do we want? It said that Pakistan would be an Islamic state where sovereignty will belong to God Almighty (later changed to Allah) but that all non–Muslims would be allowed to practise their religion freely.

The Hindu members of the Constituent Assembly from East Pakistan (25 percent of the delegation) objected because they did not want the kind of Pakistan envisaged in the Objectives Resolution. They were told by Muslim clerics outside the Assembly that an Islamic state treated its non–Muslims as zimmis and did not give them equal rights.

Inside the Assembly, Liaquat Ali Khan swore that non–Muslims would be treated equally, and Zafrullah Khan (sic!) told them what an excellent and progressive thing the Objectives Resolution was while Nishtar explained to them in a threatening tone the real meaning of jihad. (It is unclear why he should have spoken of jihad when trying to answer the question What kind of Pakistan do we want?)

Objectives Resolution as answer: To make sure that the ‘objective’ is not forgotten, the Objectives Resolution was appended to the Constitution as its Preamble. But then on a couple of occasions the Supreme Court had to accept the argument that a Preamble was not the actual body of the Constitution.

It was therefore taken upon himself by General Zia to insert the Preamble into the Constitution through an amendment. But, conscious of the fact that shariah ordained zimmi-hood, he removed the word freely from the text where the non–Muslims were promised freedom of worship in consonance with the Universal Declaration. The sneaky thing he did was that he did not notify the deletion of the word, freely.

That brought in the unspoken zimmi concept, in line with the fulfilment of the condition implied in What kind of Pakistan do we want? This ideal was reached by General Zia when he added separate electorates to the Constitution through his 8th Amendment. No non–Muslims could vote together with Muslims and were to be treated like a zimmi although the Constitution still did not contain the word.

General Zia asked the question very directly and answered it in great detail. His answer is now the grundnorm of our consciousness. If you deviate an iota from his shibboleths the orthodoxy of Pakistan, both political and religious, will have you by the throat. Zia asked Maulana Zafar Ahmad Ansari to report on what kind of state Pakistan should be in the light of the Islamic practice. The Ansari Report said an Islamic state cannot have political parties and cannot have a parliament with an opposition sitting in it. Hence the 1985 ‘partyless’ elections.

Iran got there first under the Ayatollahs by having a parliament without an opposition and no political parties. Afghanistan was even ‘purer’, it had an amirul momineen on the Medinate model, which caused many visiting Pakistani ulema, including Dr Israr Ahmad, to exclaim that he had created an ambience in Kandahar ‘just like the Prophet PBUH’.

General Zia’s answer was therefore not complete. His Federal Shariat Court was based on the ‘inclusive’ principle, meaning that anything not repugnant to Islam would be considered Islamic. While the democrats in Pakistan thought the Federal Shariat Court was incorrectly legislating instead of parliament, the ulema thought it fell far short of recreating the utopia of Madina. Major–General Abbasi, who staged his unsuccessful Islamic coup in the army in 1995, was to declare himself an amirul momineen according to the text of the speech that was found in his office.

No revisionism under ideology: Zakat and ushr were the first to be enforced to make Pakistan the kind of state we liked. Zakat, since its inception, has been regularly embezzled. Because of the malpractice in its distribution, it has not been distributed for a number of years. Its collection was always a problem because the Shia community never accepted and was allowed exemption.

The welfare state envisaged in this collection was never realised. After the Sunni community began ducking zakat by declaring themselves Shia, the Supreme Court granted the Sunnis the same exemption as to the Shias. Now as our religion minister Dr. Ghazi wants to provide loans to the unemployed out of the Zakat collection, he is supposed to have violated the law which says it can only be given as alms, and a notice to this effect has been issued by the CII.

American researcher Grace Clark, in Pakistan 2000 (Lexington Books, 2000) discloses that a federal officer had absconded to London with a billion rupees of Zakat money! On the other hand, ushr, not mentioned in the Quran, has been levied without reinterpretation: 10 percent taxation on rain–fed farms while the irrigated ones pay only 5 percent! The state we want cannot revise out–dated provisions even if the laws are not Quranic! Needless to say, the collection of ushr in Pakistan has failed.

About reinterpretation, the state we want has a clear stand. General Zia rejected Allama Iqbal when he was told in 1986 by Justice Javid Iqbal that his father did not think that hudood could be imposed in modern times and had said so in his famous Sixth Lecture. Today, we have the cutting of hands in the statute book but have not cut any hands so far.

One argument is that in ancient times hands were cut for theft because there were no prisons in Arabia. As if to answer this rationalisation, the CII has recently declared that Islam disallows prisons and therefore all prisons in Pakistan (the one we really want) should be dismantled! Another law relating to diyat (blood money) is often abused and has not been enforced with regard to a murder where the killer has not been found and the locality where the body is found has to collectively pay the blood money.

Needless to say, in the state we want, no one can reinterpret ancient jurisprudence when it doesn’t work. Banking has to be abolished because the money–lender’s riba has been equated with interest, just as rape has been equated with fornication and the raped woman is in fact punished if she cannot produce eye-witnesses who saw her being raped.

Can we want a Pakistan different from the one we have? The answer is no. The difficulty lies in the inability of the Muslims to mould their original revealed message to modern times by applying logic and rationality to the ancient case law. There was a time when this was done but the era of taqleed (imitation) has been upon us since the medieval period. Under colonial rule, many Muslims thought of introducing reason in the science of understanding the Holy Writ, but today no one in the Islamic world tolerates any deviation from taqleed even when this taqleed varies in practice from state to state.

All Muslim states are unstable either because they have enforced the shariah and are unhappy with it, like Pakistan, or have not enforced it and are unhappy that it has not been enforced. For Muslims the question What kind of state do we want? is a rhetorical one because for them it has already been answered.                     

(Courtesy: The Friday Times, Pakistan)

Archived from Communalism Combat, January-February 2002 Year 8  No. 75-76, Cover Story 4

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