by Raza Rumi
Chanchal boisterous
Chang harp
Charaghan lighting of lamps
Dai missionary
Desi native
Dhadhi one who sings ballads
Dhak tree known as flame of the forest
Dhruva-pada refrain
Dua e roshnai prayer of the light
Gajak dried sweet made of sesame seeds cooked in sugar syrup
Galeem cloak of invisibility
Ghoom tana literally ‘move around’
Gumti canopy
Gupbazzi narration of fabricated tales
Hama-oost all is one
Hamwatan countrymen
Hujra small meditation room
Katra mews
Khanqah hospices, spiritual retreats
Makhfi invisible
Markaz headquarters
Marthiya elegy
Masnad divan/high seat
Mathnawi/ romantic poem based on independent,
Masnavi/Mathnavi internally rhyming lines
Milad mehfil gathering devoted to the recitation of hymns and songs in remembrance of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) of Islam
Murshid Arabic term for ‘guide’ or ‘teacher’
Naatkhwani Urdu devotional songs
Nai-ka-Gumbad barber’s dome
Namaazee worshipper
Piste ki lauz pistachio fudge
Qasida panegyric
Qaul utterance
Qirat Quranic readings and recitation
Ram laddoo fried lentil balls served with a radish salad
Salariat salaried
Sema ceremony of the whirling dance
Shakarkandi baked sweet potatoes served with spices
Shams Arabic word for sun
Shereen qand dessert
Surbahar bass sitar
Tableeghi Jamat group formed to propagate the spread of Islam.
Talabwas pond
Tambur long-necked lute with wooden soundboard
Tariqa the Sufi way
Tasawwuf loving God through the service of mankind
Tazkira formal Islamic narratives
Tibbi traditional medicine system
Tucke turban
Wahdatul Wajud unity of being
Zambeel pouch that could contain the entire world
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the support and active engagement of many friends, colleagues and acquaintances, spread all over the globe. First and foremost, I need to thank Karthika V.K. of HarperCollins who was incredibly encouraging about the idea and helped me overcome my initial fears. My amazing friends, Sadia Dehlvi and Rakhshanda Jalil, provided their inputs as well as critical comments throughout the process of writing it. I also have to express immense gratitude to Mayank Austen Soofi who read all the drafts diligently and helped me find material for the book. I am lucky to have a friend like him. Mention must be made of the editor, Rukmini Sekhar, who did a great job and also filtered several of my sweeping generalizations in the book. I enjoyed several arguments with her, and will always be grateful for her help in bringing a little bit of nuance to my understanding of India and Delhi. Garga Chatterjee read the final draft on a long journey from Kolkata to Delhi and was most helpful. I also have to thank Babar Mirza and Shemrez Nauman, my younger friends in Pakistan, for their last-minute help with the proofreading.
In Pakistan, my parents were excited about my idea of this book. I made my father read all the initial drafts and surprisingly he was very supportive of my underlying argument. As he had been a state official for most of his working life I was afraid my critique of nation-state would offend him. Pakistan’s leading poet, Fahmida Riaz, gave extraordinary support by reading, commenting on and approving my prose. Thanks are due to Sumaria, who helped me browse through books on Delhi and read the chapters when I was writing them. Irfan Javed reviewed the first few drafts and I must thank him for urging me to finish the manuscript.
It would not be out of place to thank Arjun Goswami, a senior colleague at the Asian Development Bank, who indirectly helped develop this book idea when he asked me to join a project based in Delhi. I hope he reads this.
Finally, countless friends and acquaintances in Delhi, even strangers, need to be acknowledged. How could I have known the city without their assistance? The auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers, the dhaba-walas, dargah keepers and even the hotel’s room-service staff were all welcoming and fun to get to know.
Acknowledgements are also due to various institutions such as the Network for Asia Pacific Schools and Institutes of Governance, Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature, Amarjit Bhagwant Singh Charitable Trust (Attic), Jamia Millia Islamia University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Sahmat, FICCI, and finally, the Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation, for inviting me to their events in Delhi during the last few years.
About the Author
Raza Rumi is a writer and development professional from Pakistan. Currently, he is affiliated with the Jinnah Institute, a public policy think tank in Islamabad. He also edits the Friday Times every week, writes columns for leading Pakistani newspapers and journals, and is a well-known commentator on politics and culture.
Earlier, Raza worked as a governance expert for the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo and the Government of Pakistan. This is his first book.
NOTES: ONE
1. Mohammad Sadiq Dihalvi Kashmiri Hamdani, Kalimat al Sadiqin, A Hagiography of Sufis Buried at Delhi until 1614 AD, New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 1990.
2. Bruce B. Lawrence, Notes from a Distant Flute: The Extant Literature of Pre-Mughal Indian Sufism, Lucknow: Great Eastern Book Co., 1985.
3. Amir Khusrau, Qiran al Sa’dayn, Lucknow: Nawal Kishore Press, 1875. This work is also known as the ‘Conjunction of Two Planets’. It reads as a number of descriptive poems joined into one by means of ghazals expressing the poet’s feelings upon the various episodes in the story that he has been describing.
4. Amir Khusrau, Nuh Sipihr. The Nuh Siphir is a panegyric of the court, peoples, languages and the flora and fauna of Hindustan. E. Sreedharan, A Textbook of Historiography, 500 BC to AD 2000, New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2004, p. 163.
5. Three Mughal Poets: Mir, Sauda, Mir Hasan, New Delhi: OUP (first published 1969), 1994, p. 259.
6. Dotting GT Road, away from the hustle and bustle of Chandigarh and somewhere between Ludhiana and Ambala, lies the dusty town of Sirhind. Sirhind is mostly known among Muslims through Sheikh Ahmed Sirhindi, the famous Sufi of the Naqshbandi order, who was conferred the title of ‘Mujaddid Alif-sani’, the renewer of the second millennium (of the Islamic Calendar).
NOTES: TWO
1. Tasawwuf is the traditional Islamic science of spirituality (Sufism) focusing on one’s relationship with Allah. In Arabic, the word for wool is suf and thus, those who wore it became known as ‘Sufis’.
2. There are three stations of peace in Sufism and the traveller on the spiritual path enters one of these three according to his spiritual state. The three stations comprise peace at the stage of islam (submission, abandonment to the divine will), peace at the stage of iman (the divine peace that enters the believer’s heart) and peace at the stage of ihsan (the sanctifying virtue through which the sovereignty of evil comes to an end).
3. K.A. Nizami, ‘The Contribution of Indian Sufis to Peace and Amity’ in Culture of Peace by Baidyanath Saraswati (ed), New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, 1999.
4. Charles E. Gover, The Folksongs of Southern India, New Delhi: Rupa & Co., p. 165.
5. However, Muslim Sufis differed from Hindu ascetics in many ways, such as they were not celibate and did not impose a sparse or limited diet on themselves.
6. The term ‘hadith’ is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Mohammad.
7. A romantic song from a Bollywood film Kabhi Kabhi.
8. Rajab is the seventh month of t
he Islamic calendar. This month is regarded as one of the four sacred months in Islam in which battles are prohibited. The month is also a prelude to the month of Ramadan.
9. La Illaha Ill Allah Muhammadur Rasool Allah. This is the Kalima or the testification of faith in Islam. A person cannot be considered to be a Muslim if he/she does not believe in the words of the Kalima.
10. Alok Bhalla, Stories about the Partition of India, New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2011.
11. The Friday Times (Lahore), 3 January 2003.
NOTES: THREE
1. Translated by Mubashar Hasan.
2. S. Ikramullah, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawady: A Biography, OUP, p. 51.
3. Translation by Darshan Singh Maini in Studies in Punjabi Poetry, New Delhi: Vikas, 1979.
4. Translated by Panini Anand, Outlook India, web version 31 October 2005.
5. Quoted in Pran Nevile’s Lahore – A Sentimental Journey, New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1993, p. 18.
6. Translated by the author.
7. Ajeet Caur, Pebbles in a Tin Drum: An Autobiography, New Delhi: HarperCollins, 1998.
8. Translated by Harbans Singh.
9. Cited in Abdul Kalaam Azad, India Wins Freedom, New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2000.
10. Azad has also criticized this in the following words, ‘Jinnah may have raised the flag of Partition, now the real flagbearer was Patel.’ India Wins Freedom, 1988 edition, p. 201.
11. Translation found at: http:21thecurrentaffairs.com/what-unsungminorities-have-done-for-Pakistan.html
12. Guru Tegh Bahadur was the youngest of the five sons of Guru Har Gobind. He became the ninth Guru of the Sikhs on 20 March 1665.
13. A.H. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim, The Subtle Subversion: A Report on Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan, Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad, 2006.
14. The Ulema refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as arbiters of the shariah law.
15. K.K. Aziz, Murder of History in Pakistan, Lahore: Vanguard Books, 1993.
16. Tariq Rahman, Language-Teaching and World View in Urdu Medium Schools, Research Papers Series, SDPI, 1995.
17. Comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanstha (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Shiv Sena and the Bajrang Dal (brigade of devout Hindus who worship the monkey god).
18. Translated by Khushwant Singh.
19. Anant Janardan vs State.
20. Irfan Habib, Suvira Jaiswal and Aditya Mukherjee, History in the New NCERT Textbooks: A Report and an Index of Errors, Indian History Congress, Kolkata, 2003, p. 129.
21. Parvathi Menon, ‘Books of Bias and Errors’, Frontline, Vol. 20, No. 18, 2003.
22. Tendulkar, ‘Muslims and I’, available at http:21www.geocities.com/indiafas/India/the_prejudice.htm
23. Nilamben Parikh, Gandhi’s great-granddaughter, dispersed his ashes at Mumbai’s Chowpatty beach in January 2008. Parikh is the granddaughter of Gandhi’s estranged eldest son, Harilal, who did not perform his father’s last rites at the burning pyre due to his differences with the Mahatma.
NOTES: FOUR
1. Meanings for the word ‘Qutub’ include pivot, pole, axis and celebrity.
2. Also Transoxiana (Latin) literally means ‘across the Oxus River’. It is the ancient name used for the portion of Central Asia corresponding approximately with modern Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and South West Kazakhstan. The region was one of the satrapies of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia under the name ‘Sogdiana’. (Wikipedia
3. ‘Sama’ is a Sufi ceremony. These rituals often include singing, playing instruments, dancing, recitation of poetry and prayers and wearing symbolic attire. It is a particularly popular form of worship in the Chishti order of the Indian subcontinent.
4. The 2001 census survey revealed that the total population of Delhi at 13.8 million comprised of 8.2 million people from within Delhi and 5.3 million migrated population from other states of India. The local migrant identities have also blurred now. The Economic Survey of Delhi 2007-08 records that the influx of population from other states has been estimated at 203,000 whereas growth due to natural increase in Delhi was comparatively less at 224,000 in 2006. Independence and the population movements led to migrants creating many Delhis defined by ethnicity and class.
5. The Delhi Book is now in the possession of the British Library as discovered by William Dalrymple.
NOTES: FIVE
1. Here I have relied on an English translation of the Urdu version published as Nizai Bansari by Khwaja Hasan Nizami Dehlvi and A Diary of a Disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya translated by H. Sajun, Lahore: Talifat-e-Shahidi, 2001.
2. Used as an honorary title for a descendant of the family of Prophet Mohammad.
3. Ibid., p. 97.
4. Qaeda refers to the basic textbook used in early years in education to teach Urdu and/or Arabic.
5. Ibid., p. 111.
6. A Diary of a Disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya, translated by H. Sajun, Lahore: Talifat-e-Shahidi, 2001.
7. The ‘Sura Al-Fatiha’ or ‘The Opening’ is the first chapter of the Quran. Its seven verses are a prayer for God’s guidance. This chapter has an essential role in daily prayers. Muslims recite the ‘Sura Al-Fatiha’ at the start of each unit of prayer.
8. A sacred space in the Jama Masjid in Old Delhi.
9. Derived from the Arabic word ‘Uroos’, literally a wedding.
10. Meanings for the word include, ‘spiritual guide, advisor, leader,’ often used to describe the Creator.
11. In the Poorbi/Hindustani style, Nijaam is an appellation for Nizam.
12. Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya’s pir.
13. Some Qawalis and Folk Songs of the Khusrau Tradition, available at
14. Allyn Miner, Sitar and Sarod in the 18th and 19th Centuries, New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, p. 84. Also see Birendra Kishore Roy, ‘Indian Music and Mian Tansen’ cited in Miner’s paper.
15. Swami Prajnananda, A Historical Study of Indian Music, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, pp. 117-27.
M.R. Gautam, The Musical Heritage of India, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers.
16. Jon Barlow and Lakshmi Subramanian, I am heavily indebted to the excellent study of this theme undertaken in ‘Music and Society in North India: From the Mughals to the Mutiny’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 42, No. 19, 2007.
17. Bonnie C. Wade, Imaging Sound—An Ethnomusicological Study of Music, Art and Culture in Mughal India, University of Chicago Press, pp. 160-83.
18. Jon Barlow and Lakshmi Subramanian, ‘Music and Society in North India: From the Mughals to the Mutiny’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 42, No. 19, 2007.
19. Ibid.
20. Katherine Butler Brown, ‘Did Aurangzeb Ban Music? Questions for the Historiography of his Reign,’ Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2007, pp. 1-44.
21. It is believed that many kalawants converted to Islam during the Mughal era and were inspired by the Chishti Sufis. They also performed at the Sufi dargahs. See Barlow and Subramanian (footnote 16).
22. Naqshbandi is one of the major tasawwuf spiritual orders of Sufi Islam. It is nearly 1,400 years old. Tasawwuf is the traditional Islamic science of spirituality focusing on one’s relationship with Allah.
23. Satish Chandra, ‘Cultural and Political role of Delhi, 1675-1725’ in R.E. Frykenberg (ed), Delhi Through the Ages, Essays in Indian History, Culture and Society, New York: OUP, pp. 210-11.
24. Darqah Quli Khan, Muraqqa E Dehli, The Mughal Capital in Muhammad Shah’s Time, Foreword by Nurul Hasan (English translation with an introduction and notes by Chander Sekhar and Shama Mitra Chenoy), Deputy Publications. Also see Shama Mitra Chenoy, Shahjahanabad, A City of Delhi, 1638-1857, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, pp. 173-74.
25. Jaideva Singh Thakur, Indian Music, Prem Lata Sharma (ed)
, Sangeet Research Academy, Calcutta, 1995, pp. 231-32.
Also see Allyn Miner, Sitar and Sarod in the 18th and 19th Centuries, p. 87.
26. Jon Barlow and Lakshmi Subramanian, ‘Music and Society in North India: From the Mughals to the Mutiny’, 2007.
27. Ibid., pp. 76-77.
28. Jon Barlow and Lakshmi Subramanian, ‘Music and Society in North India: From the Mughals to the Mutiny’, 2007.
29. Allyn Miner, Sitar and Sarod in the 18th and 19th Centuries. See also Adrian Mcneil, Inventing the Sarod: a Cultural History, Kolkata: Seagull, 2004.
30. Sadarang has been so central to the notion of khayal that he is commonly credited with having invented it despite its having been in existence long before him.
31. Allyn Miner, Sitar and Sarod in the 18th and 19th Centuries, p. 97, cited in Barlow and Subramanian.
32. Ibid., pp. 93-94.
33. Allyn Miner, Sitar and Sarod in the 18th and 19th Centuries, p. 93. The gat toda is explained in detail by Miner. Masit Khan is credited for adopting actual dhrupad compositions for melodies to use in his gats.
NOTES: SIX
1. The Delhi Ode was written by Bahadur Shah Zafar just before his death and is recorded by William Dalrymple in his book, The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857, New York: Vintage, 2008. Also see Lonely Planet, India, p. 49.
2. Stephen P. Blake, Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India 1639-1739, Google Books, p. 31.
3. Originally instituted as Madarsa Ghaziuddin Khan, it closed in 1790 but was reopened in 1792. It was re-organized as the Anglo-Arabic College by the British East India Company in 1828.
4. Dastangoi is the art of story-telling. Daastaans were epics, often oral in nature, which were recited or read aloud. They were tales of adventure, magic and warfare. The story of Hamza, supposedly an uncle of Prophet Mohammad, stands out among various daastaans.