8 Promoting Religious Tolerance in India: Learning From Our Past

Rohini Sen

Learning Outcomes:

1. This chapter will introduce students to the historical status and situation of the treatment of Hindus in India, especially under the Muslim rulers.
2. The students will be able to answer questions like: what was the legal status of Hindus in a Muslim state? How did the Muslim rulers treat Hindus? What was the extent of religious liberty which was given to Hindus?

Introduction:

Both Indian domestic law and international law prohibit persecution of people based upon their religious affiliations. Indian constitution declares India as a secular state while at the same time giving constitutional freedoms to the people of India in terms of practicing their religious beliefs. Recent developments have brought out a discourse around the treatment of Hindus under the medieval period Muslim rulers in India. A number politically motivated myths have developed around this discourse painting such periods of Muslim rule as persecuting and restrictive for Hindus. This module tries to demolish those myths by presenting the ideals of Islamic thought on religious freedom and bringing out the realities of what Hindus were actually treated like in those times.

For minorities freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief is a fundamental—some consider it to be the fundamental—human right because beliefs give meaning to one’s life and existence by addressing questions of ultimate concern. They give a code of conduct for the believers and set standards for behaviour towards other people. The entire population can be mobilized through common faiths for war or nation building. But beliefs can be both targets for intolerance and warrants for discrimination. Prejudice, discrimination and intolerance based on religion diminish or destroy life.

Freedom of religion has been legally recognized in Article 25 of the Indian Constitution. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also recognizes this right (India is party to this Covenant). This right includes freedom to change one’s religion or belief, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest one’s religion in worship observance, practice and preaching. The 1981 United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief further articulates the right to freedom of religion and gives it specific content. This right has also been recognized in other major international human rights instruments. Thus both the constitutional and international law obligations intend to protect freedom of religion and prohibit discrimination or intolerance based on religion.

Notwithstanding these constitutional and international guarantees concerning freedom of religion, all religious minorities in India particularly the Muslims, Christians. Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains have experienced discrimination, violence and persecution. Thousands of persons from these minorities have lost their lives and property in anti-minority riots and violence. The sporadic communal riots against Muslims (since independence no year has passed without any communal incidents), the 1984 carnage of the Sikhs. and the recent atrocities against Christian missionaries are just few examples to illustrate the point. The last decade of this century has witnessed a steady growth of communal politics in India. The Hindutava forces are vociferously engaged in implementing their hidden agenda of making India a Hindurashtra by gradually destroying the pluralistic, secular and multi-cultural bases of this young federal nation, i.e., India. During the last two years a systematic campaign has been launched by Hindu fundamentalist forces against religious conversions by proselytizing religions—mainly the Christianity and Islam.

Among all the minorities in India, Muslims are the worst sufferers. Look at the following facts: (i) There have been serious attempts to re-write the school textbooks of history so as to give a communal projection and interpretation of certain historical developments in medieval India. (ii) In 1996 parliamentary elections the slogan of BJP-Shiv Sena was: “Musalmanon Ke Do Hi Sthan— Pakisthan Ya Kabrasthan” (Muslims have only two abodes—Pakistan or Graveyard). (iii) In election rallies and speeches the V.H.P. misguides Hindu majority by showing them a list of 3000 mosques which they believe were constructed by demolishing temples. The V.H.P. spreads such myths now and then. One may cite many other examples. For reasons of space only three examples are recalled here to establish that the influence of communalism in Indian politics is growing.

Such a campaign of growing religious intolerance and hatred can be contained if we properly educate our youth and general public regarding Muslim rule in India, which was generally marked by composite culture and religious tolerance. It must be noted that an objective study of certain contentious issues and events of medieval India is essential to remove many prevailing misconceptions about Muslim rule. Majority of the people—both lettered and unlettered—believe in such misconceptions: ‘that Muslim rulers had declared India as an Islamic State and Shariah rules were imposed on all subjects, including the Hindus’; ‘that Islam was spread by these rulers through sword or force’; ‘and that they did not allow the construction of new temples’, etc.

The purpose of this paper is not only to demolish such unfounded myths about Muslim rule by examining historical events and data but also to explore answers to certain pertinent questions such as; What was the legal status of Hindus in a Muslim State? How did the Muslim rulers treat Hindus? What was their share in state employment and military service? To what extent Hindus enjoyed religious liberty? Were there any socio-cultural interactions between Hindus and Muslims? The analyses of these questions will certainly enlighten us and help in rebuilding social harmony among different communities, especially among the Hindus and Muslims.

ISLAMIC NOTION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND TOLERANCE

Before proceeding to explore answers to these questions, it is essential to state here briefly the Islamic perspective of human rights. Islam provides an elaborate system of human rights norms. With some variations, it gives recognition to almost all rights that ~re found in the Universal Declaration. The 1981 Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, which is similar to the Universal Declaration, is testimony to it. Of all the human rights Islam recognizes, religious liberty and tolerance stands out as the most prominent freedom. The Holy Quran pronounces that “there shall be no compulsion in faith”, (Quran, 2:257). “Proclaim: ‘It is the truth from your Lord’: wherefore let him who will, believe, and let him who will disbelieve”, (Quran, 18: 30). At another place, it pronounces that: “To each among you we have prescribed law and a path: And if God had enforced his will, he would have made you one nation or people. But his plan is to test you in what he hath given you”, (Quran, 5:48-59). “You have your own religion and I have mine”, (Quran, 109:6). These Quranic verses reveal two important principles. First, Islam cannot be propagated and preached through force. Second, God has sent messengers or prophets to every people and nation, thereby firmly believing in religious pluralism.

Let us elaborate these principles. According to the first principle conscience cannot be regulated or controlled by outside forces. In Islamic perspective” every person is free to decide to believe or not in the existence of God. In fact, apostasy does not warrant death penalty. The Quranic verses (2:217, 3:87, 3:106 and 47:25) explicitly state that apostate will be punished by God in the life after death.  Sir Mohammad Zafrullah Khan opines that Quran does not prescribe death penalty for apostates. He argued that “This [no death penalty] is the essence of the freedom to change one’s religion. The Quran is explicit on it”.  It is interesting to note that during Akbar’s time many Muslims as well as Hindus were converted to Christianity, yet Muslim converts did not attract any death penalty.

The second principle establishes that a high sprit of tolerance has to be practised by Muslims towards “people of the book”, i.e. protected minorities (Dimmis)—the Christians and Jews. Marital alliance is permitted with their daughters without forcing them to convert to Islam. Subsequently, the list of the “people of the book” (Ahle Kitab) was extended to Zoroastrians (by Imam Shafai), to Hindus (by Abu Hanifa) and to all non-Muslims, whether Arab or non-Arab (by Imam Malik). Thus, Islam respected plurality of religions. and advocated their peaceful coexistence. In this regard, it is pertinent to recall a comment made by Count Leon Ostrorog, in 1927, long before the advent of modem human rights doctrine. In a series of three lectures delivered at the University of London he observed: “[Shariah, i.e., Islamic Law] expounded a doctrine of toleration of non-Muslim creeds so liberal that our West had to wait a thousand years before seeing equivalent principles adopted.” Moreover, Islamic history is full of instances of tolerance shown by men in power. Two such instances are worth recalling here.  When Caliph Omar entered Jerusalem, freeing it from foreign rule, he scrupulously respected the conditions stipulated at the time of surrender by its Christian inhabitants. One afternoon when he was, at the time of prayer, in Jerusalem’s biggest church, the one called the Resurrection, he refused to pray, so that the Muslim could not use that as an excuse to build a mosque on that site.

When a Christian lady from the old town of Cairo went to visit Omar to complaint that ‘Amr Ibn al’-As, the conqueror, had disposed her of her house to add her land to the land for the mosque being constructed, he questioned Amr, who justified himself saying that there were so many Muslims and they needed a big mosque. As the Christian lady’s house was adjacent to the place where the mosque was to be enlarged, he had offered to repurchase it, paying even more than double, but without success, for the lady would not hear of it So, he had given orders for the house to be destroyed to incorporate the land into the land for the mosque. He had then put the money he had offered the lady into the public treasury so that she could take it out whenever she wanted. Even though all this had been authorized by the law, in cases of extreme necessity, Omar decided, according to Islamic laws, to demolish the recently built mosque and to give the Christian lady back her house, built exactly as it had been before.

These two instances should be considered relevant for us today in view of the controversy surrounding the demolished Sabri mosque at Ayodhya in December 1992.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN MEDIEVAL INDIA

Before discussing the nature and extent of religious liberty in medieval India, it is essential to keep in mind certain basic facts, which will help us to formulate a proper perspective of our historical legacy. First, it should be noted that in the Muslim period the state was not Islamic in the sense of the early Islamic history of the caliphates; although the head of the state in India was a Muslim, the state was not Islamic. The state did not follow the injunctions of the Quran or the shariah. Also, it cannot be called theocratic, because it did not function under the guidance of theologians. Almost every Muslim monarch of India expressed his inability and indicated the impossibility of conducting state business in accordance with the shariah. As a result, monarch came into direct conflict with the Ulema/theologians. IItutmish was blamed for his un-Islamic ways by syed Nurul Din Mubarak Ghazanavi, Zial-al Din Barani condemned Salban, Muhammad Tughlaq and other Delhi’ Sultans for imitating the manners and adopting the political and social policies of non-Muslim Sasanian emperors in preference to the rightful caliphs. Qazi Mughis al Din complained to Alauddin Khilji for his deviations from the shariah. Similarly, Shaikh Ahmad Sarhindi criticized the Mughal emperors.

Secondly, the state was run more on the basis of political and military considerations/realities than in accordance with the teachings of Islam. Since the majority of the population was non-Muslim, the strict adherence of the shariah would have excluded them from imperial services, military, etc., this was neither feasible nor practicable for Muslims who were in a minority. Thirdly, though Islam does not separate religion from politics, the administration of most of the monarchs, with few exceptions, remained secular, broad-based and liberal. Most of them were singularly free from all religious bigotry or fanaticism.

Lastly, many of the un-Islamic practices were adopted by these rulers under the influence of Indian culture. For instance, the weighing of the king against gold or silver on his birthday; inscribing the goddess Lakshmi on the coins (e.g. by emperor Shihabuddin), state patronage of music, jharoka darshan or showing himself to the public from the balcony; admitting the ‘evidence’ of non-Muslim in the court as equivalent to that of a believing Muslim; marrying Hindu women without converting them and so on.

Now, let us examine the exact position of non-Muslim subjects, i.e., Hindus, under Muslim rule of medieval India under the following heads: (i) The legal status of Hindus, (ii) Religious freedom to Hindus, (iii) Socio-cultural interactions.

The Legal Status of Hindus

In a Muslim state people are divided, on the ground of religion, into three general categories: the Muslims, the dhimmis and the infidels or kafirs. The status of dimmis is generally accorded to: (a) the “People of the Book” who have scriptures and (b) those who resembled the possessors of revealed books.

Though there was no agreement among jurists whether Hindus came under the first or second category, the Muslim rulers (from Mohammad bin Qasim to Aurangzeb) for all practical purposes regarded them as dhimmis. Imam Abu Hanifa considers them as having revealed scriptures. Prince Dara Shikoh, who wrote his celebrated magnum opus, Majmaul Bahrain or the ‘Mingling Two Oceans’, a book which showed a similarity between Islamic thought and Vedantic precepts, opined that: “It appears from the study of the scriptures that Allah the merciful sent a Divine Book known as the Vedas, in the beginning of creation. It is divided into four parts. In it there are instructions, orders and prohibitions for the action of mankind herein and hereafter. Hindus do believe that God is one. He has created the world. The world will be destroyed. Men will get regard for their good actions and punishment for bad ones. This cannot be denied that the Hindu religion was a good religion”.

It is interesting to note that even the conservative Aurangzeb considered Hindus to be dhimmis. This is evident from “Fatawa-IAlamgin”’. Hindus had a defined legal status and were allowed to practice religious liberty. It was the responsibility of the state to provide them protection of life, liberty and property. They were exempted from compulsory military service, and sometimes were required to pay jazia (poll tax) in lieu of military service. However, those who were willing to join the army were never prevented from doing so and given administrative jobs too.

Religious Freedoms to Hindus

Although we find in the annals of medieval India a few unpleasant evidences that some of the Muslim rulers had imposed restrictions on the construction of new temples and had allowed only their repairs while intermittently causing destruction of certain temples, the general policy and attitude of Muslim polity was one of accommodation, religious tolerance and respect to the religions and cultures of the Hindus. This policy continued from the times of early sultans of Delhi till Mughal rule.

Quoting a contemporary chronicler (Farishta) R.C. Majumdar writes that the early Sultanate of Delhi gave full religious liberty to their non-Muslim subjects. Even in the imperial city of Delhi they bowed before their idols, blew their conches, bathed in the river Jamuna and took out their religious processions without hindrance.

There is archaeological evidence to show that the construction of new temples, during the 13th century, was not checked or stopped. Tha~ur Phero’s work on medieval temple architecture, Vastusara, written during Ala-u’d-din Khilji’s reign, does not make any reference to state interference in the construction of temples. There is, on the contrary, definite evidence, according to Prof. K.A. Nizami, that temples were constructed during this period. Three images of the Jain sect, discovered in Etah (U.P.), contain dated records of their installation in the year 1278 A. D. A fragment of a bilingual inscription, in Persian and Sanskrit, found in the Purana Qila of Delhi records the endowment of 12 bighas of land to a temple dedicated to Sri Krishna. Feroz Shah’s protest that “The Hindus and idol-worshippers had built new temples in the city arid the environs”, should be read in this perspective.

The Mughal rulers not only followed these liberal/secular policies of the Delhi sultans but also went much further ahead. Among the Mughals, Akbar’s record surpasses those of his predecessors as well as successors. His reign marks a new beginning in evolving a model government based on religious tolerance and broad humanism. He reconciled his Hindu and Muslim subjects by his policy of Sulh Kul or peace towards all: Though unsuccessful, he tried to bring about a synthesis of the two religions—Islam and Hinduism, which provoked vehement opposition from the theologians of both communities.

Akbar’s decisions to abolish jazia, the pilgrimage tax, and lift the ban on conversions to Islam of the prisoners of war, allowing his Hindu wives to perform religious practices of Hindu worship, establishing new courts under Brahmin judges to decide cases between Hindus; prohibiting cow slaughter, himself abstaining from eating beef, garlic and onion, participating in Hindu festivals like Rakhi, Dipavali, Sivaratri, engaging in religious discourse with many yogis on their belief; employing a large number of non-Muslims into imperial service and elevating some of them to the highest position (like Raja Man Singh as Prime Minister, Todar Mal as Finance Minister); getting translated many Hindu religious books into Persian – such as Atharva Veda, Mahabharata, Ramayana etc. speak for themselves.

Late Prof. S. R. Sharma’s controversial book, on the religious policy of the Mughal emperors while largely unsympathetic, makes some interesting, even startling, remarks. While observing that “the position of Hindus in India was generally much better than that of many communities in Europe whose faith differed from that of their rulers” during medieval times, he has all praise for Akbar. He writes that the percentage of Hindu officers in Akbar’s army was higher than the percentage of Indian officers holding the king’s commission in the army in India before World War II. Against four Hindu governors in Akbar’s reign of half a century, there was only one Indian Governor in India during a century and a half of British rule till 1937. No one in British India ever rose to the high rank, which Todar Mal held as Finance Minister. Of the 12 provincial Finance Ministers. appointed in 1594-95, eight were Hindus. Is it not curious to note in the 52 years of independent India only one Muslim could rise to the post of Home Minister during the Janta Dal Government led by V. P. Singh in 1989 (the Home Minister is the most important after the Prime Minister)? During the Sultanate and the Mughal period many Hindus were commanders in the army too. There was no discrimination against them for appointment to important political offices.

Jahangir tried to follow his father’s policy of liberalism and religious tolerance. He prohibited the slaughter of animals twice a week, on Sundays and Thursdays. This was strictly enforced. Once when he discovered that his orders were flouted and meat was sold on one of these days, he flogged the Kotwal of the area. It is gratifying to note that once when ‘Id’ fell on a Thursday, he ordered the postponement of sacrificing of animals to the following Friday.

Religious tolerance of Jahangir can be explained by citing two scholars who enjoyed his patronage—Abdur Rahim Khan-I-Khanan and Sur Das. The former wrote all sorts of dohas (verses) including many in praise of Hindu Gods while the latter compiled the Sur sagar, the emperor is said to have given Sur Das one gold coin for every verse.

Due to the legacy of his predecessors and the influence of his eldest son, Dara, Shahjahan continued to have liberal policies towards Hindus. Dara Shikoh translated the Upanishads and declared them to be the “book” refereed to in the Quran.

There is a lot of skepticism among historians regarding Aurangzeb’s policies towards Hindus. No doubt he was more Islamic/orthodox in his state functions than his predecessors (by introducing jazia, discontinuing the practice of jharoka darshan, prohibiting the ceremony of weighing the emperor against gold or silver on his birthdays, prohibiting singing in Court, etc.), he did have certain secular credentials. He issued secular decrees, called zawabit. A compendium of his decrees has been collected in a’ work, Fatawa i-Alamgiri. Theoretically, these decrees supplemented the shariah, in view of conditions obtaining in India, which were not provided for in the Islamic law.

While there are cases on record of some temples having been demolished for one reason or another during Aurangzeb’s reign, recent research has shown that many generous grants were given by him for the maintenanCe of temples. B. N. Pandey, in his book on the role of Islam in Indian

culture, documents the examples of more than 30 temples (including those of Abu, Ujjain, Chitrakoot, Guwahati, Gimar) which have even today copies of farmans issued by Aurangzeb granting them land and protection! Sikh gurudwaras also got handsome grants from him.

Hindus continued to occupy important positions in imperial service and enjoyed Aurangzeb’s trust and confidence. In fact, the number of Hindu employees under his rule was double compared to that of Akbar. Though he banned music from court, instrumental music and naubat (the royal band) were continued. Singing also continued to be patronized by individual nobles. It is of interest to note that the largest number of Persian works on classical Indian music were written under his patronage and that he himself was proficient in playing the Veena.

Conversion to Islam did take place during Muslim rule but this never took the form of large-scale, systematic or forced conversions.

Despite a thousand year Muslim rule, the Muslim population of India was only around one third on the eve of Independence (before partition) and the majority still were Hindus. This should suffice to infer that religious liberty was granted by these rulers to their subjects—both Hindus and Muslims. Thus it would appear that conversions to Islam were due either in the hope of political gain and economic advantage, or to improve one’s social position. Sometimes when an important ruler or a tribal chief was converted, his example was followed by his subjects. The sufis also played a role, though they were generally unconcerned with conversions, and welcomed both Hindus and the Muslims to their discourses. Rigidity of the caste system in Hinduism may have been one of the factors for lower castes to join Islam, but there is no evidence that large number of persons belonging to these castes embraced Islam as a result of discrimination against them in Hindu society.

Socio-Cultural Interactions

The Socio-cultural interactions between Hindus and Muslims over a millennium led to a remarkable development. A new culture was born, which was neither exclusively Hindu nor purely Muslim. It was a composite culture. “It was indeed”, wrote Tara Chand, a noted historian, “Muslim-Hindu culture. Not only did Hindu religion, Hindu art, Hindu literature and Hindu science absorb Muslim elements, but the very spirit of Hindu culture and the very stuff of Hindu mind were altered, and the Muslim reciprocated by responding to the change in every department of life”.

The interfusion of ideas and experiences between these cultural streams had begun long before Muslims established their rule in India. The Baghdad Caliph, AI Mansur, had ordered AI Fazari to translate Sidhants (Arabic Sindhind) in 800 AD, and Fazari thus became the first astronomer in Islam. Hindu contributions in the sphere of mathematics, astronomy, toxicology, chemistry, medicine, astrology, parables and politics had attracted the attention of the Arabs and a large number of Sanskrit works on these subjects had been translated into Arabic. This glorious intellectual heritage of India was, however, not open to the Indian masses in the 11th and 12th centuries. The Muslims brought with them to India, besides their own sciences, many of the sciences, which they had initially borrowed, from the Hindus.

Though our focus here is not to detail these interactions, a few general observations may be made regarding the intermingling of two cultures. The early Muslim conquerors were not Arabs, who are generally orthodox in matters concerning religion, they were from Turkey and Central Asia, and did not apply the Arab principles of state and religion. The interfusion and synthesis of Iranian, Turkish and Indian cultures produced a liberal, secular and broad-based national culture. The cementing of the gulf between the Hindus and Muslims was done by intercommunity marriages. Such inter-faith marriages were not only common among royals, but also among sufis and commoners at a lower level. It is to be noted that Shaikh Muinuddin Chishti is said to have married the daughter of a Hindu Raja of Ajmer.

It is also interesting to note that birth from a non-Muslim mother could not become a hindrance for those claiming accession to the throne. For instance, Firoz Tughlaq, who was the son of Nila Devi, was preferred to Mohammad Tughlaq’s natural son. Salim born to Jodhabai was crowned by Akbar himself. Khusrau, son of Manbai, a daughter of Bhagwan Das, was supported by a group of powerful nobles when he contested for the throne. Shahjahan’s mother was Jagat Gosawini, daughter of Moti Raja. Kambaksh, though born of a Christian mother, was a great favourite of his father, Aurangzeb. Thus began the process of Indianization of Muslims rulers.

This synthesis and assimilation of Hindu-Muslim cultures produced some interesting outcomes. The growth of two great modern Indian languages Urdu and Hindi; the development of religious movements such as Bhakti, Sufism and Sikhism are illustrative examples. In this process, Islam left an indelible impact on Indian culture. The extent to which it influenced it can be perceived by citing two significant developments. First, the title given to Hindi or Hindustani (Urdu) translation of the Indian Penal Code is Ta’zirat-e-Hind. Ta’zir is an Arabic word, which literally means prohibition. According to shariah, it is applied to non-Hadd crimes. In ‘Hadd’ the punishment for certain grave crimes (like murder, robbery, theft, adultery etc.) is fixed and unalterable, whereas, in all other crimes the Ta’zir punishment is regulated by the court/judges. In Ta’zir the sentence is decided depending on the nature of the offence and the circumstance in which it takes place. Ta’zir, therefore, provides discretionary powers to the judge to invent new punishments to suit the changed socio-economic milieu. Second, the Hindu religion itself got an identity of its own. Mulk Raj Anand, a renowned art historian and novelist, has expressed the view that ‘there was no Hindu religion or Hinduism until the word Sindhu was perverted by infiltrators from the 12th century onwards, which later became ‘Hindu’, a word of contempt for idol worshippers”.

Conclusion

There is a lot that we can learn from our past. The ruling elite of today’s secular and liberal India should emulate the spirit of our past heritage. This will strengthen communal harmony and national integration. Perhaps we are failing in this gigantic task and refusing to learn from our historical experiences. Otherwise, how could we have provided, knowingly or unknowingly, avenues for the unfortunate growth of communal centres of power, such as the Dharm Sansad of the .Sangh Parivar” and .the Milli Parliament of Muslim bigots. It cannot be denied that we would have needed these parliaments of religious denominations, had there been no Parliament at all in New Delhi!

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