Shiptown. Ann Grodzins Gold
characteristically bright red or multicolored turbans. Women’s dress also varies by class and age and religion: some in saris, many in long skirts and blouses covered by the Rajasthani orhni or “wrap”; many in kamiz-salwar, which are worn by Muslim women of all ages and among Hindus and Jains by younger, unmarried teens or young women returned to visit their natal homes; a sprinkling of upper-class teenage girls in stylishly fitted jeans and T-shirts. The latter reflects not just urbanization but the influence of television. Most adult females still keep their heads covered, but it is not uncommon to observe a few on any given day who are bareheaded, and readily to conclude they might be teachers, or perhaps visitors from a larger city, NGO workers, or representatives of local, regional, or state government.
Thus a visible everyday mix encompasses rural/urban; Hindu/Muslim; and an array of differences in caste, class, and profession. Do these differences play out in mutual engagement and enrichment, or in fissure, abhorrence, and violence? Throughout most of Jahazpur’s history, it has been the former. The plural nature of Jahazpur was one of the reasons I was drawn to study it. Jain families, here as elsewhere, are successful in business and influential in local politics. Jains add to the diversity of the qasba, but it is the large Muslim population that distinguishes Jahazpur from most Rajasthan towns. As is the case throughout Rajasthan, Hindus are the majority in Jahazpur. But whereas in the state as a whole, Muslims average around 8 percent of the population, inside the walls in the oldest part of Jahazpur qasba I regularly heard estimates as high as 40–45 percent. In the 2011 Census data for Jahazpur municipality, the official breakdown is 73.05 percent Hindu; 25.39 percent Muslim, and 1.45 percent Jain. Given that the municipality includes the all-Mina twelve hamlets, these high estimates for the qasba itself are not terribly exaggerated.23
Mushirul Hasan, in his literary and historical study of qasba life in the eastern Uttar Pradesh region during the colonial era, particularly celebrates qasbati pluralism. He writes that in North Indian qasba culture, “Besides differences and distinctions there were also relationships and interactions…. The stress is therefore on … religious plurality as the reference point for harmonious living” (Hasan 2004:27, 31).
Jahazpur Muslims are divided into various groups, far from homogeneous in terms of ancestry, social class, attitudes, and reputed behaviors. The majority belong to a jati-like community called Deshvali or “of the land.”24 They are understood to be locals who converted to Islam in the Mughal period; many said this took place during the time of “Garib Navaz,” the famous Chishti Sufi saint of Ajmer who lived during Akbar’s reign.25 This conversion likely took place during that same era in which the name change, Yagyapur to Jahazpur, was inscribed.
In summer 2007 we interviewed a distinguished Muslim citizen of Jahazpur, who was then seventy-two years old. Bhoju asked him, “How many generations have you resided in Jahazpur?” He replied that his community had been there for six hundred years. He said that Muslims had not been in Jahazpur when it was first settled but came during the Mughal period, under the emperor Jahangir in 1602 CE. He estimated that eighteen or twenty generations of his family’s forefathers had lived in the town.
Both Hindus and Deshvali Muslims tended in interviews for the most part to downplay the differences between their respective communities’ practices and character. Both stressed shared roots, shared lineage names, shared cultural traditions, and a long-standing mutual regard.26 Middle-class Hindus often said of Deshvali Muslims: they are “like us.”27 If asked to elaborate, they pointed to two factors: landownership and parallel customs.28 (For example, before a wedding among Hindus the first invitation goes to Ganesh; among Muslims it goes to the saint, Garib Navaz. Thus, in both cases, the invitation initiating an auspicious event goes to an enshrined and revered persona—as both Hindu and Muslim interviewees explicitly noted.) Of course Hindu and Muslim interviewees did emphasize evident noncontentious distinctions such as festivals celebrated or the ramifications of internal divisions (or lack thereof).
A class factor entailed by “sameness” discourse is evident.29 When middle-class Hindus say that Deshvali Muslims are “like us,” they mean they are solid, propertied citizens, businessmen, and people with an obvious stake in the peaceful and prosperous life of qasba trade. The category Pardeshi Muslims is often contrasted to Deshvali in essentializing discourse: they are viewed as rootless potential troublemakers lacking stable sources of livelihood. The propertied versus indigent divide does not in reality align with the Deshvali/Pardeshi distinction, however. Among the Pardeshi Muslims are families possessing considerable land both inside and outside the walls. Some Pathan families were historically a kind of nobility whose ancestors probably played roles under Muslim rule similar in function to Rajput hakim under Hindu kings. Other Pardeshis are of a lower economic status. An example often given to me in this regard was that Pardeshi women roll bidis (locally made cigarettes) for a living; there were always a few such women sitting on the street visibly engaged in exactly that work. But certainly not all of Pardeshi Muslims are poor. Neighborhood is another factor used to classify Muslims prone to disruptive behavior. I heard it said again and again that the Muslims who live around the crossroads known as Char Hathari (“four markets”) are unruly and quicktempered, spoiling for a fight, so to speak. Yet both Hindus and Muslims often testified—Hindus ruefully and Muslims proudly—that all Muslims have a special unity within religious contexts: they eat and pray and vote together, although the different Muslim communities do not intermarry.
One Hindu man, Bhairu Lal Lakhara, explained to us why Hindus are disadvantaged by the unity of Muslims. Although the similes he employed (“Hindus are like dogs but Muslims are like pigeons”) were unique within my interviews, the ideas expressed—that Hindu unity suffers from multiple fissures because of caste divides, but Muslims are all for one and one for all—were extremely common and often expressed by Hindus and Muslims alike. Bhairu Lal had a way with words and spared no one in his social commentary; he is the same person who defined the middle class to me as a “camel’s fart” hanging between the sky of wealth and the earth of poverty. Here is how he characterized the difference in unity between Hindus and Muslims:
Muslims just say Bishmillah [“in the name of God”], and then eat together. And if you fight with one Muslim, then ten more will come to support him. But among us [Hindus], people will say: “That’s a Mali, that’s a Brahmin, that’s a Gujar, that’s a Kir, that’s a Carpenter,” so no one will come to your aid. The Butchers are separate; the Sweepers are separate. But they [Muslims] have unity. Hindus are like a pack of dogs; if you throw them one piece of bread, they will fight each other over it, and even kill each other. Muslims are like pigeons: if you throw a handful of grain, they all will peck it together.
[Bhoju Ram for my benefit, spelled it out even more clearly: “The dogs would rather lose the bread and kill each other; but the pigeons happily share.”]
Muslims, in spite of belonging to named groups that operate very much like Hindu jatis in terms of marriage, replicated this discourse of their superior unity and egalitarianism in the context of religion.
For example, Sariph Mohammad Deshvali—a dignified, successful businessman in his prime—discussed internal differences among Muslims with Bhoju Ram and me. Bhoju put to him a question about Pardeshi Muslims, asking Sariph if the Deshvalis transacted “daughters and feasts” with them: that is: did they intermarry and did they co-dine?30 Sariph answered without hesitation: “Not daughters, but we do share food.” He spent a fair amount of time telling us about the different Pardeshi communities, all of whom, like the Deshvali, are endogamous.
Then, spontaneously (that is, without any prodding from either me or Bhoju), Sariph went on at length to emphasize lack of discrimination among Muslims at religious events.
When people are praying, there is no difference, all the Muslims are together. At Id [for example] the time for prayer is fixed for 1:30 and everyone will be standing; suppose the maulvi [esteemed scholar or teacher] comes a minute late, he can’t go in front he has to stay behind, but if a poor person comes early he will stay in front; there is no special respect.
Once we were reading namaz, and a minister of the Rajasthan state government, a Muslim, came to join us, and he stood in the back. No one said “here is a minister.” Even