By Jayshree Kewalramani - CounterCurrents.org - India
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
As a young girl growing up in Kuwait among a diasporic Indian community I was scarcely aware of my religious, let alone ethnic origins. No one had ever asked me where I was from and I hadn't felt the need to ponder over or interrogate my parents about our ancestry. I knew I was Indian, but my home was very much in Kuwait. There was no contradiction in that.
(...)
I might not have known the name of my native village as a child. Having discovered since that it is in present day Pakistan, in Sindh, evokes no phantom wish to relocate there on any terms. My link with Sindh, much like my relationship with Hinduism, is complex and not reducible to simple categories of being. Having lived a significant portion of my life as a diasporic Indian, I am happy continually renegotiating my beliefs and identity without worrying about things like "origins" and "native" and misclassifying my beliefs as Hindu (as opposed to Islam, Christian). The single most valuable thing that I have re-inherited as it were from my musings over Sindh is its non-sectarian Sufi culture. One romantically wishes to return religion to the spiritual domain, removed from politics of hate; yet the present urgency compels one to wonder whether perhaps the former can be mobilized to combat the latter. To do so it becomes necessary to reclaim shared socio-cultural spaces and traditions without glossing over seeming contradictions, subsuming distinct identities or homogenizing/erasing differences.
In a rejoinder to the blank that I left on that dreaded page of my Marathi note-book, I would like to revisit it with the absence that Sindh marks in the mental topography of Sindhis in India and elsewhere. However, I would choose to fill that blank/absence not with the wounded memory or postmemory of partition, which has aided Hindutva sympathies, rather I would like to reclaim an important heritage that has been threatened since. While the controversial Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill 2006 recognizes Sunni and Shia as Islamic sects and by an invented corollary defines Jainism and Buddhism as sects of Hinduism, I would like to lay claim to, or rather reclaim, an alternative belief and practice. Unlike present monolithic categories, Sufism - especially Sufi shrines - enabled the sustenance of shared spaces where members of different religious leanings offered prayers together without confronting, denying or erasing each other's differences. My challenge to unsolicited categories and definitions prescribed by the state is a non-sectarian one, which not only undermines exclusivist definitions but also religious orthodoxy.
By reclaiming Sindh's sufi heritage, in one stroke, I reclaim my Sindhi identity without erasing my Indian nationality or diluting my liberal humanistic values. And that is what faith and identity (as well as education) must primarily be about - liberation, spiritual growth and empowerment not dogma and social division.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
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Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Reclaiming Sindh's Sufi Heritage
By Jayshree Kewalramani - CounterCurrents.org - India
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
As a young girl growing up in Kuwait among a diasporic Indian community I was scarcely aware of my religious, let alone ethnic origins. No one had ever asked me where I was from and I hadn't felt the need to ponder over or interrogate my parents about our ancestry. I knew I was Indian, but my home was very much in Kuwait. There was no contradiction in that.
(...)
I might not have known the name of my native village as a child. Having discovered since that it is in present day Pakistan, in Sindh, evokes no phantom wish to relocate there on any terms. My link with Sindh, much like my relationship with Hinduism, is complex and not reducible to simple categories of being. Having lived a significant portion of my life as a diasporic Indian, I am happy continually renegotiating my beliefs and identity without worrying about things like "origins" and "native" and misclassifying my beliefs as Hindu (as opposed to Islam, Christian). The single most valuable thing that I have re-inherited as it were from my musings over Sindh is its non-sectarian Sufi culture. One romantically wishes to return religion to the spiritual domain, removed from politics of hate; yet the present urgency compels one to wonder whether perhaps the former can be mobilized to combat the latter. To do so it becomes necessary to reclaim shared socio-cultural spaces and traditions without glossing over seeming contradictions, subsuming distinct identities or homogenizing/erasing differences.
In a rejoinder to the blank that I left on that dreaded page of my Marathi note-book, I would like to revisit it with the absence that Sindh marks in the mental topography of Sindhis in India and elsewhere. However, I would choose to fill that blank/absence not with the wounded memory or postmemory of partition, which has aided Hindutva sympathies, rather I would like to reclaim an important heritage that has been threatened since. While the controversial Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill 2006 recognizes Sunni and Shia as Islamic sects and by an invented corollary defines Jainism and Buddhism as sects of Hinduism, I would like to lay claim to, or rather reclaim, an alternative belief and practice. Unlike present monolithic categories, Sufism - especially Sufi shrines - enabled the sustenance of shared spaces where members of different religious leanings offered prayers together without confronting, denying or erasing each other's differences. My challenge to unsolicited categories and definitions prescribed by the state is a non-sectarian one, which not only undermines exclusivist definitions but also religious orthodoxy.
By reclaiming Sindh's sufi heritage, in one stroke, I reclaim my Sindhi identity without erasing my Indian nationality or diluting my liberal humanistic values. And that is what faith and identity (as well as education) must primarily be about - liberation, spiritual growth and empowerment not dogma and social division.
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
As a young girl growing up in Kuwait among a diasporic Indian community I was scarcely aware of my religious, let alone ethnic origins. No one had ever asked me where I was from and I hadn't felt the need to ponder over or interrogate my parents about our ancestry. I knew I was Indian, but my home was very much in Kuwait. There was no contradiction in that.
(...)
I might not have known the name of my native village as a child. Having discovered since that it is in present day Pakistan, in Sindh, evokes no phantom wish to relocate there on any terms. My link with Sindh, much like my relationship with Hinduism, is complex and not reducible to simple categories of being. Having lived a significant portion of my life as a diasporic Indian, I am happy continually renegotiating my beliefs and identity without worrying about things like "origins" and "native" and misclassifying my beliefs as Hindu (as opposed to Islam, Christian). The single most valuable thing that I have re-inherited as it were from my musings over Sindh is its non-sectarian Sufi culture. One romantically wishes to return religion to the spiritual domain, removed from politics of hate; yet the present urgency compels one to wonder whether perhaps the former can be mobilized to combat the latter. To do so it becomes necessary to reclaim shared socio-cultural spaces and traditions without glossing over seeming contradictions, subsuming distinct identities or homogenizing/erasing differences.
In a rejoinder to the blank that I left on that dreaded page of my Marathi note-book, I would like to revisit it with the absence that Sindh marks in the mental topography of Sindhis in India and elsewhere. However, I would choose to fill that blank/absence not with the wounded memory or postmemory of partition, which has aided Hindutva sympathies, rather I would like to reclaim an important heritage that has been threatened since. While the controversial Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill 2006 recognizes Sunni and Shia as Islamic sects and by an invented corollary defines Jainism and Buddhism as sects of Hinduism, I would like to lay claim to, or rather reclaim, an alternative belief and practice. Unlike present monolithic categories, Sufism - especially Sufi shrines - enabled the sustenance of shared spaces where members of different religious leanings offered prayers together without confronting, denying or erasing each other's differences. My challenge to unsolicited categories and definitions prescribed by the state is a non-sectarian one, which not only undermines exclusivist definitions but also religious orthodoxy.
By reclaiming Sindh's sufi heritage, in one stroke, I reclaim my Sindhi identity without erasing my Indian nationality or diluting my liberal humanistic values. And that is what faith and identity (as well as education) must primarily be about - liberation, spiritual growth and empowerment not dogma and social division.
2 comments:
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Anonymous said...
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I am so happy to read your description of your sense of identity both cultural and spiritual and of how you've applied that to issue of sectarianism in the Indian sub-continent. At the age of 41, I have spent my entire adult life fussing privately over the subtle differences in my ethnic heritage and then the greater differences in my religious beliefs from those of my upbringing (Episcopalian). Applied widely, your vision of the use of Sufic space sounds like a truely viable solution to a worldwide dilemma.
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4:31 PM
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gopelalwani said...
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Sindhi Hindu Diaspora all around
the world should ask for "DUAL CITIZENSHIP" of Sindh.in view of the following.
After all most Hindus Left Sindh
due to violence and killings.
They did not leave because of Religion.
'Hindus in Pakistan have equal rights'
Posted at Friday, 08 December 2006 08:12 IST
New Delhi, Dec 8: The Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said that Hindus and other minorities in his country have equal rights like that of Muslims and he would not mind more temples coming up there.
In an interview with private news channel, he said, "There is no doubt in my mind that this (Pakistan) is an Islamic Republic. But in accordance with Kaid-e-Azam's (Mohammad Ali Jinnah) vision, the minorities have equal rights here. They are Pakistanis as Muslims (are)".
Noting that he had done "a lot" for the minorities, the President said he had given them fixed representation, a "double advantage I have given them politically".
"I have no problems in interacting with Christians or Hindus and there are Sikhs now in the Military Academy. So, we have no problem. I have no problem whatsoever," he said.
On his recent visit to a Shiv Temple in Pakistan, he said it was "unfortunate" to read much into his visiting the shrine.
"I am a man of impulses and acts on exactly what is happening around. I am not putting on an act because I am going to that temple to convey something to India and all that", he said. -
1:51 PM
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2 comments:
I am so happy to read your description of your sense of identity both cultural and spiritual and of how you've applied that to issue of sectarianism in the Indian sub-continent. At the age of 41, I have spent my entire adult life fussing privately over the subtle differences in my ethnic heritage and then the greater differences in my religious beliefs from those of my upbringing (Episcopalian). Applied widely, your vision of the use of Sufic space sounds like a truely viable solution to a worldwide dilemma.
Sindhi Hindu Diaspora all around
the world should ask for "DUAL CITIZENSHIP" of Sindh.in view of the following.
After all most Hindus Left Sindh
due to violence and killings.
They did not leave because of Religion.
'Hindus in Pakistan have equal rights'
Posted at Friday, 08 December 2006 08:12 IST
New Delhi, Dec 8: The Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said that Hindus and other minorities in his country have equal rights like that of Muslims and he would not mind more temples coming up there.
In an interview with private news channel, he said, "There is no doubt in my mind that this (Pakistan) is an Islamic Republic. But in accordance with Kaid-e-Azam's (Mohammad Ali Jinnah) vision, the minorities have equal rights here. They are Pakistanis as Muslims (are)".
Noting that he had done "a lot" for the minorities, the President said he had given them fixed representation, a "double advantage I have given them politically".
"I have no problems in interacting with Christians or Hindus and there are Sikhs now in the Military Academy. So, we have no problem. I have no problem whatsoever," he said.
On his recent visit to a Shiv Temple in Pakistan, he said it was "unfortunate" to read much into his visiting the shrine.
"I am a man of impulses and acts on exactly what is happening around. I am not putting on an act because I am going to that temple to convey something to India and all that", he said.
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